Further is definitely better...
There’s a big difference between 5 miles and 25 miles and so on...
Generally the further away the smoother the earthquake. You can tell when they are close by when they are sharp in motion. The more rolling (smooth movement) it is, the further away it likely is.
I usually figure in the delay between the P wave and the S waves. For some bizarre reason, most of the seismic activiity I’ve been exposed to is happens when I’m asleep, so it works out to the time between suddenly waking up (from the P wave) and the shaking starting. In the San Fernando quake they were very close together.