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The Effect of Unequal Speaker Cable Lengths...

anyone care to shed some light???


thanks

Hi,

So long as you keep total resistance to 0.3 ohm or less over the total cable length--easily done by simply using a thicker gauge of cable for long runs--there is no effect whatsoever of unequal cable lengths. With a tiny gauge of speaker cable, say, 22-gauge, there would be unequal resistance, which would result in your wasting amplifier power in heat in the longer cable run (or even the short one if the resistance were too high).

Tube amps are an entirely different category. The total impedance of the speaker and the cable can interact with the output impedance of the amplifier (not an issue with transistorized gear) causing significant swings in frequency response that can be quite audible--one of the factors in "tube sound" so revered by tube enthusiasts.

Regards,