As I've found myself more and more deeply engrossed in this hobby over the course of the past few years, I've read a number of conflicting recommendations from seemingly credible sources.
One of these has been the sonic benifit of minimizing speaker cable lengths. Conventional knowledge should dictacte that the less one has in his single path the better, and it is a very common practice for tube monoblock guys to use short (like 4 foot) runs of speaker wire to connect their systems in favor of longer interconnects.
On the other hand, there is a very strong opposition by companies like Mapleshade who claim that not only is there no benefit to having these short cables, but cables cut shorter then 8 feet in length will actually significantly soil fidelity.
Those of you who have followed some of my other threads know I've recently been comparing some cheap Magwire speaker cables (8ft) to my Acoustic Zen Hologram IIs (4ft) and finding strengths and weaknesses in both cables.
Among the major weaknesses in the Magwire (which has been used for ~3 years--no question of burn in) was a very obvious harshness in the upper midrange that seemed to present itself when listening only slightly above normal listening levels. Additionally, tonally everything sounded great with the exception of pianos. I don't know what it was--brass was a treat, as were strings, but piano just didn't sound convincing with the magwire.
Well, in the mood to experiment I decided to cut my Magwires in half and use four feet per speakers (banannas at monos & raw at speaker terminals). I'm not gonna spit up a bunch of the typical audiophile hyperbole about how it transformed my system, blah blah blah.
BUT--I am going to say that the problems I was having with the upper midrange compression/harshness has dissapeared completely (I'm listening to Def Lepard at 74/100 volume setting with my Sonic Frontiers preamp right now). And also, pianos sound considerably more real.
I don't know what this means in terms of prefered lengths, but I do know my rig is sounding great on digital (once I'm settled in my analog rig needs more tweaking--somethings a touch off). And that I've sold the $1K + speaker cable off (same length).
What are your feelings on lengths/comments on my situation?
One of these has been the sonic benifit of minimizing speaker cable lengths. Conventional knowledge should dictacte that the less one has in his single path the better, and it is a very common practice for tube monoblock guys to use short (like 4 foot) runs of speaker wire to connect their systems in favor of longer interconnects.
On the other hand, there is a very strong opposition by companies like Mapleshade who claim that not only is there no benefit to having these short cables, but cables cut shorter then 8 feet in length will actually significantly soil fidelity.
Those of you who have followed some of my other threads know I've recently been comparing some cheap Magwire speaker cables (8ft) to my Acoustic Zen Hologram IIs (4ft) and finding strengths and weaknesses in both cables.
Among the major weaknesses in the Magwire (which has been used for ~3 years--no question of burn in) was a very obvious harshness in the upper midrange that seemed to present itself when listening only slightly above normal listening levels. Additionally, tonally everything sounded great with the exception of pianos. I don't know what it was--brass was a treat, as were strings, but piano just didn't sound convincing with the magwire.
Well, in the mood to experiment I decided to cut my Magwires in half and use four feet per speakers (banannas at monos & raw at speaker terminals). I'm not gonna spit up a bunch of the typical audiophile hyperbole about how it transformed my system, blah blah blah.
BUT--I am going to say that the problems I was having with the upper midrange compression/harshness has dissapeared completely (I'm listening to Def Lepard at 74/100 volume setting with my Sonic Frontiers preamp right now). And also, pianos sound considerably more real.
I don't know what this means in terms of prefered lengths, but I do know my rig is sounding great on digital (once I'm settled in my analog rig needs more tweaking--somethings a touch off). And that I've sold the $1K + speaker cable off (same length).
What are your feelings on lengths/comments on my situation?
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