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How to stack speakers?

F

Fiddla

Member
I have two pairs of Polk Monitor 5s and have heard discussions about the benefit of stacking speakers.

Question: Do I wire each channel in series, or do I need to run another set of wires out to the second pair and run them off the Speaker B circuit?

I will be running these out of a Sony STR-7045 (35 watts/channel).

Thanks in advance.
 
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Usually they’re wired in parallel. BUT: you need to find out the speaker impedance and the rating of the receiver. Can it handle a 4 ohm load if you parallel two pairs of 8 ohm speakers? Can it handle a two ohm load if you parallel two pairs of 4 ohm speakers? How are the speaker selector switches wired? Series or parallel?
 
There is some discrepancy as to the impedance of my Polks.

Regardless of which, if you daisy-chain two 8 ohm speakers in series, does that result in a 4 ohm Franken-speaker?
 
Speakers connected in series are additive. Speakers connected in parallel reduce impedance.

i.e, two 8 ohm speakers connected in series provided a 16 ohm impedance. If they are in parallel, the amp will see a 4 ohm impedance.

But, I've heard it said that when physically stacking similar speakers, the top one should be upside down to keep both tweeters as close as possible.
 
Drivers which are farther apart than 1/4 wavelength have comb artifacts. This leads to artifacts in TMT configurations which is why MTM, MMT, or MTT, or some other variant which co-locates similar drivers, is commonly used.

Stacking speakers can therefore cause all manner of artifacting as the waveforms combine and interfere.

Stacking speakers is not the same as a line array which acts, more or less, like a single large driver.
 
There are more than just benefits from stacking - cons, as well as pros. But if about 17w per speaker works for you, you might like it.
 
Fiddla said:
Question: Do I wire each channel in series, or do I need to run another set of wires out to the second pair and run them off the Speaker B circuit?
Click to expand...
Position the upper pair inverted and use separate runs in parallel to each speaker. The tweeters are mounted pretty close to the cabinet edge so comb filter effects should be minimal.
 
the skipper said:
Speakers connected in series are additive. Speakers connected in parallel reduce impedance.

i.e, two 8 ohm speakers connected in series provided a 16 ohm impedance. If they are in parallel, the amp will see a 4 ohm impedance.

But, I've heard it said that when physically stacking similar speakers, the top one should be upside down to keep both tweeters as close as possible.
Click to expand...

That's usually the best way, but I've tried with the top speaker horizontal as well when the drivers were more plane directional like horns.

Either way I've always preferred them one pair at a time as God intended lol.
 
IIRC ( oyld be remembering incorrectly) a lot of Polk 8ohm speakers (back in the day) tended to run more like 6ohms. Caution is advised.
 
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