Stacked/Double Advents..a modern version?

I think it's a cool idea and worthy of some experimenting. Not too many years ago Harry Pearson went nuts over the Sound Dynamics 300ti speakers that sold for around $500/pr. I have often wondered what the potential for a stacked pair of those would be. If the speakers could be bought for good prices on the used market it could work out nicely. Plus you could angle each pair slightly to increase lateral dispersion -- sort of adjustable imaging. Nowadays, you could even do this with decent mini-monitors and add subwoofers. It would certainly increase power handling and reduce distortion at high volume levels. Food for thought and experimentation...

Here's the one that gives the ol' double Advent the boot. I happen to have two sets of Magnepan MMGs and an Rel sub for my home theater setup and, having been around audio for over 30 years, I tried the Advent trick a some time ago.

The Advents were pretty good, not the last word in fidelity but produced a very satisfying sound and real good music.

I tried doing the same with two pairs of MMGs and it works too. Keep in mind that the MMGs are a REALLY good, REALLY musical speaker with REAL limitations, like volume levels, somewhat limited base response and they want vast amounts of power.

Since I has lots of amps I tried the double Advent trick with the MMGs and the results were excellent. A BIG wall of sound that gives nothing away to megabuck speakers.

Keep in mind that I'm prejudiced. I like Magnepans. I've owned four pairs of them over the last 20 years and currently have three pairs (2 MMGs and a pair of 1.6QRs) and in my opinion, there isn't anything out there that can touch the MMGs for affordability and performance. They make music, good music, not just good sound.

Since they are already a 4 ohm speaker, when I doubled them I needed 4 channels of amplification. Not having a matched pair of amps and not wanting to use my HT receiver, I used a Luxman 363 (125wps) and a Mcintosh 2105 (105wps) with a CJ preamp.

The results, as I said above were great. A wall of sound, all the volume you could ever want and music, music music (I was also using my Rel Storm with the rig).

And by "music", I mean music!. You just can't do anything else while it's playing. When I had it setup, I used to rush home and run through records and cd's every night.

Unfortunitly, it was a pretty massive setup that wasn't compatabile with my living room and my wife. But really, it's about as good as it gets with "on the cheap" equipment.

Al Havemann (AFH)

Thanks for the input Al. I have been a Maggie fan since the early 70's when I worked at an audio store that sold them and Advents..among other things.
How do you feel the double MMG,s compare to the 1.6?

Best, Jim

Dunno... It's a bit tough to answer that, the sound is both similar and quite different at the same time. Similar in that the sound, like all maggies is honest. Different in the portrail though.

The double MMGs give a different picture of the music. Big, brawny sound with lots of punch and power that gives little away to even rock speakers, but imaging is not as precise as the 1.6s, there's a bit of smearing, probably due to the wide spacing of the tweeters on each side, I'd guess. There's so much latatude about placement that I really can't say for sure that the setup is at fault or simply placement or mismatched amps, etc.

The punch and power clearly exceed the 1.6s, as you would expect given the double amps and double power.

Overall, I'd guess that I would have to give the nod to the MMGs. There's probably a bit of precision lost in instrument placement but you can do so many other things that can't be done with two speakers.

If you do play with doubling, try this, you'll get a real kick out of it. Set two of the MMGs about 6ft from the wall, 12ft apart (inner edge to inner edge) and angled sharply inward about 35-40 degrees. Reverse the pair so that the tweeters are on the inside. Place the other two 6ft apart and 3ft from the wall facing forward (no angle), tweeters on the outside. Match the volume levels to all four MMGs and play a good CD, someting simple like the Andrea Bocelli, Songo album.

Start listening at the normal distance and level then slowly walk forward toward the space between the inner pair of MMGs.

At one point, the rediation from all of the speakers blend and everything become 3D. Placement of the instruments firms, depth increases and you are immersed in the soundfield. Play with reducing the level of the inner pair a bit if you can't get it to blend, at some point it will.

The sound may be a bit thin if you don't have a sub because the outer pair of MMGs are really too far from the wall for bass reinforcement.

Some purists will say that what you are hearing is fake, well, maybe their right, but it's fun and exciting to see a sound picture of the orchastra that no two speaker setup can produce. The effect is very similar to the 3d imaging produced by the very best near field setup but with the depth and power of a large installation.

I'm sure that there are some golden ears out there would like to hang me for sound polution, purists that they are.
But what the hell, audio is like any other hobby, something to have fun with. And if I can't have any fun I'd get bored and soon drop it. Then there would be one less buyer of audio gear.

Al