Sonic Differences Between 2-Way and 3-Way Speakers

The bass response of a given design is the easiest to psychoacoustically adjust for.In other words one won't miss it or pine for it's absence or whatever if the speaker is very good in all other frequencies.Thus for a profound cheepskate bargain hunter like myself I can get about 90% of the way there with a great one way or two way AND have money left over for cd's and or vinyl.My experience has been that around 2,500 dollars is all you need to spend on speakers and after that diminished returns kicks in.DIY folks can achieve even greater value in their systems performance.

My benchmark for my opinion on bass is always live unamplified music.Once you amplify all bets are off as it were so my psychoacoustic comment applies to live classical,live jazz,live anything.I dont like most recordings with deep bass because they sound inherently hi fi ish to me and thats not what my criteria is for a system.I am hampered to a degree because I work for the SEATTLE SYMPHONY and get to hear what real instrument sound like in real space(there are two halls, one is 2500 seats and one is more intimate at 500 seats)so my orientation lies there.I understand the strong opinions about extension to 30hz and yes it can be more complete sounding and there are magnificent three way designs but I always return to two way designs for critical listening,whether this is mere coincidence or something inherent in design isnt important to me but what is is the greater detail retrieval and lucidity if you will that I prefer with two way but it cuts two ways,I mean both ways depending on your priorities doesnt it? My reference 3A DECAPOS have only a capacitor to prevent the tweeter from toasting otherwise no crossover and that in itself is a reason why they trip my boat but the carbon fibre woofers full range and speed give the impression of deeper than its 42hz spec.I think we can all agree that there are some very talented speaker designers out there that we are the happy beneficiaries of!

Well said Twl...the immutable laws of physics trumps all.