Varying length of speaker wire a no-no? (1 Viewer)

[David Bane]

I only have two main speakers set up (front right and front left). The way I have my A/V components and speakers situated called for me to cut two different lengths of speaker wire. One wire is roughly 10 feet long and the other is about half that. I'm not sure of the gauge of the wire but it is your typical size found just about anywhere. My question is did I do right in cutting the wire custom length or should I have cut both wires exactly the same length regardless of the length I actually needed? The reason why I cut them at custom lengths is because I was using someones extra speaker wire and they needed some to spare.

Will the sound be different between the two speakers or does it even matter due to the short distance between the receiver and speaker? Sometimes I think I do hear that one speaker is slightly louder than the other but I think this just might be my imagination (or a placebo-effect).

 

[David_Stein]

if you do the math, it takes much much more difference in length than you are using to have a noticable effect.

 

[Randall Duncan]

if you do the math, it takes much much more difference in length than you are using to have a noticable effect.

Yeah. It takes at least 20 ft to make a noticeable difference.
Although, I'd still recommend you spool one 10 feet cable instead
of cutting it to 5 feet. But, that's just my picky opinion.

 

[Chu Gai]

don't worry about it but sometimes cutting things too neatly curtails your ability to move things around.

 

[CurtisSC]

There is a thread on this at the AVSForum. It would take a large amount of wire before there would be a noticeable difference. If I remember correctly....hundreds of feet.

 

[keir]

It takes at least 20 ft to make a noticeable difference.

the signal propogates along the speaker wire at 68% the speed of light (2.03 x 10^8 m/s) according to some experimental data i found googling (http://www.physics.niu.edu/~eads/lab4.txt). that means 20 feet of wire would only delay the signal by about 34 nanoseconds. sound through air travels at about 347 m/s. so if you turned your head a tiny amount and one ear was 1 milimeter closer to the speakers than the other, the sound would be delayed to the farther ear by 29 microseconds. thats an order of magnitude more time delay than the 20 foot of cable introduced. so i doubt 20 feet of cable will make a difference to your ears unless you can hear a difference in the sound when you turn your head a fraction of a milimeter.

 

[John F. Palacio]

the signal propogates along the speaker wire at 68% the speed of light

Signal delay because of different length cable will almost always be negligible. If anything, the difference in resistance between cables would have the most effect, changing damping, level and(if high enough) frequency response. This also should be negligible, for all but the most outrageous differences in cable runs.

 

[Randall Duncan]

Ok... I should have said more than 20 feet. :b

 

[Randall Duncan]

Ok... Just to add to this... I set up two speakers and a stereo
receiver and had 100 feet of wire going to one speaker and 20 feet
going to the other (that's an 80 foot difference)... During the
nice little demo I put together, I noticed no difference...
However, because I had 80 feet of wire in a spool, I did seem
to get that "inductor" effect.

So... I guess it would probably take, umm, 300 or more feet to make
a slight difference that no human would notice.

 

[Chu Gai]

can't get the inductor effect since the currents are going in opposite directions and cancel. but maybe a difference do to resistance!

 

[Randall Duncan]

Yea... That's it... Resistance... I was using small cables...
Which would explain resistance being the difference.

 

[Umit_C]

A wonderful web page on this topic:

http://home.att.net/~rfowkes/WireLengthTimeDelay.html

Umit

 

[David Bane]

don't worry about it but sometimes cutting things too neatly curtails your ability to move things around.

Heh, yeah, I've already found that out. :frowning:

Thanks Umit_C for that link. That, as well as the other posts, convinced me that I needn't worry about my speaker length.

 

[RobertR]

I love it when reason prevails.

 

[Doug_B]

I'm not sure of the gauge of the wire but it is your typical size found just about anywhere.

It's possible that this is the biggest issue, depending on what gauge is being used and how good your setup is.

Doug