Having more than one pair of mains?

[BRAD-TX]

I have seen several people that have more than one set of main speakers in the front of their HT. I was just wondering how this is accomplished. Are they just hooking two speakers up to one terminal on their reciever/amp? If so wouldn't that hurt the quality of the signal?

I was just wondering, if it works it seems like it would be nice for movies. Also, how would you seperate them when you just wanted to listen to music?

I knowthese are n00b question, but I was just wondering.

Thanks

[Zero]

Brad,

I am sure someone much more qualified than I will address this question you proposed.

Often times, you can simply achieve this effect by hooking up the second pair of front speakers - from the rear channel on the reciever. Some people have fancy recievers which can do 8 channels...not sacrificing much of anything...

Also, assuming the reciever has a pre-out, you could hook up a four channel amp to drive two mains without harm or loss. I could be wrong, on that one..

[BRAD-TX]

Thanks for the reply. I was just thinking it would be kind of cool, but had no real idea how to do it w/o sacrificing quality.

[Frank Z]

Most of the dual main setups you see are for separate use. One set of mains are for 2 channel listening, the other is used for movies and or multichannel music. One set can be wired to the "Speaker A" terminals, the other to the "Speaker B" terminals on the receiver.

[gidrah]

I had my Polks on the bottom and Acoustiflex 3-ways (upside down) on top. I tried the top speaker right side up at first and had alot of smear at the higher frequencies. Imaging and soundstage fell apart and the highs were shot to hell. I flipped the tops over and BAM everything was back and then some. I've seen some arrangements that are side-by-side. To me this seems like an opportunit for mor of the smear that I had unless the drivers are on the same level and the outside pair are equidistant ( pulled forward along the radius) to the sweet-spot.

I have a 5.1 rcvr that allows for a 2nd zone for speaker B. It uses the surround amps (or external amp via pre-ins) for the 2nd zone. Switch both zones to CD and wallah! It wouldn't let me listen to both sets of front during 5.1 or DPL playback (without an extra amp), but that was fine with me. If your amp can handle the load, you can connect them directly and not worry about this mess.

I've since changed my fronts and can't put anything on top, but it was good while it lasted.

[Janusch]

For a long time I had two sets of RT55I as my mains. I connected both sets to the same output. I loved this setup. I stacked them like the Bose cubes. Two pointing in and two pointing to the sides. This gave me a open sound stage, but still retained center imaging.
I have the Denon 5800 so power was not a factor. The reciever never got hot. A friend a mine had said when I did this that I change the pull of the speakers from 8 ohms to 4 ohms. He also said that if I switched to the LSI line that I could not do this because I would then be doing 2 ohms. I had the crazy idea I would stack the LSI9s the same way.

Dave

[HBombToo]

I run my mains in parallel. The only thing you have to keep in mind is if your amp can take a 4 Ohm load that is if they are 8 Ohm speakers. 2 (8 Ohm) in parallel results in a 4 Ohm load and 2 (8 Ohm) in series is a 16 Ohm load.

You typically don't want to run is series unless of course you have 4 Ohm speakers.

hope this helps
HBomb

[Zero]

Some of the best sound I've ever heard in my room, was the pair of SDA2b's paired side by side with the LSI-9's. I cant explain why or how, but anyone who heard this combination.........immediatly were in amazement and left repeating "wow....."

For some reason I had a stick up my ass about having two different types of speakers as mains and decided to re-arrange things.

If you can hit it off right, two pairs of mains up front can provide excellent sound!