We study the vertical miscible displacements of two fluids of different densities and/or viscosities in two model porous media, constructed using different arrangements of blocks of packed glass beads with different sizes. The two configurations have the same permeability distributions but different spatial arrangements and structural features. Time variations of the mean fluid concentration in different sections along the samples are monitored by an acoustic technique. For stable viscosity or density contrasts, the spreading of the displacement front is predominantly macrodispersive. For fluids of the same viscosity but different densities, the macrodispersivities approach at large velocities, where the displacement is stable, the passive tracer limit, ld∞, which is controlled only by the heterogeneity of the medium. This is true, regardless of the density contrast. At lower velocities, where gravity instabilities can exist, the normalized dispersivities ld/ld∞ vary exponentially with the normalized flow rate, with opposite exponents in the stable and unstable configurations. These results are compared to existing theoretical works based on stochastic approaches and linear stability analyses.