Should You Run Two Pairs of Speakers for Stereo?

I notice some folks like to run two pairs of speakers for stereo. In this video, I explore the reasons why this may not be a good idea of your primary focus is on accurate music reproduction and hearing all of the details in your favorite recordings. I discuss two concerns that can impact the focus and imaging properties of a stereo recording when running two pairs of speakers at the same time. I discuss the scenario of only running one pair of speakers at a time and how it can still negatively impact the fidelity of your system. I discuss what you can do with those extra speakers that will serve you far better than running as a stereo second pair.

Recommended Headphones:
Recommended Subwoofers:

Recommended AV Receivers:

Recommended Speakers:

Audioholics Recommended Cables:

Follow us on:

Patreon:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER
#audiophile #music #loudspeakers

[ditto_]

I am currently using 4 pair of speakers in stereo and two subwoofer cabinets. Each cabinet has its own eq curve and time alignment. It was such a pain to get it right. It took me weeks to set up, but the outcome is near perfect to my ears. The bass response was by far the most difficult to get right. At listening position, you can't tell the sounds is coming from any particular speaker, even if you look right at it. Friends of mine had no idea music could be so enveloping. It's so satisfying.

[jasonmoquin]

I run 3 pairs and a small sub. Two pair of floor speakers run through the receiver's 2 zone-control pre-outs and have their own dedicated amplifiers with independent tone controls. They are strategically placed in a 270 degree arc from the front to rear corners to maximize and balance sound distribution in the room. I also have 2 high-end bookshelf speakers that are placed in the rear bookshelf at listening level height, which run from the receiver's output, and drives them nicely. These fill in the gap between the rear floor speakers and balances out the sound in the room. I never play music very loud, just at a reasonable listening volume. The effect is extraordinary. Everyone who hears it is stunned at how clear and balanced the dynamics work to influence the music. It took a good number of combinations of receiver, speakers, and amplifiers to get it just right, but it's literally the best-sounding ensemble that I've ever cobbled together. I don't think I could ever intentionally go back to a one-speaker setup after experiencing this.

[saiden]

I made some stereo distributed mode loudspeakers for some fun. A/B them with some elac debut 5.2’s, very different sounds. Then I ran together because why not and and loved it, perfect complements.

[scott]

Back in the 70’s when I was in college, people were stacking AR 3a’s or similar, with the top speaker inverted. It’s not too dissimilar to the modern tall speakers of today.

[bryanjones]

I run my 4 speaker setup with the other 2 speakers as surround speakers, as you mentioned near the end of your video. I like it. Also, don't have to turn up the music as loud to get that "immersive" music sound and disturbing the neighbors. 😁

[ejcheck]

I had these considerations when setting up my latest and probably final incarnation of a stereo system in our retirement home(I'm 71 and have been involved with audio (non-professionally) since the late '60s).
I decided to pull out the stops and build the best system I could put together. The system is a mix of old and new and is only used for Stereo/LPs, no streaming or radio which can be had on the HT next to the stereo.

Turntables
Thorens TD-160C with Shure V15III (New 1976) - using Project Tubebox S2
VPI Prime, 10.5" printed arm, Ortofon 2M Black 250 LVB.(2021) using the McIntosh phono.


Amps
McIntosh MA352 (20201)
McIntosh MC275 VI (2022) on the 2nd pre-output of the MA352

Speaker Selector
Niles Audio selector with volume control to balance the speakers

Speakers:
JBL L100 (New) Century on the MA352 output 1 (Inside pair)
Klipsch Forte II -(New 1989) modified with new tweeters and x--over.

The Inside pair are about 10' apart and the listening position is about 15' back. The speakers are about 3' from the wall.

So far I find I prefer the mix of the 2 amps/speakers. The speakers appear to compliment each other and fill in each others shortcomings. I tried 2 subs in the system originally but have pulled them, preferring the sound without them.
It's possible (more likely probable) that my ears are getting old but I am finding the sound to be exquisite. I switch back and forth to the individual speakers and keep returning to the 2 pairs.
I find I can get lost in the sound (with or without bourbon) and I have not found an issue with the soundstage.

Maybe I just got lucky? Maybe the laws of physics don't apply in my man-cave?

[kensoleyn]

I am running 4 pairs of Polk Audio T-15 Bookshelf speakers from a Yamaha AS301 (60 watts per channel). The speakers are 8 Ohm impedance so I wire them in parallel so the impedance is 4 Ohms. I connect each parallel pair to the A, B speaker terminals so I can switch then from the front of the amplifer. If iset it to A+B I have 8 speakers running. I can perceive no differnce between running 4 at a time vs all 8 if I adjust the volume. I stack the speakers (on their sides) in sort of a poor mans linear array. I have a large family room with high celing. I love this set up as the amp runs cool to the touch. I cannot turn the voilume up more than half way or its too loud. I have a Polk SW-10 subwoofer (gain set at the mid point) connected to the LFE output of the Amplifier. I have connected my TV to the amp via the optical output and even though it is only in 2 channel stereo it sounds great. For example in action movies you can hear a helicopter moving across ythe sound stage and dialog is clear ( I ahev no center channel). I prefer 2 channel becuase I mainly listen to music. I paid $49.00 a pair for the T-15s, $349.00 for the Yamaha amp and $119.00 for the Subwoofer. I consider it a budget hi-fi system. I'd like to upgrade but I think I spend most of my hi-fi budget on CDs ( I have over 1500 CDs + hundreds of cassette tapes and Vinyl). Is there a simple way to determine how many watts are going to the speakers tried measuring the voltage & current with a multimeter as I know Power in Watts = Voltage x Current (at least in a DC circuit). Anyhow to my ears I get a lot of enjoyment out of the system as the Yamaha brings out great detail and stereo imaging. For the price I have not been able to find anything that beats this however I am on the lookout to upgrade one day.

[jamiesmith]

Good content Gene.
I've tried the multiple speaker setup in my younger days with JBL L-166 bookshelf speakers.
The best results I've gotten was stacking them. Two pairs, left & right each on top of each other.
The impact was quite satisfying!
The bass hit with much more authority & depth! It totaled four 12" woofers! If you want to feel concert bass there's no way around cheating physics.

The thing with the L-166 Horizon were their mid/tweeter arrangements. They were positioned side by side in vertical. In horizontal the mid/high are better aligned, not perfect. Weird that JBL would make a bookshelf horizontal rather than the classic standard vertical ? Also weird, they weren't mirror pairs either?
But stacking them helped them do a better job at producing realistic sound levels monitoring.
It only made clear to step up to JBL L-150A. They were towers with two 12" woofers each. That achieved the effect in a 12" square foot print.
It wasn't utopian..but it was very impressive for young ears & poprock & 70s Fusion.

[mikedeterding]

Much to my surprise I never thought I would endorse more then on pair of L/R mains... Until I heard a pair of jamo 507a's (ran as the inside pair) and a pair of Mirage Omni 150's (ran the outside pair) the two seemed to compliment eachother and really made an amazing sound stage for all that was listened to. Now that being said don't know how that does with home theater and all only listened in stereo modes with music.

[FransKeylard]

Back when I was a kid, around 15 years old I did this as well but quickly discovered that no matter how you do it it’s still better with one pair alone than with dual pairs. More often than not those setups sound horrible. The last two systems I saw like this were both Klipsch. It’s like they buy the lower one and then buy a higher model but want to keep them both connected somehow. Then they get used to the wall of sound, and there’s no going back.

[bbarten]

I run two pairs but of the exact same models purchased at the same time. I would never dream of running two pairs of different models as "audio intuition" would suggest it would be a disaster. I absolutely love my setup. I still have great imaging and soundstage PLUS massive output with very low distortion as none are working very hard.

[drbarney]

Magnepan did listening tests with non-professional listeners where they did three channel stereo with a center channel that played L+R at half the volume (- 3 db) and for orchestral music people found it to sound more like an orchestra. In the 1930's Bell Labs published that this was the way to play orchestral music.
For opera where you might not want the effect of a center channel if you want to place individual singers I turn off the center channel or play it in 5 channel if the disc has it and I use 5 channels for SACD. I have a selector switch on my center channel amplifier and I have the drivers of the 45 triodes driving an extra pair of 45 triodes the outputs of which go through one output transformer to get L+R without interfering with the stereo channels. Then I transformer couple the stereo channels to the grids of 833A radio station transmitter tubes run gently at 1000 Volts through Hammond's biggest air gapped output transformers to get enough power to use Magnepan 0.7 speakers and because the Magnepan center channel is slightly different from the stereo speakers I use a more modest GM70 triode.

[ryangonyer]

I think if he’s stacking up all those Cerwin Vega speakers, he’s not worried about hi fidelity 😂 He’s rocking!!🤘🏻🤘🏻

[shadowfallenable]

Promoter: How big do you want your speakers?
Audioholics: Yes

[pauldionne]

Seeing this gave me the idea about trying to distribute the center channel between the inner set and leaving the outer set left and right. It would seem to be a way to create a phantom center image directly in the center of the screen.

[guitarguy]

Even when I was doing car stereo contests I found the best sound was with three sets of speakers two tweets two mids, two subs. I found, when I introduced even rear speakers, it would draw the soundstage back would even do cancellation to my subs. With six speakers, 4 in front and 2 subs in back, I was running about 141+ db, and listening to "thriller" I could plainly hear the door open in the left of stage and the person walking across the stage, then the door closing on the right. When listening to music you could point to where each musician was standing on stage, . And orchestra's were breathtaking! I even had a recording of the Saturn 5 liftoff, and it would rock the car on it's springs! Anything above 1/2 volume you couldn't light a lighter in that car, even at a standstill. Excellent video. One set of speakers wave time alignment and bunches of power was my ticket, and I have some trophies to prove it. Now I want to get my old pioneer amp going again 160 wpc with. 02 distortion.. and caps as big as beer cans... Lol

[robcohen]

Also, when mixing two different types of speakers, the different group delay characteristics will often cause more cancellation.

[Chrisspru]

depending on my seating i can run a two set system or even a three set system. it not comb filtering uncontrolably, preserving details and having a great stereo image is a coicidence created by positioning and my room.

it started when using the boombox on the wall behind my seat on my desk as back speakers for surround sound. for curriosities sake i ran both from the same 2 channel signal, which resulted in a cancelation at my seat that created binaural stereo. i now use binaural instead of surround.
when moving from the desk chair to my tv seat (the wall 90° to my desk) i noticed the two speaker sets creating a correct stereo image centered on my tv, so i ran the tv speaker setup (center, sub, L-R, L-R ultrawide) in synchronization to see if it still fits, and it did.

all these things combined have a better frequency response than any of the sets alone. and the image is awesome.
so i now use this frankenstein wall of sound made from desktop speakers, a boombox and the tv setup as my cinema and listening system.

[Deltapump]

Musical harmony can happen when blending bi wireable dipole tower planar magnetic tweeter, planar midrange with cone subwoofer. Addingthe dual woofers of a typical tower box speaker (in this case a B&W and not using its cone tweet and mid range). The Dipole
planars, as you know are not affected by an adjacent box speaker. I tried this today and now get fast clarity and decay in acoustic with gut punchier bass. I would never thought to do this until I watched your video. A big thanks.

[mjbartending]

I run 2 pairs of speakers in my tiny living room for a different reason: the main speakers of the main amp are aimed broadsided because of the television that they happen to accompany. When listening to music lengthwise and also because of the small room dimensions, it's very easy to step out of the speakers field of sound. So I have two book shelf speakers on a mini amp aimed lengthwise and above ear level, to continue the sound when I get up from my seat, or for people standing around during a party.