Thanks
Mike

There are two things to consider here. Low-impedance, high-power lines suffer more from power loss through long lines. High-impedance, low-power lines are more vulnerable to noise when they are made long. So those are the vulnerabilities you'll have when either is made longer.

Fortunately, with the distances involved in home audio systems, neither is usually a problem. You can find an easy solution either way you do it. If you make the speaker wires long, make sure they are large. And if you make the preamp level lines long, make sure they are shielded and not run near electrically noisy devices like florescent lamps and large appliances with high current switching relays or commutated electric motors.

Wayne

I am thinking of building an active sytem now.
With three-way speakers. And 3+3 chip-amplifiers.
Right now my idea is to fit all active filters and those six amplifier-ICs onto heatsinks IN ONE COMMON ALUMINIUM BOX.
And to have loudspeaker cables for those 2-3 meters going to lspeakers.
Cables will be standard low price LSP-cables at least 2x6 mm2 area.

The benefit from this will be I can have six volume-potentiometers.
One for each amplifier - lsp-driver (element).
(I will also have one master dual volume knob).
And I have all controls in same box, at my listening position.

When you put all controls in same box as active filter
and use six longer signal cables to amps near to LSP,
you will need VERY good sheilding!
This is because when you turn down volume, a very weak signal will be passed through the signal cables, those 2-3 meters.
And the smaller (maybe below 0.1 Volt RMS) the signal, the less distance to the NOISE-floor will be.
How strong the signal is compared to noise
is expressed as SIGNAL to NOISE ratio, counted in decibel.
for example: S/N 60 dB
The signal is 60 dB stronger than noise.
Turning down signal will give less S/N.

So if we have a long signal cable, we would want the signal to be strong for the lenght of the signal cable.
Preferable 1-2 volt RMS = the full output of a CD-player.

The volume control should then be put very close to power-amps input pins.
As I said, my choice was having all volume controls + Amp-chips in same box
and to have long lsp-cables instead.
Only in the low-impedance thick lsp-cables will the signal be very weak.

/halojoy