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Post by odedia on Feb 25, 2020 10:29:15 GMT -5
My living room has the speakers, but my equipment is located in another room and I currently have speaker cables (bluejeans) going through the walls to the living room and to the speakers. It's about 10 meters.
Would there be any obvious benefit to move my amps (XPA-1L) closer to the speakers (GoldenEar Triton 2) with a much shorted speaker cable, and have long XLR cables from the Preamp to the amps?
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Post by AudioHTIT on Feb 25, 2020 10:41:39 GMT -5
I prefer shorter speaker cables and (depending on the wire used) there can be some arguable/technical/measurable advantages. With XLR cables the length would have to be very long to make any difference in this respect. You are at a length where it could make a difference to shorten you speaker cables, it would be impossible to say whether you will hear the difference. If it’s possible for you to move your amps in a way that: you can still power them easily, route the audio and trigger cables properly, and place them in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to you, then I’d give it a try.
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KeithL
Administrator 
Posts: 10,273
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Post by KeithL on Feb 25, 2020 12:32:51 GMT -5
There are both benefits and drawbacks to doing so.
Shorter speaker cables will have less resistance and capacitance... or you can get the same values with thinner cables. Shorter interconnects will less susceptible to picking up hum and noise.
However, with reasonably thick speaker cables, and reasonably well-shielded interconnects, neither will be likely to produce an obvious benefit. (So, assuming it sounds good the way it is, I wouldn't mess with it.)
My living room has the speakers, but my equipment is located in another room and I currently have speaker cables (bluejeans) going through the walls to the living room and to the speakers. It's about 10 meters. Would there be any obvious benefit to move my amps (XPA-1L) closer to the speakers (GoldenEar Triton 2) with a much shorted speaker cable, and have long XLR cables from the Preamp to the amps? |
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Post by Gary Cook on Feb 25, 2020 12:39:49 GMT -5
Unshielded speaker cables are antennas for EMF, so the shorter they are the less chance for noise to sneak in. Whereas XLR cables are both shielded and by their design reject external noise by carrying 2 signals to electronically cancel it out. Plus longer speaker cables add impedance which reduces the amplifiers damping factor and may result in reduced driver control. That’s 3 genuine electronics engineering reasons why short speaker cables and long interconnects may sound better. Compared to zero reasons for long speaker cables and short interconnects. Whether you actually hear any difference is dependant on how much external noise and how low the damping factor gets.
Obviously fully balanced, quad differential, discrete power amplifiers would also add to the reduction in induced noise.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by routlaw on Feb 25, 2020 16:39:06 GMT -5
I posed this question to the folks at Blue Jeans Cable once and their response was very emphatically in favor of longer speaker cables. I might still have this note somewhere with their technical info, but roughly their take on things was resistance is the ONLY important factor for speaker cables (although many would disagree) and according to them even a 1000 foot run of speaker cables barely makes a noticeable difference in resistance. Speakers cables are not normally shielded addressing Gary's concern and this is the first I've ever heard of speaker cables being suspectible to EMF. I'm certainly not an EE but presumably if they were and one had a shield on the speaker cables then that shield would have to be grounded, correct me if I'm wrong on this. It is certainly true that you can employ long runs of balanced cables though, part of the design philosophy to begin with.
If you stick with the long runs of speaker cables my suggestion is use very large AWG.
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Post by audiosyndrome on Feb 25, 2020 19:47:27 GMT -5
Unshielded speaker cables are antennas for EMF, so the shorter they are the less chance for noise to sneak in. Whereas XLR cables are both shielded and by their design reject external noise by carrying 2 signals to electronically cancel it out. Plus longer speaker cables add impedance which reduces the amplifiers damping factor and may result in reduced driver control. That’s 3 genuine electronics engineering reasons why short speaker cables and long interconnects may sound better. Compared to zero reasons for long speaker cables and short interconnects. Whether you actually hear any difference is dependant on how much external noise and how low the damping factor gets. Obviously fully balanced, quad differential, discrete power amplifiers would also add to the reduction in induced noise. Cheers Gary Well you got one reason correct (balanced interconnects). Other two are wrong. Speaker cables are (basically) sitting at zero impedance and are NOT therefore capable of being an antenna. And would have to be waaay too long or undersized to have any effect on damping factor. Russ |
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Feb 25, 2020 21:06:30 GMT -5
Damping factor is the ratio of amplifier impedance to speaker impedance. If an amp has a damping factor of 500 for an 8 ohm load, it means the output impedance of the amp is 0.016 ohms. The addition of 0.1 ohms of speaker cable would result in an effective damping factor of 70. 60 ft of speaker (30 ft for 2 wires) cable at 12awg is about 0.1 ohms. This is based on an 8 ohm load which we know is a stated value of speaker impedance and that impedance changes based on the frequency (usually lower).
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Post by Gary Cook on Feb 25, 2020 22:05:49 GMT -5
Unshielded speaker cables are antennas for EMF, so the shorter they are the less chance for noise to sneak in. Whereas XLR cables are both shielded and by their design reject external noise by carrying 2 signals to electronically cancel it out. Plus longer speaker cables add impedance which reduces the amplifiers damping factor and may result in reduced driver control. That’s 3 genuine electronics engineering reasons why short speaker cables and long interconnects may sound better. Compared to zero reasons for long speaker cables and short interconnects. Whether you actually hear any difference is dependant on how much external noise and how low the damping factor gets. Obviously fully balanced, quad differential, discrete power amplifiers would also add to the reduction in induced noise. Well you got one reason correct (balanced interconnects). Other two are wrong. Speaker cables are (basically) sitting at zero impedance and are NOT therefore capable of being an antenna. And would have to be waaay too long or undersized to have any effect on damping factor. Russ Damping factor is the ratio of amplifier impedance to speaker impedance. If an amp has a damping factor of 500 for an 8 ohm load, it means the output impedance of the amp is 0.016 ohms. The addition of 0.1 ohms of speaker cable would result in an effective damping factor of 70. 60 ft of speaker (30 ft for 2 wires) cable at 12awg is about 0.1 ohms. This is based on an 8 ohm load which we know is a stated value of speaker impedance and that impedance changes based on the frequency (usually lower). Thanks, good answer to the doubt on the damping factor effect of speaker cables. Based on 4 decades of professional audio experience (live concerts, etc) and similar hifi experience I have encountered hundreds of occasions where speakers cables have made very effective antennas. It's not like we can shield the speakers cables due to the capacitance effect. The most effective method is to keep them as short as possible, which also makes it easier to keep them away from noise sources. Obviously some environments are very noisy and show great benefit, similarly some are very quiet with little to no benefit. Cheers Gary |
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