[MaxC]

I have alway measured the distance from my speaker to my listening postion when setting up my receiver, but recently questioned if this was correct. Here is why:


My rear speakers are closer than my fronts (6ft vs 12ft), but my rear cable runs are around 25ft whereas, my fronts are around 8ft. It would seem that if any "delay" should be added to the speakers it should be added to the fronts, not the rears due to the cable run, however, if I set it up based on distance of speaker to my listening postion, the rears will have the "delay"...and this will be even more re-inforced due to the cable length.


I realize that any delay would probably be inaudible or very small...but just wanted to hear how people have there setups set up (no pun intended) and if anyone has ever considered this when setting the distances on their receiver.

 

[Kir]

Hi Max,

Delay you add deals with the speed of sound, whether the electrical signal in the wires travels at the speeds close to the speed of light (copper wire about 0.9 light speed), so don' t worry about it at all

 

[dcheesi]

I would say trust the magic of the DSP to work it all out. Trying to second-guess your receiver's logic is probably a losing proposition; even if it is a bit off, you could end up making it worse if you start lying to it based on simplified assumptions.

 

[MaxC]

It would be fine if all the wires were the same length. Then I could truely adjust for the distance from the speaker to the listener. However, since the rear wires are much longer, if all were set the same the rear sounds would arrive a few milliseconds later....and if I set the distance based on the distance to the listener they would be delayed even longer because of the receiver's DSP.

 

[Kir]

Max,

I think you are confused

Let me make it clear for you: the difference in the cable length is 25ft-8ft=17ft, which is approximately 5m. The delay of the electrical signal in a 5m wire would be about 1.7e-8 or 0.000017 milliseconds


Hope it's clear now

 

[ClaudeD]

MaxC,


Your other respondents are being very polite. I'll try to be the same.


Ignore the cable length as it applies to time. Your ears can't resolve timing differences of a few feet of cable at the speed of light. I don't know the precise speed, but assuming that codemarine is correct, the difference in arrival time of a signal is roughly 0.00000002 seconds with a 17 foot difference. Or, in milliseconds, 0.00002.


OTOH, a ~6 millisecond difference due to your speakers being different distances from you is HUGE! Music can become unsettling and "wrong sounding" when the "echo" comes before the sound itself. The reason I don't have DVD-A or SACD is that, IMHO, bass management isn't the problem with analog bypass, it's the delay setting.


Good luck,

Claude

 

[ClaudeD]

Sorry for my repetitive post. I was doing the math while others were posting

 

[Glen Graham]

Quote:

Originally posted by MaxC However, since the rear wires are much longer, if all were set the same the rear sounds would arrive a few milliseconds later.

I think you missed codemarine's point.


Your rear speaker cables are approximately 6 meters longer than your front. This means, under ideal circumstances (perfect copper in the wire), the signal will reach your back speakers a bit later...

0.00000002 seconds later.


I guarantee that will never make a difference! Even if your rear speaker cables were 1000 meters long and your front speaker cables were 1 meter, it would still be 100% irrelevant!


Turning your head will impact the sound of the speakers more than even a 10,000 meter cable length difference. Even the "momentum" on your head from blinking your eyes will move your head and affect the sound waves more than the 6 meters difference in cable length will affect the electrical signal.





So, just trust your receiver's DSP - it is far less strain on the brain (at least, that's what I've found)!

 

[MaxC]

Got it... thanks all.


I think I was confusing speed of sound travelling through a wire vs the actual sound wave traveling from the speaker to the listening postition.


I was more worried about possible bass cancellation than being able to hear a delay.