Importance of equal distance cables right and left channel

[Ntertainment]

I know it's a wierd question but how much does it matter if i have equal lengths on both sides? For example, my right side right now has a 15' cable, from mixer to speaker and the left channel has a 10' cable to a monitor and then a 25' cable to the other speaker.

I'm set up for karaoke right now, it sounds fine i'm not sure? I don't kow if i can hear the difference or not i think my mind is playing games on me because i know they are different lengths. Any thoughts?

[DYM]

It's not like it's 10 feet and 100 feet.... shouldn't have a problem... I personally match cable lengths. For example I have 2x 15' XLR-TRS, 2x 25' XLR TRS, 2x 30' XLR, and 2x 50' XLR :-

[Ntertainment]

I too match cable length but this is a wierd setup because i have a monitor that carries the same signal as the two mains.

[ampnation]

There will be no noticeable difference. The speed of light is 186,000 MILES or close to 1 BILLION FEET per SECOND which is the effective speed with which electricity travels for all practical purposes. Therefore each foot will cause a delay of about 1 billionth of a second.

[Ntertainment]

amp thanks for clearing this up thanks!

[Brian Sang Han]

yea it doesnt matter that much. youll have more real life issues dealing with the delay that comes with speakers being far away. in terms of what you hear anyways but that usually doesnt matter if you have a monitor.

[ampnation]

Yes, sound travels MUCH slower than light or electric -- roughly 1000 ft/sec which is slow enough to be very noticeable with just a few feet offset. I have a delay unit that can be set in either by distance or time.

[Evil Steve]

Amp's got it sooooo right.
The difference of 10' of wire won't make a bit of difference as far as delay goes. A difference of 10' of distance can cause acoustic problems.
There might be a power loss difference. If you're dealing with speaker cables, longer cables of the same gauge represent less power getting to the loudspeaker. Again, a difference of 10' is probably negligible.

One of the best proofs that light travels faster than sound comes when you meet new people...
They look pretty smart until you hear them talk.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Signal passes through wire at 0.7 times the speed of light. If one cable was a foot long and one was ten miles long you still would not hear any difference.

[Windows 95]

If one cable was a foot long and one was ten miles long you still would not hear any difference.But wouldn't that cause a resistance problem for the amp?
I'm guessing the one foot side would probably be very close to 8 Ohms, where as the ten mile side would probably be several Kilo-Ohms or maybe even Mega-Ohms?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

But wouldn't that cause a resistance problem for the amp?
I'm guessing the one foot side would probably be very close to 8 Ohms, where as the ten mile side would probably be several Kilo-Ohms or maybe even Mega-Ohms?It would cause all sorts of problems with respect to resistance, capacitance and inductance, so yes, ten miles would be a bit excessive. I exaggerated a wee bit in the making of the point. Within the realm of real world use you wouldn't be able to tell any difference.

[ampnation]

There might be a power loss difference. If you're dealing with speaker cables, longer cables of the same gauge represent less power getting to the loudspeaker. Again, a difference of 10' is probably negligible.

One of the best proofs that light travels faster than sound comes when you meet new people...
They look pretty smart until you hear them talk.


Signal passes through wire at 0.7 times the speed of light. If one cable was a foot long and one was ten miles long you still would not hear any difference.


But wouldn't that cause a resistance problem for the amp?
I'm guessing the one foot side would probably be very close to 8 Ohms, where as the ten mile side would probably be several Kilo-Ohms or maybe even Mega-Ohms?

The concern about cable length and resistance is valid but only if you're talking about passive speakers post-amp. Balanced lines (like XLR run to powered cabs) can travel hundreds of feet easily with no discernible problems.) Consider that at concerts you see the sound booth in the middle of the audience typically a couple hundred feet from the stage. The signal is going from the instruments, to a DI box where it is converted to a balanced signal, to a snake, to the FOH sound booth for processing and back through the snake before it gets routed to a line array where the top speaker is typically 50' up or higher. 1000 feet total signal path is not uncommon I would guess. With passive speakers, I always use 12 gauge and never longer than 50' as mentioned, due to the resistance.

Bill, I wasn't aware electric's real world speed was that much lower than the speed of light, but as you note, that is still very fast indeed at roughly 130,000 miles per second.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Bill, I wasn't aware electric's real world speed was that much lower than the speed of light, but as you note, that is still very fast indeed at roughly 130,000 miles per second.It's the main reason why 99.9% of the silly crap that oddiophiles fall for is silly crap. If the speed of sound was fairly close to the speed of transmission then things would be different, but 1130 feet per second versus 130,000 miles per second is a long way from even fairly close.

[Ntertainment]

Wow A lot of information in this thread thanks for sharing everyone I should re read this thread a couple of times!

[ReelDiel]

Bill the fact you have a Yoda avatar, is a very soild choice! Love it.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Bill the fact you have a Yoda avatar, is a very soild choice! Love it.

It's the closest likeness I could find to my portrait.