I didn't know exactly where to place this, but this seemed like the best place.
Anyway, I've got this question.
When I have 2 floorstanding 3-way speakers. And I place those speakers very close to each other, so they are almost touching each other, side-to-side, but still facing the same direction.
When I now start playing (loud) music, will there be interference between the two speakers?
You all know that when a speaker plays music, it moves air.
Will the air movement of the one speaker affect the cones of the second speaker?
A bit more extreme:
If I would stack 9 speakers (lets say 9inch studio monitors) in a square.
So 3 rows of 3 speakers. And I where to play music from all these speakers. Would the cone of the middle speaker be affected by the air movement the other speakers produce?
What do you think?
Many thanks in advance.
When you think this setup of speakers so close to each other all sounds kinda strange, I'm glad to explain..
Anyway, I've got this question.
When I have 2 floorstanding 3-way speakers. And I place those speakers very close to each other, so they are almost touching each other, side-to-side, but still facing the same direction.
When I now start playing (loud) music, will there be interference between the two speakers?
You all know that when a speaker plays music, it moves air.
Will the air movement of the one speaker affect the cones of the second speaker?
A bit more extreme:
If I would stack 9 speakers (lets say 9inch studio monitors) in a square.
So 3 rows of 3 speakers. And I where to play music from all these speakers. Would the cone of the middle speaker be affected by the air movement the other speakers produce?
What do you think?
Many thanks in advance.
When you think this setup of speakers so close to each other all sounds kinda strange, I'm glad to explain..
PA speakers are often stacked side by side and on top of each other, at low frequencies they will couple and reinforce each other. An undriven speaker will be excited by the others around it.
Should be no problem unless the cabinets are flimsy and the extra weight causes a problem. A big concern is to make sure you wire them in such a way that the minimum allowable amplifier load impedance is not violated. Usually a series/parallel combination can be used, but separate amps are possible as well.
There is no doubt a ton of stuff I have missed, but others will quickly fill in the gaps.
Should be no problem unless the cabinets are flimsy and the extra weight causes a problem. A big concern is to make sure you wire them in such a way that the minimum allowable amplifier load impedance is not violated. Usually a series/parallel combination can be used, but separate amps are possible as well.
There is no doubt a ton of stuff I have missed, but others will quickly fill in the gaps.
Wire them in-phase.
Adjacent woofers will more than double the power output due to improved loading. This is the base idea of the Full Stack, eight (or 16) 10" speakers nearly rim to rim, beloved by LOUD guitar players.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d1/95/f7/d195f7f4c5b59d465748a3aa0c346d2b.jpg
The speakers actually work less hard, but the coupling from "small" cone to large room air is better.
For two or a few, the sound balance changes but not in a huge way. When you start putting 8 or 32 together you will slant the frequency response significantly.
Adjacent woofers will more than double the power output due to improved loading. This is the base idea of the Full Stack, eight (or 16) 10" speakers nearly rim to rim, beloved by LOUD guitar players.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d1/95/f7/d195f7f4c5b59d465748a3aa0c346d2b.jpg
The speakers actually work less hard, but the coupling from "small" cone to large room air is better.
For two or a few, the sound balance changes but not in a huge way. When you start putting 8 or 32 together you will slant the frequency response significantly.
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Thanks to both for your reply.
So, judging by your answers, my theory was right and speakers are indeed affected by each other when placed close together. Although it might be just to a small extend.
That would mean that if one wants a true reproduction of a sound recorded by a microphone, one can't place two speakers close together: see following scenario.
I'm building an electronic organ. Organs have different instruments sounding in them as organpipes such as Trumpet or Flute etc.
Now I want a true reproduction of those recorded pipes, without any interference or distortion.
This organ-building-community is kinda divided in two groups.
1st, and I'm here, thinks that its best to have just 2 front speakers, being left and right.
The second group thinks that its best to have a Multi channel front. So 2 or 3 or 4 or sometimes even 10 front stereo sets!
The reason behind this would be to lighten the load on the speaker. Because different instruments can -by software- be routed to different speakers.
But then, speakers placed close to each other would be affected by each other.
What other problems do you audio experts think one could run into if multiple front speakers are used?
I could think of the following:
-speakers affecting each other (problem mentioned above)
-I dont know the professional name, but airwaves colliding in the air?
-Timing, speakers on different distances, creating phase shifting
So, judging by your answers, my theory was right and speakers are indeed affected by each other when placed close together. Although it might be just to a small extend.
That would mean that if one wants a true reproduction of a sound recorded by a microphone, one can't place two speakers close together: see following scenario.
I'm building an electronic organ. Organs have different instruments sounding in them as organpipes such as Trumpet or Flute etc.
Now I want a true reproduction of those recorded pipes, without any interference or distortion.
This organ-building-community is kinda divided in two groups.
1st, and I'm here, thinks that its best to have just 2 front speakers, being left and right.
The second group thinks that its best to have a Multi channel front. So 2 or 3 or 4 or sometimes even 10 front stereo sets!
The reason behind this would be to lighten the load on the speaker. Because different instruments can -by software- be routed to different speakers.
But then, speakers placed close to each other would be affected by each other.
What other problems do you audio experts think one could run into if multiple front speakers are used?
I could think of the following:
-speakers affecting each other (problem mentioned above)
-I dont know the professional name, but airwaves colliding in the air?
-Timing, speakers on different distances, creating phase shifting
anco111, you know it! To be more specific, we must look at wavelength/frequency which determines when we get reinforcement/coupling or cancellations. Most explanations consider only one spesific wavelength, but in music we have very wide spread, which makes things so difficult.
More info is easy to find with Google
- Dan Russell's Acoustics and Vibration Animations
More info is easy to find with Google
- Dan Russell's Acoustics and Vibration Animations
Attachments
So just for an example, with a CD playing the Beethoven n. 5 Symphony the second group want many stereo sets because they want to reroute the different instruments to the different speakers? The idea that a single correct speaker can't cope with different instruments at the same idea is somewhat stupid.
Ralf
Thanks Juhazi, thats a lot of stuff to read.. 
Giralfino, to implement Beethoven's 5th to our scenario:
All instruments and singers would be recorded seperatly, one at a time.
Now we can play the 5th with only the instruments we want.
Let's say I only want to play the trumpets and the strings. The trumpets are routed to 1 set of speakers, the strings to another set.
This is done so the speakers that take care of the strings do not have to worry about the trumpets at the same time. If we want the singers to join in halfway, they are routed to a third set of speakers. This way, every speaker has his own voices to worry about...
To clarify some more. A real organ is recorded, every pipe, one at a time.
All these 1000's of recordings are stored in a library (hauptwerk).
Now, with a midi-keyboard one can select one of the instruments, and with a press on the keys, the corresponding recording is sent to the speakers.
When one is to press 4 keys at the same time, 4 recordings are played.
When one is to select 10 instruments, and presses 4 keys, 40 recordings are being played.
One group of builders says: don't worry, get some high-end speakers, they can cope with this.
The other group says: No, get as much speakers as you can afford, and divide all these recordings between the speakers, so every speaker needs to play only a fraction of these 40 recordings while other speakers play other parts..
This so every speaker can focus on just a couple of recordings at a time, so it sounds more clear.
I personally think that it is best to have just 1 stereo set, because using multiple stereo sets create more complex problems than the one you're trying to solve.
Giralfino, to implement Beethoven's 5th to our scenario:
All instruments and singers would be recorded seperatly, one at a time.
Now we can play the 5th with only the instruments we want.
Let's say I only want to play the trumpets and the strings. The trumpets are routed to 1 set of speakers, the strings to another set.
This is done so the speakers that take care of the strings do not have to worry about the trumpets at the same time. If we want the singers to join in halfway, they are routed to a third set of speakers. This way, every speaker has his own voices to worry about...
To clarify some more. A real organ is recorded, every pipe, one at a time.
All these 1000's of recordings are stored in a library (hauptwerk).
Now, with a midi-keyboard one can select one of the instruments, and with a press on the keys, the corresponding recording is sent to the speakers.
When one is to press 4 keys at the same time, 4 recordings are played.
When one is to select 10 instruments, and presses 4 keys, 40 recordings are being played.
One group of builders says: don't worry, get some high-end speakers, they can cope with this.
The other group says: No, get as much speakers as you can afford, and divide all these recordings between the speakers, so every speaker needs to play only a fraction of these 40 recordings while other speakers play other parts..
This so every speaker can focus on just a couple of recordings at a time, so it sounds more clear.
I personally think that it is best to have just 1 stereo set, because using multiple stereo sets create more complex problems than the one you're trying to solve.
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Hi, no, the thing is a little bit different:
As there is difference between music production and music reproduction, with the first you can use your imagination and obtain the sound you want ( if you can...!? ), while the second has some stringent laws, such the ears are two placed laterally etc. and most important the record is what you have ( only ) !
So you have to "extract" from the record the two channels as they have been recorded and just "play".
Multi-channel is another thing that comes from movies and special effects.
The obvious thing to say is that you emply one amplifier per channel, so 40 channels means 40 amplifiers
As there is difference between music production and music reproduction, with the first you can use your imagination and obtain the sound you want ( if you can...!? ), while the second has some stringent laws, such the ears are two placed laterally etc. and most important the record is what you have ( only ) !
So you have to "extract" from the record the two channels as they have been recorded and just "play".
Multi-channel is another thing that comes from movies and special effects.
The obvious thing to say is that you emply one amplifier per channel, so 40 channels means 40 amplifiers
A good speaker can play many sounds at once, each of them in a completely separate stereo space and each one as clear as if there was nothing else playing at all. The trouble is that not many speakers are this good. This is a lot of extra work that you want to go to when all you need in my opinion is a mixing desk and some good speakers.
One effect you will get by placing identical speakers side by side and connecting them to the same mono source is that the baffle effectively becomes twice as wide for each speaker, decreasing the baffle step frequency. For floorstanders about 9" wide this may make them sound boomy somewhere in the upper bass / lower midrange.
The other is that when you listen to multiple speaker drivers (playing the same mono content) off-axis you will get 'lobing' at higher frequencies as shown in Juhazi's post. This is the same problem as when someone asks why they can't use two tweeters in a single cabinet.
The other is that when you listen to multiple speaker drivers (playing the same mono content) off-axis you will get 'lobing' at higher frequencies as shown in Juhazi's post. This is the same problem as when someone asks why they can't use two tweeters in a single cabinet.
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