2-way vs. 3-way


What would be the advantage and disadvantage of a 2-way floorstanding speaker versus a 3-way floorstanding speaker?
agiaccio
>>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.
As a recent convert to horn loudspeakers, I can state that Ditusa's claim is not ridiculous. My two way speakers consist of a custom conical horn with a 2 inch compression driver, Jbl LE 15B woofer in the JBL L-200 cabinet and an outboard active crossover. This system will fill a large room easily and works just fine at my 12 foot distant listening position.
He's also right that tweeters can't keep up unless they are horn tweeters.
My bandwidth is limited, however. I'm only good from about 40Hz to 16Khz. Within this range, this system is the best I have heard.
I suppose Ditusa thinks we all owe it to him to agree with whatever he says.....sorry to let him down.
Ditusa made a claim that defies what many of us assume. Some of us, however, are aware that the claim is not unreasonable.
Whether or not he is correct remains to be seen but just rejecting his comments without a substantial argument to the contrary is certainly unreasonable.

Chadnliz - You seem to disagree with his assertion. Why?