Longer Balanced XLR or speaker cable?

[Sam Spade]

Hi all, I have a Burson Conductor 3x and will soon be upgrading my Rotel RB1080 200 wpc power amp to some monoblocks. This is all balanced XLR.

So the question is, sticking with balanced XLR, should I have the monoblocks closer to the speakers with shorter speaker cables and longer balanced XLRs to the monoblocks or Shorter XLR's and longer speaker cables.

My room is pretty flexible so this is a question of sound quality and nothing else

regards
Sam

 

[DonH50]

Shorter speaker cables would be my choice to reduce amplifier/speaker/cable interaction. Long interconnects, particularly balanced (XLR), should be essentially transparent where long speaker cables change the driving impedance seen by and thus the frequency response (among other things) of the speakers.

IMO - Don

 

[MtnHam]

Without a doubt, shorter speaker cables are the better choice. This is done routinely with mono block amplifiers so that they can sit close to the speakers.

 

[david1111]

Yeah, I'd do long balanced cables and short speaker cables. If it was long ICs, instead of XLRs, I'd have to re-think it. But I'd probably still keep the speaker cables shorter.

Dave

 

[Mikem53]

Agree with the others above.. Short and fat speaker cables.

 

[Bruce B]

I'm running 9m balanced XLR with 6' speaker. Agree with everyone else

 

[audioblazer]

Running 2.5m SC & 7m XLR IC .

 

[Gregm]

To add to the above, I used to have active electrostatics connected with a 3.5m cable, single-ended. Excellent sound!

 

[whistleraudio]

This should be a no brainer, Sam, since we all agree.

 

[ozzzy]

I use 3M Balanced Sigma V2 interconnects and 3 foot speaker cable.

ozzy

 

[Phillyb]

XLR's are designed for long runs. I never have anything between my speakers but my amp on the amp stand, this opens up the sound stage and imaging is much more believable than having a TV or a rack between the speakers.