Might be fun to play with but I suspect room acoustics should play into the equation. Dynamics is one thing, but sound stage will likely take a beating in this scenario.

IMHO, using two pairs of speakers, each with an 8" woofer and a ribbon tweeter, can work just like using a pair of speakers using two 8" woofers and two ribbon tweeters in each box. You would just need to ensure they are in phase (the + from each amp goes the the + on each speaker, to ensure the woofers are in phase). Out of phase means one woofer cone is moving forward while the other is moving backward. Very bad. Also, each speaker should be about the same distance from the listener. Do not account for volume differences by moving one pair of speakers further away.

If the two pairs of speakers have different sensitivity ratings, and if both power amps lack a volume pot, then you can fix this with a simple volume pot (like in the Shiit SYS I mentioned) located between the preamp and one of the power amps. As I say, feeding two power amps from a single preamp is as simple as using a Y-cable.

I have run two sets of speakers on many occasions, to good effect. Usually, all four speakers were the same brand and model. As I mentioned, we bass players bring more speaker cone area to the gig if we want to be louder. This is way more effective, overall, than increasing wattage. Heck....my home stereo speakers have 15" woofers. I believe in paper. Those little speakers that sit on stands can sound VERY good in terms of fidelity and accuracy. I have been highly impressed with some of them. But I like big woofers. It's like the difference between a high performance, turbo charged 1.5L engine compared to a 350 V8. When we sit down to watch a movie, we have a 'theatre sound' experience. Because of those woofers. Size matters.

But...all bass is not the same. For nuanced acoustic jazz...that last thing you want is boom boom boom coming from the 300 year old acoustic bass that Oregon (a band) uses.

Different tools for different jobs. Home theater bass is a different animal completely. Not sure of the OP’s application though.

You can do what you like and what sounds good and play around. In general multi speakers playing the same channel in the same space is not recommended without careful integration. There is a lot more to phase than just absolute polarity. It varies with frequency, passive crossover network, enclosure porting, etc.

If you have ever aligned multiple subwoofers with a calibrated mic you will see that when you turn on a second sub for example you will actually lose a lot of spl in certain frequency bands. This also varies greatly with position of listener and speaker in room.

Multiple full range speakers playing the same channel basically eliminates the possibility of a stereo image as intended by the recording engineer. You may sorta be able to get there by stacking and doing a quasi line array.

Really its complicated and generally not recommended, but you can give it a try. You will never go to a nice stereo shop and see them try to sell you multiple sets of speakers to play at once. Home theater is a different thing with independently mixed channel. Musicians plugging into multiple speakers isnt a good analog to reproduction from a recording.

True, Mike. I don't really love over-doing the sub frequencies like many do. My speakers, featuring the 15" woofers, are rated to 35Hz but performance down there is dropping off at that point. So....they are not boomy. What they do offer is texture/timbre, even and especially in the lows and low mids. With a jazz double-bass, what you don't get is boomy. What you do get is the 'woody' tone.

If you are willing to play with the larger speakers while using the two sets you could try unhooking or covering the tweeter and the midrange driver and only use them for low frequency enhancement, should be able to blend them in playing with positioning.

That's an interesting idea. Getting them tonight, I'll hook them all up to the Hafler and see how that sounds and go from there.

If you want to play the two sets from one amp you could wire them in series, by adding a wire from the + on one speaker to the - of the other and your wires from your amp to the other terminals, this will up the resistance to likely about 16 ohms so the amp wont go as loud but it will be safe for the amp. EDIT, won't work, crossovers in wrong location. Can your amplifier run a 4ohm load? Should say if you look up specs.

Here are the Hafler specs

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1645470017.jpg

So it is capable of running a 4 ohm load, when you get the speakers check if they are 8 ohm or 4, also check what your existing ones are.

Aschen is correct. When using two pairs of speakers, they are sometimes oriented so that the lower speaker in each channel is inverted and the other speaker is placed on top of that. This way, the woofers are located near each other.

Shaun is having trouble getting loudness and this speaker connection, in series, is not what I would recommend since a 16-Ohm load would throttle the amp's power output. You can see from the specs Shaun posted that the less impedance you show to an amp, the more power it can generate. Instead of wiring the speakers in series to raise impedance to 16 Ohms, I would recommend wiring them in parallel so that the load is 4 Ohm which will maximize power output from the amp. I am assuming, with some confidence, the speakers are at least 8 Ohms. A mutimeter connected to them would confirm. It should measure between 4 and 8 Ohms resistance. This means the speaker impedance is 8 Ohms.

I continue to be curious about speaker sensitivity. If this amp does not get loudness from the speakers, then I suspect they are low-sensitivity speakers.

Yes, there is one other snag with this, it would be feeding through both crossovers, not sure it would sound right anyways.

Likely 8 ohms but better to check, still some home audio speakers with less. Mine dip down to 2 ohms, not many amps like that.

FWIW, I've always liked the classic look of a pair of Haflers with some interesting speakers like Magneplaners. All gilt and flash, as Keith Moon would say.

But this isn't what anyone is asking. I know it, just throwing it out there.

Good luck, Shaun!

Here's what I found

Bigger speakers are 8 ohms down to 3 minimum

Smaller are 8 ohms down to 4.4 minimum

I would NOT run them wired Parallel from your amp, could be fine and could also take out the transistors. I am surprised they are 8 ohm down to 3min. Listen to them and see if you like them better, there are devices that can balance the load, or as you we're considering add a second amp.

Does your amp have any sort of overload protection on it?

Thanks. I love them because they have so much detail. You can hear things with them that you can't with the others. The piano and Amy Lee's voice in Evanescence's My Immortal is beautiful!

But then you put on Going under and her voice is still there but you all of a sudden realize you need bass too, which the larger provide at the expense of a little clarity and brightness.

Would love to but can't throw money into a system to get what I want but too many other competing interests.

Can the larger speakers bi wired like in the picture on the 5th post? Does the larger speaker have a midrange speaker and a tweeter, possible to unhook those and that should help bring the impedance up a little. Check what they are with a digital multimeter.

both speakers can bi-wire. larger speakers have 2 woofers, a kevlar midrange and aluminum tweeter.

The smaller speakers have a nautilus tweeter which must be why I like them.

Unhook the bi wire strip on the large speaker and check the resistance across the terminals for the woofers, should be lower terminals.

I had to listen to My Immortal on ytube, it would be good on a proper system, not my computer, there Bring me to life is the one I am more use to hearing. Her voice on Bring me to life reminds me of the female vocalist singing Sisters of mercy song Under the gun, thats also a great song cranked up.

I like my Hafler 230 Pro amp but it isn't very loud, though even at volume 8+ there is zero distortion. I was thinking about this, does that amp have RCA and XLR balanced inputs? Is there a switch to select between them?