Steve I must say very interesting facts. The question is can we actually hear those losses.
Maybe with a bright top end you can somewhat sneak around it. Or if the venue is poor acoustically, the sound is not going to be that good anyway, so it is less critical. But in a descent room, one is just kidding himself if one thinks he can obtain the best synergy from using components with such poor specs. Just does not work that way. (We do only what we can with our limited budget though.)
In real life say I have 3ft. ICs and 8ft speaker cables how would I calculate any losses compared to the opposite lengths [ 8ft IC, 3FT IC]. Speaker impedance is [8] Ohms.
I have been working with 10 strands of 18 gauge vs 8 strands of 18 gauge wire, 6 feet long. Pretty critical.
The ICs aren't going to make any difference, except the rare occasion that some sort of rfi or poorly designed component etc. It is the speaker wire that is going to make the most difference. 8 ohms does make things just a little bit better, but still.
To calculate, just take my previous example and substitute the lengths you posted, and vs 8 ohms. (5 ohms is the reference used in my last post, so we shall use that figure as a reference.)
For a single 11 gauge wire, 8' / 5' = 1.6. So 1.6 times .27 ohms = .432 ohms reactance at 20khz.
For a single 11 gauge wire, 3' / 5' = 0.6. So 0.6 times .27 ohms
= .16 ohms reactance at 20khz. The difference between the two is 0.27 ohms reactance. Remember, that is for just one length of speaker wire. We have two wires per speaker, so the difference is twice, or .54 ohms reactance.
You can do the math for different gauges.
On an excellent system, that is easily perceived. For instance, in my system, I am adjusting a resistor across my full range driver by easily less than 1 part in 180,000. That is, I am adjusting a 9,000 ohm resistor by easily less than .1 of an ohm. But then I am in the zone of extreme openness, and lack of masking, especially in the upper bass/lower midrange or so region.
SS amps, with their high damping factor, and maybe more importantly using huge filter caps often mask information in the upper bass/lower midrange or so region. That portion of the frequency spectrum is extremely critical when it comes to masking low level musical information. We want maximum openness.
Cheers
Steve
ps. I will be gone for 1 1/2 weeks.