What's the appeal with stacking?

Nightfall

I'm not asking this sarcastically, but seriously.

pitdogg2

more counter space

mhardy6647

As far as I can tell, the whole phenomenon traces back to two progenitors:

1) stacking Quad ESL-57 electrostatic loudspeakers - I think the primary driver was to improve HF dispersion. There were a couple of products based on this, IIRC. One was a special stand to hold pairs of Quads; the other was a super-high-end, high-performance, high-price :-) system from (???) the original Mark Levinson company (when he was associated with it).

2) stacking The Original Large Advent (OLA) loudspeakers - this was suggested in a hifi magazine back in (?) the early 1970s and has maintained some kind of life of its own.

Sorry, I don't have time at the moment to come up with more specific info via google :-P

tonyb

Appeal to stacking ??

Dude.....stacking or "stacked" means something different to me. Similar to "open rack". Darn, audio is a very perverted hobby, or is it just me ?

[Deleted User]

Because I have more speakers in the mancave that I like than space? Too much gear as well. I stacked some small JVC w/ some Klipsch KB-21s to good effect on my garage system. I dunno, I just like the low end of my Altec 886a's. I have fun w/ other vintage stuff on top of it.

[Deleted User]

"stacked" means something different to me"
Me too.

[Deleted User]

Ah Mark, you mean the Levinson HQD system:
http://stewartaxton.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/and-then-there-were-four/
One of the top 10 speaker systems of all time.

mhardy6647

So I was at least on track, right? Yeah, that's them :-)
I only have two ESL-57s, So I could only do that in mono at my house... hmmm... maybe I should cobble up some... Quadstands ;-)

If a few more Polkies had stacked Quads, the tenor of some discussion here might be a wee bit different ;-)

From Ken's most excellent site reference:

‘Another thing people like to do is to use two of our panels, one above the other. This is quite reasonable because it is really a strip source, you can extend the strip source without deteriorating anything. All you do is add 6dB at the bottom and 3 dB everywhere else. It gives you a louder sound, a more impressive sound. That’s all right.’

-Peter Walker in Audio Amateur, 1978

Peter Walker, of course, was "Mr. Quad ESL"... the Matt Polk of full-range electrostatic loudspeakers :-)

(actually, in all fairness, there were numerous full-range electrostatics in the 1950s - Pickering had one, and so did Henry Kloss - the KLH Nine - which was in essence a stereo, horizontal stack!)

Mystery

I stack smaller speakers at night time listening to get the mids little more to my liking without cranking the towers too high.
I have tried with small speakers like Tannoy C-6, Polk 4, B&W DM110i etc... and some combo really sounds more open, airy and nice.

pitdogg2

tonyb wrote: »

Appeal to stacking ??

Dude.....stacking or "stacked" means something different to me. Similar to "open rack". Darn, audio is a very perverted hobby, or is it just me ?

Dude it's you it is the frustration from last weekend with all the beach bunnies running around the house:cool:

[Deleted User]

I believe I have that Audio Amateur article, in it says the best way to position his speakers is to draw a diagonal line from corner to corner. Then measure out one third of the length of these lines, put the speakers in that spot.

Speedskater

mhardy6647 wrote: »

As far as I can tell, the whole phenomenon traces back to two progenitors:
1) .......................
2) stacking The Original Large Advent (OLA) loudspeakers - this was suggested in a hifi magazine back in (?) the early 1970s and has maintained some kind of life of its own.

It was 'The Absolute Sound' magazine. We did it (already had 2 speakers) and they were very nice at a rather low cost. But the problem was, you had two tweeters separated by a foot or more interfering each other.

Nightfall

So there are sound benefits to stacking? I was under the impression that it would create a "wall of sound" but ruin things like imaging.

leftwinger57

Because it looks so cool...


http://www.wallofsound.ws/

soundfreak1

I remember stacking advents in the audio store I worked in back in 1978. And it did look cool!

ken brydson

I stack the dishes, they fit better that way...

mhardy6647

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Because it looks so cool...


http://www.wallofsound.ws/

That was a little bit different ;-)

Polkersince85

tonyb wrote: »

Appeal to stacking ??

Dude.....stacking or "stacked" means something different to me. Similar to "open rack". Darn, audio is a very perverted hobby, or is it just me ?

A stack of class A is not that impressive to some. ;-)

treitz3

Nightfall wrote: »

So there are sound benefits to stacking? I was under the impression that it would create a "wall of sound" but ruin things like imaging.

Stacking does create a wall of sound which can admittedly be impressive at times. However, it will also smear the imaging badly and can create lobing issues.

Tom

Polk&Beans

"Stacking does create a wall of sound which can admittedly be impressive at times. However, it will also smear the imaging badly and can create lobing issues"

I think it is actually called "comb filtering" issues.

Here is an article on column speakers that get into stacking by Roger Russell: Author, Artist, Engineer, Inventor, Photographer, Collector, and formerly Director of Acoustic Research & McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. and the originator of McIntosh Loudspeakers

http://www.roger-russell.com/columns/columns.htm#single

treitz3

I think I'll slide out now.....

Tom

mhardy6647

Note Peter Walker's comments above on stacking line sources, quoted on the link Ken Swauger kindly provided.

This is quite reasonable because it is really a strip source, you can extend the strip source without deteriorating anything. All you do is add 6dB at the bottom and 3 dB everywhere else. It gives you a louder sound, a more impressive sound. That’s all right.’

So, yeah, lobing/comb filtering is a concern when arbitrarily stacking two "monkey coffin" conventional direct radiator loudspeakers - although in a large enough space, it might not be a big deal... with other loudspeaker configurations, it can be a non-issue.