2-way design vs. 3-way design means ?


Just curious as to the sound difference between two-way and three-way, obviously a missing element on the two-way of the mid range. I own a three-way Cornwall and I’m thinking of going to one of these heavier and more substantial, build, quality, thicker walled bookshelf speakers.

I guess every speaker sounds different to every different human ear that listens …and it may be difficult to explain in terms of the sound. Obviously, a two-way speaker only has two drivers and possibly different interior components?

Like… what is the difference between a Fritz and a JBL century L 100?

128x128moose89

Whether a design is two way or three way won't tell you a whole lot about its capabilities.  Some people even swear by a single driver design (although I have yet to hear any of the exotic examples of them).  As most audiophiles will tell you, listening to a speaker in YOUR room with YOUR components is the only true way to see if a speaker is to your liking.  There are subjective measurements like tonal accuracy and dispersion patterns, but only your ears will tell you what works well in your setup.  I personally love the three and four way designs by Tekton Design because the concentric tweeter arrangement handles different frequencies within the mid and upper mids.  I own the double impacts and impact monitors. 

Sound advice from jrareform. I’m old enough to have owned and sold all the driver perturbations. It’s not intuitive. For example my flagship model Voxativ single driver speakers were faster and more precise than Zu flagship 3 way model (with built in separate bass unit — so maybe 4 way). Audition them as best you can.

I thought it had to do with crossover design. ie  The crossover is cut into three sections and therefore you can feed the three individualized signals to as many drivers you want. This is a three-way I guess

To say how many drivers a speaker has doesn’t necessarily mean whether it’s a two-way three-way or four-way.

 

@OP the term 'way' refers to how the frequency range is split. For the most part this will equate to the number of drivers used in the design. In a classic three way speaker, the drivers will cover the bass, midrange and treble. In a two way, the drivers will cover the bass and midrange - one driver, and the treble - the second driver. However, there are variations. For example, some of the classic BBC designs were three ways where the frequency range involved the use of a midbass unit, tweeter and supertweeter. However - this still involved three drive units.