2-way vs. 3-way

"Far field" is 8' from the speakers?

8 Feet "+" - I think in your haste you missed the "+". If you prefer to draw the line at 10 feet then I would not argue with you.

And a two-way just cannot "do it"?

Perhaps you missed the conditions I gave for being able to do it "ALL" (you missed that too) - "cover the enormous bandwidth with two drivers and do this with low distortion and even dispersion at the higher SPL levels necessary to sit far back"

If you disagree "in general" (not talking about a specific speaker) then please explain?

You seem to have a strong point - why not make it?

I agree (as usual) with Shadorne and disagee with Ditusa, best on the planet? c'mon!

Tell me where then on this planet will you find a two way loudspeaker such as the 4430's or the 4435's that will encompass efficiency, low distortion levels, farfield and nearfield imaging, and the superior dynamics of horns versus tweeters. As any educated and knowledgeable person will understand that horns produce ten times the dynamics at massively less distortion levels than tweeters ever could. Another reason being that I can sit five feet or I can sit fifteen feet from the speakers and there seems to be absolutely no diffrence in sound or imaging. I would like someone to show me a smaller audiophile loudspeaker that will keep up, let alone surpass these fine loudspeakers. As far as driver quality, we wont even go there considering most audiophile woofers arent even as large as the JBL's 15 inch woofers voicecoil.

>>I have a pair of 4430 and a pair of 4435 JBL studio monitors. The best two way speakers on the planet<<

That's funny!!

Let's not forget that the 4430/35 was a landmark design that became JBL's most succesful monitor - see this JBL Paper. The 4430/35 replaced many previous three and four way designs - it has extremely impressive even dispersion (power response) AND high SPL capability for a two way. A rare two way that will sound good in a wide variety of situations (nearfield to farfield).

If you read the paper it simply emphasizes my earlier point about using two ways for farfield listening - you can see that JBL went to a great deal of effort to achieve their design. The bi-radial horn was necessary to get the even dispersion in the treble and a compliant type 15" woofer was necessary to limit the beaming from such a large woofer. The large woofer and horn mean plenty of clean dynamic acoustic ouput necessary for a farfield position. From an engineering perspective it was a major achievement and I am not sure it has been surpassed.