About 6 or 7 feet. I prefer to be close enough to turn the volume knob, but not close enough to hear the transport working...

The problem might be the lack of coiling skills.

Yup, this is definitely the problem. When I am more careful, none of this tangle exists. I was just listening to my Lambdas and thought it was funny that the cable was weighed down by the weight of other XLR terminated cables on top of it, so I snapped a photo.

10 feet seems to suit me fine. I could see myself justifying the purchase of an extension or at least 1-2 really long cables for the edge case, but its probably unnecessary