"Double ARs"?

[gary_wong5]

Is anyone here ever try stacking up 2 pairs of 2-way AR speaker as like the famous Double Advents‘？

I have the chance to acquire another pair of NOS Classic Model 8 (1994). I am thinking of trying out "Double ARs" with 12"-metal stand to hear how they will sound. The stacking up pairs' driver configuration (M-T-M) will be similar to the big tower Classic 30. The Classic Series' high is "dark" sounding, similar to classic vintage AR series?

Any comment?

[stan461]

Is anyone here ever try stacking up 2 pairs of 2-way AR speaker as like the famous Double Advents‘？

I have the chance to acquire another pair of NOS Classic Model 8 (1994). I am thinking of trying out "Double ARs" with 12"-metal stand to hear how they will sound. The stacking up pairs' driver configuration (M-T-M) will be similar to the big tower Classic 30. The Classic Series' high is "dark" sounding, similar to classic vintage AR series?

Any comment?

The "Double Advent" is the only speaker system I've ever heard of that gained so much fidelity by stacking tweeter to tweeter and connecting in parallel.

This configuration has been tried on Klipsch Heresys, JBL 100s, AR3as and probably many other speakers. If any had produced a worthwhile improvement, the word would surely have leaked out by now.

The Advents are an anomily in this repsect.

[Steve F]

"I have the chance to acquire another pair of NOS Classic Model 8 (1994). I am thinking of trying out "Double ARs" with 12"-metal stand to hear how they will sound. The stacking up pairs' driver configuration (M-T-M) will be similar to the big tower Classic 30. The Classic Series' high is "dark" sounding, similar to classic vintage AR series?"

I presume you meant "1974", not 1994 with respect to the AR-8's.

The 8 was an amazingly mediocre speaker. so stacking two of them will likely give you "mediocrity times 2." Personally, I wouldn't bother.

I'd love to hear opinions from Forum members are to what 'black magic' took place when stacking the original Large Advent. I'm hard-pressed (from an engineering standpoint) to see why stacking only those speakers would produce such incredible results, but not with other speakers of similar driver configuration/layout. Assuming the system's amp can handle the lower-impedance paralleled load and not be put into premature distress, two speakers on a channel will play with lower distortion and at higher SPL than one...But what other attributes do people assign to 'stacked Advents" and what are the specific technical causes?

The Classic 30's (from the early 90's) did not have a 'dark' high end, as no AR was 'dark' after the introduction of the ADD's in 1975 (with their ferro-fluid-cooled tweeters that allowed a higher drive level to the tweeter without the thermal danger that such a drive level would have posed to the 3a-5-2ax tweeter).

Steve F.

[Zilch]

I have measured stacked Advents, and found no magic in evidence.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=165025

Thus far, I believe Harry Pearson made it up....

[Steve F]

"I have measured stacked Advents, and found no magic in evidence."

This, of course, comes as no surprise to any rational, sane-thinking individual. There CAN'T be any 'magic.'

I have a gut feeling that people originally responded to the greater SPL-lower distortion aspect of the setup (assuming appropriate amplification), and from there the urban legend grew, a consequence of the mysterious blessing of Stereophile.

When I first got my 2ax's (still living at home, a senior in HS), after A-B'ing with my Dad's 4x's, we played 'A+B' and wow! A veritable "wall of sound." (The 4's were high up on shelves, the 2's were below on stands.

It wasn't magic; it was simply a larger sound source. After the novelty (quickly) wore off, we listened to one pair at a time.

Steve F.

[dingus]

just for fun i put a pair of AR91's on top the AR9's once. due to the room config it didnt sound any better than the 9's alone, but as you can see nothing was set up correctly at the time.

[dingus]

i've heard the Large Advent and KLH 23 stacked, both sounded better than a single pair. in both cases the primary benefit is a bigger more spacious sound with the Advent gaining the most improvement because of a perceived clarity in the midrange frequencies.

[Steve F]

"i've heard the Large Advent and KLH 23 stacked, both sounded better than a single pair. in both cases the primary benefit is a bigger more spacious sound with the Advent gaining the most improvement because of a perceived clarity in the midrange frequencies."

If I'm not mistaken, the original Large Advent crossed over to the tweeter at 1000 Hz, a relatively low frequency for a small driver with a small diameter voice coil and no FF cooling. There was probably a fair amount of midrange distortion/distress coming from that 'doughnut' driver at very high SPLs; this of course would have been halved with two Advents per channel, and the larger sound source probably also contributed to an "enhanced" listening experience.

My guess is the lower midrange distortion and the bigger sound source of two Advents per channel probably constituted the 'magic.'

(I'll make any additional comments over on the Advent section.)

Steve F.

[ar_pro]

Around 30 years ago, I was running two pairs of AR-3a systems in a horizontally-stacked configuration, with the tweeters at the outside.

The 3as were all modern, final-iteration versions, with each bottom cabinet resting on a stand that supported it at about an 18" height, putting the whole stack at seated ear-level.

They were driven by a pair of McIntosh MC2205 amplifiers, and since my Mac preamp had a center-channel output, I used it to drive the woofer in a single AR-1, which I had refinished to match the other speakers.

The AR-1 was fed an equalized signal, with a very low crossover point.

The sound was HUGE, and LF response was the best I'd ever heard from any Acoustic Research set-up.

I had experimented with vertical stacking, with the woofers at the bottom and top, but the overall effect was unpleasant, and not very coherent.

I've heard double & triple-stacked Advent systems and they were absolutely not in the same league as this - but to give them credit, they were the reason why I even attempted this arrangement.

When the AR-9 came out, I was a little skeptical that it could surpass this set-up, but after a long afternoon of listening, I sold everything, and bought my first pair of 9's.

[gary_wong5]

"I have the chance to acquire another pair of NOS Classic Model 8 (1994). I am thinking of trying out "Double ARs" with 12"-metal stand to hear how they will sound. The stacking up pairs' driver configuration (M-T-M) will be similar to the big tower Classic 30. The Classic Series' high is "dark" sounding, similar to classic vintage AR series?"

I presume you meant "1974", not 1994 with respect to the AR-8's.

The 8 was an amazingly mediocre speaker. so stacking two of them will likely give you "mediocrity times 2." Personally, I wouldn't bother.

I'd love to hear opinions from Forum members are to what 'black magic' took place when stacking the original Large Advent. I'm hard-pressed (from an engineering standpoint) to see why stacking only those speakers would produce such incredible results, but not with other speakers of similar driver configuration/layout. Assuming the system's amp can handle the lower-impedance paralleled load and not be put into premature distress, two speakers on a channel will play with lower distortion and at higher SPL than one...But what other attributes do people assign to 'stacked Advents" and what are the specific technical causes?

The Classic 30's (from the early 90's) did not have a 'dark' high end, as no AR was 'dark' after the introduction of the ADD's in 1975 (with their ferro-fluid-cooled tweeters that allowed a higher drive level to the tweeter without the thermal danger that such a drive level would have posed to the 3a-5-2ax tweeter).

Steve F.

Hi Steve,

I am talking about 1994 Classic SRA Series, a 2-way CL-8 as stated in AR Model History-Chronological Order. One thing I wish to highlight is that the CL-8 freq. res. should be 45-20K. CL-6 is 50-20K, as shown on metal plate behind the speakers. I went through again the AR Classic owners manual, all Classic SRA Series bulit on AR's core technology modules called Symmetrical Radiation Array (SRA), an extension with the novel "mid over tweeter" drive topology of Holographic Imaging Series.

By stacking up two Classic Model 8, it should resemble Classic Model 12 mini tower, not Classic 30. Finally two tweeters are clamped by 8" mid-bass woofers top and bottom. As stated in manual, this topology creates virtue point source, all sound appears to emanate from one point. The output from the midrange drivers blend seamlessly with that of the tweeter (and the woofers).

I have no chance to listen to Ar-2ax or AR-3a. But my Classic Model 8 is very much "darker" than TSW 210 and AR98LS that I own. Hope very much that I have the chance to acquire a pair of AR-3a.