Which sounds better 2 way or 3 way speaker design

All I can say to that is dhh, for the obvious! 
well wired, quality engineered, the wider the sound stage period. I’ve 4 column 5 ways that out perform most 2-4 ways hands down. Little speakers are just that…little !
Happy new year 

Cheers 

The crossover design is critical with both 2-way and multiway speakers, but it’s considerably more difficult to achieve balance and coherency with more than two drivers. If the objective is for the speaker to be able recreate a music wave realistically, with all harmonics intact, the wave has to have a consistent shape and amplitude, and the correct phase and timing whether it’s coming from one driver or multiple drivers....the more drivers you add, the more difficult it becomes to recreate that music wave and have it replicate the original.

Single driver speakers have appeal because of their simplicity and lack of a need for crossovers to shape the sound to reproduce a music wave. Their phase coherency is excellent, and they tend to have less smearing and latency caused by crossover components. Their downside is that when frequencies that are smaller in diameter than the driver, those small frequencies tend to beam straight ahead, and have poor off-axis performance. The larger the driver, the more beaming.

There is always a downside to every option, but the marketing hype leaves that part out. Thus opinions that are formed based on the same marketing hype tend to echo only the upside, unaware of the disadvantages. Making an assumption that more drivers are better, is similar to saying more salt is better in all recipes.

@ditusa wrote:

See here a two way monitor with attributes of a three and four way design.

Mike

+1

OP: There are a lot of variables involved here. As has been pointed to by several in this thread already it’s about the design goals and juggling different trade-offs, however pragmatically speaking design goals may take a backseat to what’s dictated by the physical outlay of the speakers and the kind of drivers that’s typically used; a 1" direct radiating dome tweeter only goes so low (i.e.: ~2kHz), and in a 2-way design an 8-10" woofer/midrange is about as far as it goes in size to sufficiently "meet" that dome tweeter above, and at the same time avoid severe beaming or break-up modes. The woofer/midrange in such designs will cover most of the voice fundamentals (both male and female), while harmonics are sitting much higher in the treble range of the tweeter. The downside is IMD and Doppler distortion with a single driver covering bass both LF and midrange, and coming down to it there’s also only so much such a driver pairing can do macro dynamically. The power response at the crossover usually isn’t great either, making more obvious there’s a driver division here. Introducing a dedicated and well-implemented midrange driver for a 3-way design (i.e.: where a direct radiating tweeter is used) to my ears tend to be an advantage, both in freeing the mids driver of LF and being given the opportunity for more woofer displacement, even if it means high-passing in the lower midrange area.

On the other hand, waveguide loading a fitting, relatively low fs 1" dome tweeter with a properly sized and designed waveguide can significantly lower the crossover point to the woofer/mids (fairly comfortably down to around 1kHz) while also providing for a smooth directivity pattern at the crossover, significantly lessening the influence of crossing over in the vital midrange area. This way a larger woofer/mids can also be used with up to about 12" in diameter, and with a higher sensitivity pro woofer the dome tweeter can be replaced with a compression driver, and now you suddenly have a high sensitivity 2-way design with smooth directivity characteristics at the XO and prodigious output capability. Depending on the specific pro woofer choice LF may be restricted and which then calls for augmentation down low with subs. This way we’re entering what’s effectively a 3-way design of a different type, and with the further opportunity to highpass the woofer/mids driver with even cleaner lower to central midrange to boot. To my ears such an effectively 3-way waveguide-loaded design choice has a lot going for it.

Many of the larger high output JBL designs with pro/studio origins (as referred to by poster @ditusa) adhere to above model being waveguide or horn-loaded 2-way designs with compression drivers and 12-15" woofers - sometimes augmented with a super tweeter above 10-15kHz, but which nonetheless doesn’t deter from the fact that they are basically 2-way designs. Myself I also prefer what is basically a 2-way high efficiency design variant crossed at just over 600Hz, though augmented in either end of the frequency range with subs and dedicated high eff. slot tweeters (i.e.: <85Hz and >11kKz). With only a single XO-point in most of the audio band that clears the power region and has neat power response, the augmented areas, and thus technically a 4-way setup, help in ways that doesn’t impede with but rather exacerbate the basic traits of a 2-way approach with a virtually unlimited macro dynamic envelope to boot. Being also that my speaker setup is configured actively, delay has been carefully implemented at the XO points, and having most of the fundamentals of the central midrange + harmonics covered by a single large format horn + compression driver element is a major advantage.

Not sure anyone knows what a two and a half way is

I agree that it depends on the speakers and other variables such as room size and configuration. I recently replaced 3 way tower speakers with 2 way stand mounts and the 2 way speakers sounds way better to my ears. Improved soundstage, mids, and tighter, more well defined bass. In all fairness, the 2 way speakers cost more than double the 3 way towers (13K vs 5K) and are much better suited to my small listening space. I did not conduct a comparison in a larger room at a greater listening distance. 

@sounds_real_audio wrote:

Not sure anyone knows what a two and a half way is

Come on..

@rauliruegas wrote:

Now, a woofer in a 2-way design usually crossover around 2khz and the most critical frequencies are handled by that woofer and it’s here where is developed that high IMD due that that woofer handled from around 40hz and up and that developed IMD puts a lot of " dust " in the midrange and in the HF because we have to remember that everywhere are developed harmonics that starts in the bass range.

+1

@toddalin wrote:

"Dedicated midrange driver" is typically an oxymoron and very few three-way systems will not put some of the midrange in the woofer and/or tweeter. You would need to run the driver from ~80Hz-~4kHz for it truly to be "dedicated" to the midrange.

True, referring to a midrange driver as "dedicated" is with most any speaker design incorrect, and that’s even without taking into consideration the harmonics which are somewhat higher in nature and are said to extend an octave or two beyond ~4kHz.

However having a high efficiency woofer section with prodigious displacement area that’s high-passed steeply below ~80Hz bodes well for covering the lower range of the midrange, not least considering that it’s effectively freed of LF and in all but the most insane SPL situations will see virtually no visible excursion. That’s something very few speaker designs can make a claim to do.

raulirueguegas : what is. a 2,5 way speaker?

A 2-1/2 (2.5 way) uses two "lower frequency" "drivers" and an "upper frequency" "driver".

One of the "lower frequency" drivers is allowed to play all the way down to its lower limit and crossed over to the "upper frequency" driver just as a typical 2-way speaker would be crossed-over (or bi-amped).

The other "lower frequency" driver is also played down to its lower limit and is not allowed to play up to the high frequency driver, but rather rolled off at some lower point.

The "upper frequency" driver, is just that.

Any of the drivers can be any of the designs (e.g., cone, horn, Heil, electrostatic, etc.) so long as it can do the job and that has nothing to do with the number of "ways" in the system.  So, at least in theory, if you add a sub to a 2-way, you now have a 2.5-way.

I have two 2.5 ways myself. One is a Super Big Red that uses a Utah aux woofer (the 0.5 way), the Altec 604’s paper cone, and the Altec 604’s integrated horn.

The other is my own creation and uses a JBL 18" woofer (the 0.5-way), a JBL 9.7" woofer, and a Heil AMT.

The JBL 2235 is their contribution to the 2.5-way market.

Ooops, 4435.  Stupid edit time out!

Definitely 3 way !
ALL 2 way have a hole in middle and are compromised ! and my Vintage 40 yr old Allison AL130 ( 3 way w/ push pull twin 8" woofers and the unique CONVEX mids and tweeters ) not to mention unusual crossover points! = 450Hz and 4,000 HZ ( adroitly bypasses the midrange and voice issue ? ) are vastly superior to MANY modern high-end speakers! ( note they were $1,200-1,500 back in day so about $ $11,200 today! defo "high end " speakers if sold today!
too bad so sad noone can make the unique and proprietary and nearly IMPOSSIBLE to make tweeters and mids ( they were actually assembled by robots! YES! )
add a couple modern GR research open baffle servo subs or a vented and sealed combo of 2 servo subs your fav brand and you will have near-perfection ( filter to the speakers at 80-90 Hz fr subs so the tower speaker woofers just do low bass ! )

I also vote for a 2.5 way. I disagree with the statement the midrange needs to go to 80Hz since the common definition of midrange frequencies varies from the low end at 250Hz to 500 Hz and then anywhere from 1.2kHz to 4000 Hz or more at the higher end.  

The Wilson-Benesch Vector speakers run the midrange full range, a common feature of a 2.5 way, and design it to acoustically blend with/supplement the woofer, which is low-passed at 500Hz, and then hand off to the tweeter which is high-passed at 5000Hz. Both crossovers utilize a first order  design. All of these components are designed and manufactured  in house so there is exquisite control over the product. 

Thus, a single driver covers the entire midrange. There are many other excellent ways to preserve the integrity of the midrange, but this one works well and is elegant in its simplicity.

I said ~80 Hz for the bottom of the midrange because the idea is to keep at least the fundamentals of the human voice within one driver and there are those who can certainly sing lower than that.

tcutter

the Wilson beseech vectors are incredible...the bass driver the same size as the midrange with no cross over...no cross over. 

ALL 2 way have a hole in middle and are compromised !

Said only the inexperienced listeners. 

I’ve owned many 2-way monitors (totem model 1’s, totem mani II’s, totem arro’s, usher mini dancer II’s, to name a few) and they all had their drawbacks. Every one of them I used a pair of subwoofers (Rel) and there were drawbacks to this too, Rel recommends running the main speakers full range which puts a lot of strain on the smaller woofer. In case of the mani II’s, with the isobaric woofers inside, the speaker was so inefficient I was running them with 1000 watt monoblocks part of the time. So with subs, the sound was more full but at a cost.

With 3-way speakers, you normally have the right size tweeter with the appropriate size midrange spec’d together while designing the crossover to send the lower octaves to the woofers. These will play louder with less breakup/distortion. I know you can buy a 2-way/2.5-way with larger drivers but I’ve never liked anything over 6”/7” for the midrange, and some of the smaller 5” midrange in the Ushers sound fantastic.

I purchased a pair of the ESS speakers with the Heil AMT in them in the late 70’s.  If it wasn’t for the patent on them, you would have seen ma y more of them during the last 4 decades. 1 hell of a driver.

The 4435 is a true two and half way speaker, it does not use a crossover point between the two woofers.

’’For uses where even greater low frequency output capability with an attendant reduction in distortion is required, a double woofer system has been designed (model 4435], Directional characteristics have been left intact by bringing the second woofer in below 100Hz only, The maximum output before thermal or excursion limiting has been raised by 4 dB and extended on the low end by half an octave. This is shown in Figure 15, Note that this is not a response curve but is instead a curve of maximum reverberant field SPL generated at the excursion limit or long term power limit of the two systems in typical monitoring conditions. In the very low-frequency range of 20 to 30 Hz a stereo pair of the dual woofer systems can generate some 115 to 120 dB SPL under these conditions.

Both Iow-frequency drivers in the double system are identical to the driver in the single system except for lightened cones, which yield a 3 dB increase in mid band sensitivity.’’

See full article here

See here review of JBL 4435 monitors.

Mike

Coax drivers for mid and high range help in a better two way design and the sound is perhaps more coherent in such two way and even more coherent in a one way design than in a three way speakers.