Four front main speakers for 2 channel listening?


Infinity Beta speakers are a 2 chassis per speaker system including a separate bass tower and a separate tweeter tower to comprise one speaker...giving the user four colums of speakers for 2 channel listening.

Has anyone ever tried four indentical front speakers for 2 channel listening? Is four front speakers better than two?
128x128mitch4t
Four idential speakers, two each side, will only screw up the stereo imaging. At best, you only increase the volume of out put 3db. I wouldn't bother.
It depends.

If you put two speakers, "stacked" one on top of the other, you have made yourself sort of a line array, which has some advantages, particularly with regard to imaging. Put the top speaker upsidedown so the tweeters are adjacent. At one time "stacked Advents" was a highly regarded and relatively inexpensive speaker system. (Roughly $600 for four, if I remember correctly). Apart from line array imaging advantages, the objective was not 6dB more loudness, but rather half the power into each speaker.

If you put the speakers side by side, you might have a problem, but if they are good speakers each side by side pair will image as one speaker between them, so things might be OK. This is the sort of thing that you need to try out, as theory doesn't always give the best answer.
My favorite 4 cabinet 2 cannel set up is Soundlab U-1's with I believe it is the UB-1's on the inside, literally the wall of sound! 4 81" tall speakers that are about 36" wide each- I've only seen this set up once and it was just a picture I didn't hear it :(
I should have been a little clearer...each speaker will be powered by it's own amplifiers.
They are Infinity Kappa 9 speakers. Each one would be bi-amped with a Carver Silver 9t monoblock on the bottom and a pair of Sunfire Signature stereo amps running the four tops. Because of the speaker design, it would be impossible to stack these...so, they would have to be side by side. The bi-amping would solve the amp strain question.