Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Two-Way vs. Three-Way Speakers

A general question.

Are three-way speakers better sounding than two-way speakers?

I realize that the price point may differ. But, will a three-way speaker produce sound frequency that a two-way cannot reproduce.

Regards

I'm no expert but what I know about sound reproduction says that more drivers you have in your system, the more accurate the reproduction will be. One cannot expect a single driver, say a mid-range for example, to be able to move fast enough to generate a wave sufficient to generate higher frequencies (10-15 kHz or higher) than a dedicated tweeter would. Most manufacturers of successful systems typically have three or more (tweeter, mid, woofer) plus if you throw in a Sub, you've added a fourth. I upgraded from a two way Abstract Acoustics 2.1 set that I thought sounded very good, to the M60Ti which sounds amazing. Especially when I did A/B tests, the difference was phenominal.

I would say that a good 2-way speaker will sound better than a bad 3-way speaker, but all other things being equal, with a specialized midrange driver, a 3 way design would be superior because of improved midrange reproduction.

And, as all men know, there's nothing better than a good 3-way! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Mark

Officially: Shame on you, Mark

Off the record: ROTFLMAO! I love the surprise of an unexpected double-entendre!

That's a hard remark to follow... don't know as discussion about mere drivers can compare.

But I'm pretty sure, for instance, if the M3ti was had an extra M2ti woofer in it,

- It'd be of a slightly lower impedence
- it'd be slightly more efficient
but, moving into sound quality,
- if the crossover engineering was done well, it'd have a smoother frequency response, especially in the upper-midrange (more evident at lounder levels)
- theoretically it'd have a better low-end response, as mid-range stress would be taken off the bottom woofer

However, if you really wanted to you could make a sub woofer reproduce up to 20khz (it'd take a whole lot of power, and you'd run into .... problems, but it's possible). It could be that the benefits I've stated would be fairly trivial for the M23- not enough to justify the increased manufacturing cost. *But* they would be there in some quantity.

M23!! M23!!

I would probably agree with you on the first assessment.

On the second one....it's a tough call. In this instance, a two-way will allow concentrated energy for more focused enjoyment. A three-way would spread out the energy much more; just the opposite of a speaker.

I would leave it at that before the decency police catches up with me.

Cheers

There are too many factors to even begin answering such a question.

I had posted a question awhile back pondering the idea of a M22 with replacing one 5.25" for the M3 6.5" driver. This still makes me wonder how it would sound. Better, worse or not enough change for the extra cash.