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Speaker of the Century Award Goes To ....

The 2.5 way speaker.


You guys probably thought I was going to fanboy over a brand, and I'm not. I'm going to fanboy over a speaker design. IMHO the 2.5 way speaker is THE ideal high end speaker for the majority of enthusiasts.


First, what is a 2.5 way? It is a speaker with 3 drivers, but the mid range lacks a high pass filter, so  it shares output with the woofer.  It has a number of advantages over smaller and larger speakers:
  • Similar footprint to stand mounted 2-way speakers
  • Ideal bass output for apartments and modest homes
  • Easier to integrate than big speakers
  • No subwoofer
  • High sensitivity compared to a 2-way using similar drivers
  • Reasonably priced


A number of brands have taken this approach including:
  • Focal
  • Joseph
  • Monitor Audio
  • DIY kits like the Klang Ton Ophelia, and Zaph Audio

So for the average enthusiast who is not a San Francisco billionaire I argue here (for the sake of an argument) that the 2.5 way speaker should be considered one of the great technical innovations in terms of users and results.
erik_squires
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
Box speakers suck.

Small box speakers suck even more.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,441 posts
 
Any electrostatic loudspeaker subwoofer or not. Dynamic drivers suck.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
electrostatics, magnetic planar speakers suck. Couldn’t swing a dynamic range signal to save their lives.

All they’ve got is a few db of leading edge to fawn over... and after that... it’s all distorted crap. This is true, to a perfect T, as it's right there in every FFT analysis graph ever printed and looked at... for any panel speaker. All of them. 100% of them.

Right back at ’cha.....

Now I could harp on dynamic driver systems and kick them to the curb too, but that’s already been done..so..I’ll just say I’ve owned and liked all types of speakers over the years.
erik_squires OP
16,004 posts
 
<< whew >> for a moment I thought this thread would degenerate into a thoughtful conversation about the unique pros and cons about 2.5 way speakers, but I can see my fears were unfounded.
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