Which sounds better 2 way or 3 way speaker design

It would seem crossover design is really important to a three-way. I guess if one was to ask this question with the assumption that if you had a three-way versus two way which would be better assuming crossover designs are not part of the evaluation process because they are assumed perfect for each situation.

It would seem to me if this was the case the three-way would be advantageous.

And of course assuming driver and cabinet designs are not impacting the decision either. I think it’s a theoretical question and to me if you separate out the mid range and not have it intermingle with other spectrums that may offer interference it would be better to have a third segment of frequency range and create a situation where more detail is better.

I’ve encountered many 2-ways that outperform many 3-ways. It really depends on implementation.

I’d rather own a 2-way design with top quality drivers than a 3-way design with mediocre drivers.

2 ways with well integrated sub can sound really good. They don’t go that loud without being crossed over if bass heavy music. 

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.