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What good is Stacking?

Doug G. said:
I think Chris Brown said it best. There is just something missing going back to a single pair after stacking (Advents in my case) and it isn't just volume.

There is an added ease to the sound with multiple drivers and a more "you are there" effect.

So, I put it to you all that the theoretical lobing effects and phase aberations may not actually occur in real use. We don't, after all, listen to speakers in an anechoic chamber.

I don't stack them in the conventional "accepted" configuration either. Mine are all upright with the tweeters on top. There is a wonderful spaciousness that I won't give up by using just a single pair.

I don't even use my C-9 hologram generator much anymore because there doesn't seem to be much of a need.

Doug
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My A7's and Cornwalls do all of that and then some. I think what most are liking in a stack can be achieved by moving up the ladder to a "better" speaker with even more pleasing results. YMMV.
 
What????

FreshMaker said:
Just to make things clear, here is a picture. I know its crappy, it was a quick draw.
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Okay soooo that pic REALLY confuses me...Just to be clear, I'm running two sets of imperial 7's (8 ohms) with a 4300... So I should take one of my cables from the front speakers let's say red or + to my first set of speakers to the red + connection. Then from there to the other red + connection on the second set of speakers. This is then done with the black - side as well. Now what???? (Haven't had time to do this yet I'm in the middle of a job search)

:banana: :banana:
 
You should stack an extra patty on your hamburger but never stack a pair of loudspeakers. Well if the only goal is to play it loud then that would work. However as so wisely stated earlier, if stacking were in anyway beneficial to sound quality, companies like API with access to anechoic chambers to test speaker performance would be selling speakers in sets of 4. That's not a far fetched notion when you see speaker packages now with 6 speakers in them.

I have never heard a stacked set of speakers that sounded anything but loud.

Mike
 
Doug G. said:
So, I put it to you all that the theoretical lobing effects and phase aberations may not actually occur in real use. We don't, after all, listen to speakers in an anechoic chamber.
Click to expand...

I have, on occasion. Things sound really funky. Anyway, I have measured multiple driver lobing in both an anechoic and in a plain old lab (carpet covered concrete floor, suspended ceiling, sheetrock walls). I can assure you that the effects are real. In a Real Life(tm) room the effect of a reverberant field will minimize the effect somewhat but it is certainly still there. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it can be. It can minimize early echos from floor and ceiling, taking them out of the sonic equation so it's more like nearfield listening. However it can also mean a jagged frequency response. But at any rate, it is there.

Ray
 
Zinker said:
Okay soooo that pic REALLY confuses me...Just to be clear, I'm running two sets of imperial 7's (8 ohms) with a 4300... So I should take one of my cables from the front speakers let's say red or + to my first set of speakers to the red + connection. Then from there to the other red + connection on the second set of speakers. This is then done with the black - side as well. Now what???? (Haven't had time to do this yet I'm in the middle of a job search)
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That would produce a 4 ohm circuit. An alternate way(that produces the same circuit) would be to connect two wires to the red + at the 4300. One wire would go to one speaker (red +), the other wire goes to the other speaker(red +). Same with the ground wire.

I don't know anything about your amp or what loads it can take. Only run loads that the amp is rated for.
 
doubling

Double Advents.

This is what Advent has to say about 'stacking';

About this time, we heard, in an Atlanta stereo shop, a pair of Advents on each channel. The store, The Stereo Center, had set up a convenient switching arrangement so their customers could switch from single- to double-Advent operation at will. Well, we started switching and on the basis of what we heard there bought ourselves a second pair of Advents on the spot. Double Advents eliminated the problems of single Advents. The spaciousness of the two working in tandem suggested that of a huge Bozak system, but without its considerable frequency deviations. The bass, if anything, had the certain low-end sock you hear in a good hall, and the upper strings, massed violins in particular, began to sound like massed violins. (Up until that moment, the only time we had heard massed violins sound like a huge section of individual violins playing together was on a Bozak B-305a.) This is not to say that the Double Advents sounded perfect—there was still something of a “curtain” between the listener and the sound, a curtain that, curiously, was more apparent at low volumes than it was at high
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For the complete article go here ;
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/30thAnniversary/143_double_advent.html
 
You guys are going to screw around and cause me to throw out my back.

I recall having my speakers stacked for a few weeks until I bought something else I had to make room for.
I thought it sounded heavenly. Bright, articulate, damned near ethereal. Now I read that I shouldn't have heard what I think I remember.

I wonder, should I resurrect that set-up to be assured that I wasn't deluding myself. The speakers are clear across the house from one another and weigh 90 pounds each. I don't look forward to it.:thumbsdn:

I will make one concession right now though. The pair that I have turned upside down on a much taller speaker in my main listening room DO seem to sound better than the pair in my son's room which are right side up on milkcrates...errr...lactose fortified audio acrostatic devices (pat. pending).:thmbsp:
 
spkrdood said:
I have, on occasion. Things sound really funky. Anyway, I have measured multiple driver lobing in both an anechoic and in a plain old lab (carpet covered concrete floor, suspended ceiling, sheetrock walls). I can assure you that the effects are real. In a Real Life(tm) room the effect of a reverberant field will minimize the effect somewhat but it is certainly still there. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it can be. It can minimize early echos from floor and ceiling, taking them out of the sonic equation so it's more like nearfield listening. However it can also mean a jagged frequency response. But at any rate, it is there.

Ray
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Welcome to AK, Ray.

I have been a member of the basslist (DIYSpeakers list) for about a decade. This is the same Ray Wagner from those lists, correct?
 
Part of the problem is that the negative effects associated with stacking are more subtle than the increased dynamics. I understand that people liked listening to their speakers stacked, but like I mentioned earlier, there are other ways of achieving increased dynamics without adding the negative aspects of stacking. Horns and line arrays (or line sources) or even higher quality efficient dynamic drivers in standard configurations can work wonders. Barring getting new speakers, stacking like speakers can be fun and if that's your thing, by all means do it.

I find it funny that the advent article talks about them sounding like large bozaks without the freq response problems when in reality, that is EXACTLY what stacking them would cause.
 
dnewma04 said:
Welcome to AK, Ray.

I have been a member of the basslist (DIYSpeakers list) for about a decade. This is the same Ray Wagner from those lists, correct?
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Ah, hadn't put the dnewma together. My detective skills are sorely lacking. Yup, that's me. Thanks for the welcome. The wife ever get into the studio?

Re stacking: I would surmise that you are correct about the pros of stacking (increased dynamics, less distortion) being more prominent than the cons (frequency response aberations due to interdriver interference). Sure wish I still had access to that anechoic chamber to play around some but I moved to Illinois and it moved to Texas.

Ray
 
You guys arguing that if stacking was so great, speaker makers would have done it all along are being silly.

There have been many systems manufactured that are, in effect, stacked speakers with multiple woofers and/or tweeters in one tall cabinet.

By the way, that above quote in the post above was not what Advent had to say about stacked Advents, it is what was in the first issue of "The Absolute Sound" by H.P.

Doug
 
It allows for more speakers to be kept before the WAF goes all to hell:thmbsp:

Seriously, I like to have different speakers to listen to and for space constraints I have to stack. The A-90 runs a pair of HPM-100's and the Rectilinear III's and the Yamaha 2020 runs the (bottom) other pair of HPM-100's and Polk 7b's. I think I will do some switching around this weekend.
 
Nobody has mentioned the affect of the D'Appplito Array. If you stack a pair of identical 2 way speakers that is what you are creating. Do a search on D'Appolito Array and there will be a lot of technical information thrown at you. It is basically a two way system with 2 bass drivers and one high frequency driver. The tweeter is usually between the woofers if I understand it correctly. That is why everyone inverts the top speaker in their stack to create that array. It seems that there is a Lobing distortion on normal 2 way systems that the alignment in the D'Appolito Array eliminates. It also offers a more balanced phasing. The affect the two tweeters together have when stacked is especially nice when the tweeters are offset to the left like the LA's are. There seems to be a larger soundstage because the tweeters aren't right on top of each other.

The positive affect stacking gives is more prevalant on some stacks than others. The Original Large Advents are famous for the sound stacking creates. Do a search on stacked Advents. It seems stacking improves the area the LA's are weak in and doesn't accentuate them which it can do in some other stacks. The midrange definition and the high frequencies are improved. Also the sheer volume of bass is increased to a staggering level! The midrange tweeter of the LA's (being crossed over at a lower point than most tweeters) also helps create that midrange sweetness when they are doubled. The Absolute Sound article tries to explain the sound.

I think that the sound of a lot of speakers improve if they are stacked. It is usually just an accident when it is discovered. I think the result is a lot better when the speakers are identical. The best sounding stack that I ever heard other than the LA's was a pair of Realistic Optimus 5's which are kind of a KLH 5 knockoff. The improvement from the sound of one pair to the sound of 2 pair was amazing!

Over on AA (Audio Asylum) there has been a lot of discussion on stacks and Bold Eagle is considered to be an expert on the theory and fine details of the Large Advent speaker. He has a lot of insight and theory into the subject. Check over there. You could be reading for days on the subject of "why stack?"

All you can do is try out a stack and see what improvments if any it creates. It's fun and takes up no more floor space! Best! Franksta
 
To be honest, I can see the advantages of stacking some speakers, the LAs could be a good candidate, but I would make a couple of changes. First, I'd cut off the top end of the tweeters and treat them more like a dome midrange and put a "supertweeter" in a cabinet mounted between the two speakers. This would give you a WMTMW arrangement and eliminate the freq aberrations if implemented properly and give you the dynamics without the issues. Then again, If I went through that much work, I'd be better off yanking the drivers and make something nicer looking with better performance characteristics to help eliminate diffraction problems and freq response anomalies. Then again, if I did that, I'd probably just use better drivers while I am at it....lol
 
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