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Is the ideal multi-way a 3-way with limited bass?

Hear me out here.

3 way speakers with the traditional large woofer benefit from high bass output, and improved midrange clarity due to the lack of Doppler distortion affecting the mids, but with a lot of modest listening areas the big woofer can also be detrimental.  They produce too much bass, which together with room gain and room modes causes flabby and exaggerated bass.
So, lacking ARC or EQ capabilities perhaps the best compromise for the purist is to have a big woofer 3-way but with a limited -3 dB point, say 45 Hz or so.


erik_squires
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islandmandan
1,260 posts
 
I like my 12" Tannoy HPD Dual Concentric, they do a great job in my large room. Oh, it's a two way, by the way.
rego
378 posts
 
... ideal ... or tradeoff in bass implementation ... ?
audio2design
1,351 posts
 
Perhaps, but it really comes down to acoustical design of the speaker and materials, and while I think 3 is somewhat ideal at this point, I would say for similar and different reasons.

I agree on the issue of doppler distortion, even though there are some good 2 ways with relative deep bass and high cutoff frequencies.

Smooth dispersion without resonances off-axis is critical in my mind, which also calls for limited bandwidth per speaker, though acoustical methods such as Paradigm uses for dispersion and materials like Magico uses allow good wider bandwidths per speaker than practical in the past.

And even if we talk about a woofer, should it be one big or two small? I lean towards multiple small as it keeps the dispersion closer at the crossover point.  I like to have that next crossover out of most of the vocal range if I can.
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