3 way vs. 2 way

Utter nonsense a two way or a three way will vary in quality and quantity. The fact is I played them both in a closet of a bedroom as a teenager 30 years ago, it was fine. I had the JBL Signature C36s a two way vintage 1959 a compression driven bullet horn AKA the 075 and the long lived extended range 15" woofer mid the d-130 which were used by the dead as their wall of sound and then by the Dave Mathews band. They are exquisitely sensitive despite the rated values of 101db /M/W. What are you nuts Mechans that is extremely sensitive. Yes that is true but I swear they are louder given the same juice than my La Scalas which are rated at 104 db. The other speakers were Klipsch Heresy a 3 way horn 12" woofer. I can't tell you how they compared since I had 2 speaker taps on my Kenwood KA-7100. Using the more is better mentality. The room was so small that I actually had them up on a big shelf near the ceiling. So the answer is... place your speakers such that they are no more the 1' from the cieling. Using this placement will eliminate the "correct" # of drivers. By the way the dumb old idiots found that bass required so much energy that you will not hear it at low volumes so they invented the loudness switch. Heresy I should be banned from audiophooldum.

I swear they are louder given the same juice than my La Scalas which are rated at 104 db.

You are probably correct. The majority of audiophiles assume that efficiency equates to absolute loundness...it doesn't. Some high quality speaker drivers do not compress at higher volumes whilst cheaper drivers do...it is compression that limits loudness (thermal heating of the coils and when driven past a limited Xmax). Most speaker drivers use the long coil in a short gap which is cheap and robust - however, this design severely limits their volume potential and dynamics.

You need at least 3 ways to have sufficient displacement for bass reproduction without compromising speaker directivity at higher frequencies.

Drivers like Mangers and full-range units with whizzer cones count as 2-ways, where the cross-over between the two is mechanical instead of electrical.

A horn couples the air in the throat to the air at the mouth so linear displacement is the same at both ends; in effect providing MUCH more surface area. A full-range whizzer-coned driver in a back-loaded horn is a 3-way.

A 2-way stand-mounted monitor plus a sub-woofer is a 3-way with independant placement for the bass-unit.

This is orthagonal to what the best compromises are once you limit price - more lower quality drivers, reduced output limits, missing the last two octaves (your brain does a reasonable job filling in the fundamental from harmonics)...

I think that absent the lowest octave, my Merlin VSM-MXe provide the coherency of two-ways, with the bass extension, dynamics, and loudness (105db peaks) of most three-ways, down 3db at 33Hz. Of course this is done with bass EQ (BAM), but from 40 Hz up this is my favourite speaker, and the bass is satisfying for 95% of the music I would ever listen to. A different approach to dealing with the tradeoff and compromises required when choosing to go 2-way or 3-way.

In theory, there is no way that 2 drivers can cover a frequency range of 20Hz to 25000Hz as well as three drivers can. This of course assumes that everything else is equal such as, driver quality, proper crossover design, prober box design, etc.

If you build your own speakers, three ways also give you much more flexability to balance your sound to suit your particular taste. For example, I have adjustable L-pads on my mids and tweets so that I can bring the mids or highs up or down to achieve the sound that I desire. My woofs cover 20-500 Hz, my mids cover 500-5000Hz, and my tweets cover 5000-25000Hz

HG