Mono amps & length of wire runs question

[Coytee]

I have been told diametrically opposed things on the same topic.

I've been told that when you set your amps up, you want all of your signal lines to be as short as possible and if you have any distance to run, use your SPEAKER wire to make that distance since you will have the most 'horsepower' running down that line.

I've also been told that you want the amps as close as possible to the speaker and keep THAT line short. That it's OK to run a line signal a longer distance and in fact is preferable doing that, as opposed to having a longer speaker run.

Interestingly enough, both of these have been presented to me by people that clearly know more about this stuff than I sure do.

That said, it seems more reasonable to me that you'd want the signal lines as short as possible and would prefer a longer speaker run.

Anyone care to opine?

[ironwoods]

Seems like 6 of 1 and a half-dozen of another. Electricity moves things so fast, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference, that is, if you do it the same on both channels.

Good experiment, if you have the excess cable willing to be the Guinea Pigs.

[DRBILL]

You would want to keep your signal cables as short as possible. Long runs can cause deterioration of the higher frequencies due to capacitance and are prone to be susceptible to 60Hz induction. Mine are limited to 3'.

DR BILL

[j-malotky]

I did some tests like this a few years back. If you are using low gain (basic RCA interconnects) try to keep them as short as possible, and have longer speaker wire.

If you are running ballanced interconnects, you can run a much longer distance and you may or may get better results having shorter speaker wire and or longer interconnects.

But to repeat, if your low gain, keep your interconnects short.

JM

[D-MAN]

The option of locating the amps close to the speakers (which we see quite a bit in the trade mags) is better applied to the tall skinny tower speakers (or planars and the like) that sit well into the room and fairly close to each other in an attempt to lessen the room interference. Note that both the interconnects and speaker cables are fairly "short" in such a case, and the soundstage is small and "intimate".

When the speakers are more widely separated (in corners, for instance) this methodology is less well suited to the task. Therefore the "older" approach of centrally locating the electronics and running speaker cables to the speakers is much more sucessful.

It boils down to the fact that it is entirely a speaker-dependent thing based on the speaker type, location and size of the "soundstage".

This whole thing also is predicated on the notion that the less wire in a run the better. For those who think that "wire is just wire" then this would be hyperbole.

DM