Maximum Speaker Cable Length

Cables
1

What is the maximum length you would go for speaker length.

Currently, I am bi wired at about 4 feet per cable. Having recently purchased a pair of BHK 300’s I need to place them higher in my rack due to both size and airflow. This vertical difference, will now require going from 4 feet to 10 feet.

Any issues doing this that you can think of?

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Go here; Technical Papers: Iconoclast Cable
https://www.iconoclastcable.com/techpapers/Parallel-Bi-Wire-Effects.pdf
https://www.iconoclastcable.com/techpapers/cable-length.pdf

The answer to an inch isn’t going to be available. Every amplifier acts differently driving reactive loads (cable+speakers). Also, HOW the amplifier’s response changes is a matter of taste as well. It is the amplifier linearity we are struggling with. No set-ups are going to be the same.

“Usually” 15-20 feet is OK but bi-wire we DOUBLE the capacitane and halve the inductance per foot. The DCR is void of reactance and doesn’t impact the amplifier at all. A 20 foot bi-wire is like 40 feet single run (see the paper for the actual measurements on real cable). I’d listen to single run versus bi-wire going that far and find out what you hear. If it is a wash, use the single run. Bi-wire’s benefit may be good shorter, but run out of goodness with too much reactance on the amplifier when speaker cable gets too long.

I suggest four feet mono-amp dual bi-wire and no more than 15 feet single run bi-wire to be safe, and keep the amplifier being most linear. Again, these aren’t to the inch and can’t be as the amplifier doesn’t just “stop” at a specific length, but slowly gets less linear as reactance is added.

Best,
Galen

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None that I know of if using a good quality cable. Many are sold at that length and i have heard great systems at at least that length.

Or mix it up. 2 ten foot XLRs and a 2 foot cable?That may be superior sonically?

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Can’t do that, my interconnects are 8 feet in length currently. It’s not the horizontal distance, but the vertical distance, since I need to place the 300’s higher up where they can get perfect airflow.