Thread: Different length Speaker Cables?

A move of my audio system to a different room has put some set up challenges before me.
I have a possibility of firing the speakers from either of the short wall locations or from one of the long walls.
I have removed most of the furniture and or pushed it to the side.
I have pulled out some spare components to use in this trial.
After much moving around it appears that the long wall positioning will offer the best results.
This limits me with equipment placement and it will have to go just to the left of the left speaker.
The speakers will flank the opening of a short Foyer with french doors.
The length of the speaker cable necessary for the left side would be 3-4ft max. While the right speaker would need to be approx 12ft.
Besides the fact that a completely mismatched pair of speaker cables would have little to no resale value, will they work OK?
Any issues? Anyone tried this?
Otherwise what could I do with all the extra cable if I used a 12" pair.

Having both the length is a must for time propagation, snake the long one with gentle arcs, no creases and before that revisit your plan/home and see if you can do a different layout -


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I am in a similar situation. At one point I used Anticables, Paul Speltz advised different lengths would be alright as long as I didn't go shorter than half the length of the longer cable.

Since someone commented different lengths could effect resistance and capacitance. I remember before I supposedly had knowledge and cared my speaker wire was not only different lengths but had occasional splices, yikes.

Bottomline, now my cables are the same length for whatever reason, and expense. Mental peace of mind, LOL

I have the same issue in my HT/spare stereo system. I made them all the same length.

I remember secretly watching when a well-respected high-end mftr. at a CES swapped out a 6' pair of expensive & highly reviewed cables for a 6' right channel & a 60' (!) left channel, and no one noticed it...

My ears are far from perfect so take this for what it’s worth. Out of curiosity, I did a test about 8 or 10 years ago with lengths of approx 6 feet and 15 feet using the same brand/model speaker wire. I couldn’t tell any difference at all between the two different lengths.

My ears are far from perfect so take this for what it’s worth. Out of curiosity, I did a test about 8 or 10 years ago with lengths of approx 6 feet and 15 feet using the same brand/model speaker wire. I couldn’t tell any difference at all between the two different lengths.

Originally Posted by GSOphile

However, if you need to sell them....

Or if you rearrange the setup.

The propagation time difference of a few dozen feet, for the electrical signal in a copper cable, should be a lot less than moving your head a few centimeters, when talking about speaker-level analog audio signals. The LCR electrical characteristics of two cables of the same make but different length may have an audible impact though, if the cable is particularly unsuited for speaker-level analog audio transmission or way too thin for the cable length and speaker load.