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Experience with stacked subwoofers?

I have seen a handful of responses to posts mentioning stacked line array subwoofers, like the stackable Rel 510s. Does anyone have a stacked subwoofer array in their system and can speak to their experience?  The marketing hype that Rel puts out about this has me intrigued. Their explanation as to why it’s awesome makes sense, but also I want to go beyond the marketing and hear about real experiences before I drop a bunch of dough on something like that. 

bobelton
wiscobez
4 posts
 

@wokeuptobose & @dwette 

YES, Yes, yes.  This is what I heard at the AXPONA demo.  While the six-pack clearly delivers more bass (yeah, they're subwoofers, so that's obvious) the impact of the RELs was shockingly apparent with regard to: (1) size of the soundstage (2) precision of imaging.

I went into the demo thinking this was just RELs attempt to sell more subs (a "marketing gimmick" as @emergingsoul put it) or more charitably an attempt to even out bass performance (as multiple members have implied with their comments).  I left the room shocked and awed. My first thought was... how can I ever again assess the sound quality of ANY pair of speakers without an accompanying REL six-pack?  I'm sure many will write me off as a kook.  That's fine with me.  I heard what I heard. 

bobelton OP
19 posts
 

Which manufacturers other than Rel make subwoofers specifically designed to be stacked?  I’m assuming here that there are different design decisions that a manufacturer would need to make for their subs to be optimized for stacking.  In particular, are there any stackable subs below the Rel 510 price point?

emergingsoul
1,537 posts
 

These guys are marketing a change in the sound dynamics in a room. Exploiting human nature.  Just because you hear a change doesn't mean things are getting better.  So now what are we gonna start doing stacked mid range and tweeters??

All this Because main speakers are now this made with smaller diameter bass drivers.

wiscobez
4 posts
 

"I'm sure many will write me off as a kook."

"These guys are marketing a change in the sound dynamics in a room. Exploiting human nature.  Just because you hear a change doesn't mean things are getting better."

 

As anticipated. Talk amongst yourselves...  

guysellingstuff
9 posts
 

Love this discussion as this is something I'm planning myself at the moment.

 

Has anyone considered running their line array via DIRAC? I personally really like the feature and want to continue using it but unsure how to make it work without sacrificing benefits of the line array. In particular the fact that I don't think you can set independent crossovers per sub via DIRAC (and the line array method seems to be to run the xover higher for the higher subs in the stack).

Was thinking about hacking it with a combination of the dirac xover and onboard sub xover function.

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