Which sounds better 2 way or 3 way speaker design

I also vote for a 2.5 way. I disagree with the statement the midrange needs to go to 80Hz since the common definition of midrange frequencies varies from the low end at 250Hz to 500 Hz and then anywhere from 1.2kHz to 4000 Hz or more at the higher end.  

The Wilson-Benesch Vector speakers run the midrange full range, a common feature of a 2.5 way, and design it to acoustically blend with/supplement the woofer, which is low-passed at 500Hz, and then hand off to the tweeter which is high-passed at 5000Hz. Both crossovers utilize a first order  design. All of these components are designed and manufactured  in house so there is exquisite control over the product. 

Thus, a single driver covers the entire midrange. There are many other excellent ways to preserve the integrity of the midrange, but this one works well and is elegant in its simplicity.

I said ~80 Hz for the bottom of the midrange because the idea is to keep at least the fundamentals of the human voice within one driver and there are those who can certainly sing lower than that.

tcutter

the Wilson beseech vectors are incredible...the bass driver the same size as the midrange with no cross over...no cross over. 

ALL 2 way have a hole in middle and are compromised !

Said only the inexperienced listeners. 

I’ve owned many 2-way monitors (totem model 1’s, totem mani II’s, totem arro’s, usher mini dancer II’s, to name a few) and they all had their drawbacks. Every one of them I used a pair of subwoofers (Rel) and there were drawbacks to this too, Rel recommends running the main speakers full range which puts a lot of strain on the smaller woofer. In case of the mani II’s, with the isobaric woofers inside, the speaker was so inefficient I was running them with 1000 watt monoblocks part of the time. So with subs, the sound was more full but at a cost.

With 3-way speakers, you normally have the right size tweeter with the appropriate size midrange spec’d together while designing the crossover to send the lower octaves to the woofers. These will play louder with less breakup/distortion. I know you can buy a 2-way/2.5-way with larger drivers but I’ve never liked anything over 6”/7” for the midrange, and some of the smaller 5” midrange in the Ushers sound fantastic.

I purchased a pair of the ESS speakers with the Heil AMT in them in the late 70’s.  If it wasn’t for the patent on them, you would have seen ma y more of them during the last 4 decades. 1 hell of a driver.