Light travels almost a billion feet per second in a vacuum. The signal in a
cable moves about 3/4 of that. It takes a little over 1.35 microsecond to
travel that 1000'. If a latency of 1 millisecond is acceptable (in MIDI circles
it seems to be), a cable run of up to about 740,000 feet (140 miles) should be ok.

But you'd have to coil that cable up to sit next to the 25' cable if you wanted
to find out if you could hear the delay.

Your first question, about a noticeable phase difference, varies with frequency
and your definition of "noticeable".


Patrick wrote:

how much of a difference in cable length would it take to create a
noticeable phase difference between two signals coming from the same
source simultaneously? i.e., wouldn't a 1000' xlr cable arrive at the
pre, recorder, etc. much later than the signal that only had to travel
through a 25' xlr cable?
thanks,
patrick