no they dont. i run my speaker wire and power cable for my center speaker on top of the back of the rptv, and sub cable, speaker wire, power cables, all video interconnects, etc. directly behind my rptv. i may not be able to quantify why longer ics is better in enough detail to prove it here, but i have read everywhere that the idea is to have the shortest speaker wire runs possible. i have seen it applied like that in topoftheline setups, i have worked with a few audio manufacturers in the past and THEY had their stuff setup that way, and if i had space to/speaker stands to accomodate placing monos right at the speakers, i would.
take the idea of a subwoofer, it is a speaker with an integrated amp receiving its signal from a long interconnect. it used to be that this was not the case and the sub was amplified externally and its signal was transmitted to the sub with speaker wire, that is not done anymore... there is a reason why.
also, speaker wire runs are limited to their distance based on gauge, revealing the fact that loss is more prominent, and to compensate, larger gauge is needed. interconnects are not gauged for length. im telling you for a fact that longer ics is a better approach than longer speaker wire, and i only say that because i know that it is a fact. i dont often definitely claim that my opinion is 100% true, but in this case it is. and while, you, gonk tend to be well versed in your posts, you are wrong to say that speaker wire is better for long runs. i can only think that you are doing so to be yang to my yen, but longer ics are better than longer speaker wire!