Interconnect same length important?

[howie85]

I have heard that keeping wire lengths the same is good for speakers but how about the interconnects for external amps. My arrangment will force me to place some amps about 12ft away from the a/v unit while i might be able to get one closer. Having equal length pre out cables to these amps is not really a problem but it would be a cleaner setup to use shorter ones for the closer amp.
Thanks Curt

 

[mtrycrafts]

I have heard that keeping wire lengths the same is good for speakers but how about the interconnects for external amps. My arrangment will force me to place some amps about 12ft away from the a/v unit while i might be able to get one closer. Having equal length pre out cables to these amps is not really a problem but it would be a cleaner setup to use shorter ones for the closer amp.
Thanks Curt

Well, you can forget what you heard about speaker cables, they are but another audio urban legend. Same for interconnects unless they are very, very long in one side, very capacitive, and impedances are way out of wack

12 feet is nothing

 

[Az B]

Equal length cables are only important where resistance is a concern. Some people think that timing will be affected, but many feet of cable will barely cause a delay of a few nanoseconds... or about the same effect as moving your speakers fore and aft a micron or two.

Except for picking up RMI/EFI, interconnects are even less sensitive than speaker wire, so I would wire it up however is most convenient to you and enjoy your setup.

 

[jaxvon]

Yes indeed, just stories. Consider how fast electricity travels. Even if you're using I/Cs that have a VP factor of .66 (aka 66% the speed of light), that's still 198,000,000 m/s. Therefore, to even have a 1/10th second delay in the sound, you'd have to have 1 interconnect be 198,000,000 meters long and the other 178,200,000 meters long. That's a 19,800,000 meter difference! Thusly, even if you have a 50m interconnect and a 1m interconnect (with .66VP), you're only going to have a difference of 0.000000247 seconds, something your human ear will never come close to detecting. The lesson is this: having different lengths doesn't matter when it comes to timing. While it is preferable to have shorter cables when you can (less chance of EMI/RFI interference, less resistance, capacitance, inductance, and cost), having different lengths will not affect your timing at ALL.

 

[howie85]

Thanks for the input guys it will make a much neater setup to reduce the rats nest behinde the av unit..LOL someday when the mfgr's can get on the same page and pick a format they like we can all start reducing our cabling
Curt

 

[jaxvon]

I forgot to add that less cabling eliminates the coils of cable laying around, and that really DOES affect performance. Oh, and just for reference, the circumference of the Earth at the equator is 40,076,000m. That should give you an idea of how long of interconnects you'd need for a 1/10th second difference .

 

[sjdgpt]

Most people get fixated on price or EFI and buy short cables.

What ever you do, dont buy too short of cables. You end up straining the connections, limiting your placement of equipment and speakers, and in the long run, just making life difficult.

Been there, done that. Had to buy longer cables.

 

[howie85]

Thought i kicked the upgrade habit....guess not!

I try to shoot for a few extra feet so the cable will lay flat and not hang off the connections for speakers. After reading the info here i decided to go with the Velocity spkr cables from Impact Acoustics. They seem to be nicely made and with the discount the price was good.
http://www.audioholics.com/cedia/cedia2004/impactacoustics.php
Thanks for the info on the distance around the equator i was thinking about using that to manually adjust my delay times for HT i have to check with the county to see if im zoned for that Great info here it seems im back into my music again after some years i discovered dvd-A even though i had a player capable and amp i never hooked up the cables Now im bi amping and looking to upgrade to a universal player to try sacd also..LOL Off i go to spend some dough!!
Curt

 

[mtrycrafts]

I forgot to add that less cabling eliminates the coils of cable laying around, and that really DOES affect performance. Oh, and just for reference, the circumference of the Earth at the equator is 40,076,000m. That should give you an idea of how long of interconnects you'd need for a 1/10th second difference .

Except for the lumped properties of such a long cable
How much resistance would that have, or capacitance

 

[jaxvon]

Very true. *Whips out calculator*

Let's use the Canare LV-77S (which is the same as the Cobalt Cable Ultimate I/C).

Alright, for an interconnect that would fit around the equator (not as long as the one needed for a 1/10 second delay), the cable metrics would be:

Resistance: 2,003,800 Ohms (Conductor)
Resistance: 240,456 Ohms (Shield)
Capacitance: .002685 Farads

Of course, this is just straight calculation. I'm sure there is some other relationship that varies with very long distances, but I don't know what it is.

 

[howie85]

How do you think I should route that in a loom or with ties??

 

[jaxvon]

Well, if you want to route in style, then go with techflex. Basically all high-end cables (River Cable, Cobalt, Kimber, etc) use tech-flex to dress up their cables. Plus, as in your case, it's great to consolidate a bunch of cables.

Here's a link for techflex at Parts Express. It comes in lots of colors, and lots of styles. I'm sure there's something to fit your budget.


Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot. If you order interconnects from Blue Jeans, they will sleeve your cables in Techflex for lengths up to 25 feet (not for free, but it saves you the effort).