How to stack loudspeakers

Stacking speakers is a way to enhance your listening experience, but what's the best way to do it?

[sumautomation]

Yup, RF-7s Flipped & Stack for many year's now and cathedral ceiling have helped the fit also, lol. But I've been doing the flip stack setup for over Fourty-Years now from them old rock-n-roll day's, even with different brand's. But I'm thinking of adding a Sub or two on the system, i want to see if it improves the stage dynamics atmosphere in low level volume.

Thanks again for sharing your work. Truly appreciate all your advice, understanding and support.

[BlankBrain]

In college, two of my friends each had a pair of Klipshorns. They were also room mates in their dorm. They stacked the speakers in two corners. One sunny day during dead week, one of them opened the windows, put Heart on, (it had recently come out) cranked up both amps, locked the door and walked out. It was pretty loud and sounded pretty good in the whole quad.

[MykeHawke-rr]

Mr paul, I have noticed that every time I'm working on something that involves any discretionary audio....
You will have at least one incredibly informative and not trying to sell me a dating app videos. Thank you

[NickP]

Stacked Advents are such a classic. I remember my dad’s stacked pair of Advent speakers. I always loved that set up. I’ve now even got a pair of Tekton Pendragons that are pretty much a continuation of that D’appolito set up and idea. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I guess….

[homerjones]

I recall in the 70’s that Dynaco proposed you buy multiple pairs of their A25 two-way speakers and stack them sideways, lining up the woofers/tweeters. They would show 6 per side in their ads and I believe I saw just such a stack at Stereo Discounters in Timonium, MD back then. The pressure was huge but imaging and soundstage just wasn’t something that we thought about at the time.

[editorjuno]

I tried this with horizontally-oriented two-way JBLs. That setup sounded pretty bad until I separated the speakers on each side by a couple of inches -- then it was decent, considerably better than the usual one-per side pair of the same speakers. I've since moved on to a pair of active three-way speakers that are far, far better -- but that ad hoc four-speaker stack really wasn't half bad all things considered.

[gusgarvalo]

I have two sets of Klipsch Chorus II stack upside-down
D Appolito style for the past 30 years and loved them to death ❤❤

[spacemissing]

A customer of the store I worked at from 1979 to 1981 gave us this idea, and it was great:
Place a Wharfedale E30 on top of an E50, both right-side-up.
Don't care about putting the tweeters closer together.
Connect in parallel, of course, because even if both speakers are the same model
a series connection can play havoc with frequency response.
All speaker-stacking should be considered experimental.
The results will vary, and some combinations will not work well.

[colanitower]

I have a pair of Wharfedale Lintons. I saw a review video of stacked Lintons. The second pair upside down on top of the first, just as Paul recommends. The reviewers were enthusiastic about the results, but they didn't try something I would try: a slight toe-in of one pair of speakers and see what the overall effect is when listening from different positions.

[PanAmStyle]

I have run the stacked Large Advents (stacked the correct way) in a small room, powered by my DECware SE84UFO Zen amp. They worked really well, but I have moved them out as their size (not the sound) was a bit much for the room.

[subStuff]

Interesting. I once left one of the two small speakers over the (sub) woofer in a 2.1 PC speaker system (far from HiFi). The other small speaker was beside the woofer as usual. Since then, this setup has sounded way way better than any other orientation of speakers for listening the TV. Could it be the room ? I still dont know. I know for stereo music, stacking speakers in this way would kill imaging and soundstage...

[robgovaerts]

I have 2 pairs of Quad ESL57'S stacked, supported with a pair of Gradient SW57 subwoofers. Each ESL57 has its own dedicated Quad II amplifier and the subs each have a Technics SE-9060 in mono connected to them. For me it is a dream come through. If you have ESL57'S, consider getting a second pair and stack them. Best improvement you can get.

[MykeHawke-rr]

An old associate of mine, Steve Baird - was a contributor to the absolute sound.. he had a stacked set of sound dynamix 616
He sold me his 818's due to him being able to transport and set up 4 616's way easier than two of the 818 behemoth's, and they presented an image unlike no other loudspeaker he had heard.
Not counting some of the loudspeaker models there are many many factors of money more, there's many factors more of power, and only sound good at one listening level, and that's usually "balls out" or "lean in to hear the detail... Lol.
They sounded all right, I just prefer the old B&W P-Series and vanderstine audio "a-driver" models.
Which of course, he would never let me bring over for some made-up reason.. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with him not liking European or Japanese sound products 2:56 back in the late 90s early 2000s.
P psychoacoustics is a real thing, ladies and gentlemen - and everything in between..
Thank you for this video as well m

[toecutterjenkins]

Would you have comb filtering issues with two dome tweeters that close?

[johnsweda]

You need to play a test tone probably, on the tweeters, some forward and backwards adjustment might be needed because they won't be matched so you don't get comb filtering piece of card between the two speakers as well might help sticking out 2 inches

[MattSnider-bz]

I have 2 Peavey dual 15 tower dj speakers at work. I work in a loud steel factory. We have to wear ear plugs . I believe each speaker is 4 feet high. My machine obstructs the one speaker. Is it a bad idea to stack the two speakers on top of each other and bungee cord them to a metal fixture/steel rack. Like you said 2 woofers near floor, tweeters at my ear level other 2 wooders on top. Basically turn top speaker upside down to stack.

[finscreenname]

I have always said, if you like your speakers you will love a second set sitting right next to them. Even with the same power from the 2 divided between the 4.

[mikeday]

I use two pair of bookshelf speakers turned sideways, and stacked. That way the tweeters are in a vertical line, and woofers also in a vertical line. They sound nice and big like this with a solid-state class-A preamp, and a powerful class D power amp.

[louisperlman]

Back in my high school and early college days, I would have loved to have owned Advents, but they were way out of reach. The stacked Advents was close to Harry’s IRS as far as my budget was concerned. Advents also needed a lot of watts, which weren’t cheap back then. The Advent ship had sailed by the time I could have afforded them 😟

[mmgee]

As teenagers by brother and I stacked large Advent speakers in 1975 all vinyl and a Marantz 2325. The Marantz and two of the speakers and my brothers are all still living