No, not necessarily.
A 2-1/2 way just means that there are two woofers that are allowed to play all the way to their "bottoms" (i.e., no high-pass filter) and are low-passed at different frequencies.
My 2-1/2 way Mermans use a JBL 18" and a JBL 9.7" and neither uses a high-pass filter. The 18" crosses over at 310 Hz with a second order Butterworth and the 9.7" crosses over at 3,500 Hz to the Heil AMT, also with a second order Butterworth. The 9.7 has a natural roll-off from ~300 Hz down and is rated at 400 watts RMS and I see no reason to "taint" it's sound by filtering it through a capacitor.
On my Super Big Reds, also a 2-1/2 way, the 15" Utahs have a slow roll off (first order?) from (IIRC) ~100 Hz and the 15" Altec 604E2 crosses over to the horn at 1,500 Hz.
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My understanding is that a 2 1/2 way runs the middle speaker full range (at least it does in the Wilson Benesch world). The woofer receives a low pass signal and the tweeter a high pass signal from the crossover, but the midrange is direct coupled to the amplifier and is not connected to the crossover. Theory being there is a purity of sound associated with eliminating the crossover component. The crossover points in my speaker are 5 kHz and 500 Hz, with the midrange acoustically rolling off to blend with the other drivers.
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The problem with questions like these is that not all 2-ways and 3-ways are created equal. There are high end 2 and 2.5-way speakers that can do everything better than 3-ways employing lower quality parts and materials.
Some 2-ways like the aforementioned Fritz speakers can sound more refined and play nearly as loud, or even louder, than many of the common $5000/pair 3-way from the likes of Revel, KEF and Paradigm.
IMHO, most 3-way designs, especially those under $10K/pair, don’t actually capitalize on the theoretical advantages of the design. Perhaps some of the newer value leaders from Arendal actually do, but then I wouldn’t be surprised if speakers like the 2-way JBL 4367s perform better subjectively.
The more experience I gain with DIY modding and building of speakers, the more I am becoming convinced that a speaker’s driver quality is what matters most. I would take a 2 or 2.5-way with some properly implemented Satori Textreme drivers over nearly any 3-way I’ve heard from the major manufacturers.
A speaker like this will slaughter many/most 3-ways under $10K/pair:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/2-way-speaker-kits/satori-helios-textreme-9.5-2-way-speaker-kit-pair/
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Wow. East vs. West coast sound is the answer to JBL ve Fritz. 2 or 3 way have nothing to do with it.
A 3 way, properly executed, may have better off axis and dynamic range.
The problems all 2 ways suffer from include having to stress the tweeter by attempting too low a crossover point
At the same time the mid woofer starts to beam at the top of the range.
I just built a 3 way center and the dynamic range and off axis response is outstanding.
Having said all that, there are many good 2 way speakers and for my money Fritz is among the very best. Would you like it more or less than a JBL classic? You should listen.
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@grislybutter
I am with you! The corollary is that if a two-way speaker and a three-way speaker are the same price, it is London to a brick that the two-way will sound better.
It is equally disturbing that given the choice, most buyers will go for the 3-way as they seem to be getting more for the money.
A case of less really being more!
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@yogiboy smart people told me this who knew about speaker design. I believe them :P
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" it’s cheaper to build a good 2 way speaker than a good 3 way "
I beg to differ with that statement!
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it's cheaper to build a good 2 way speaker than a good 3 way. So, it's all about your budget.
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I like 2.5 way designs and have a few including the "Mermans" that I developed (JBL 2241H 18", JBL 2251J 9.7", modified Heil AMT) and the Super Big Reds with the Altec 604-E2s/Utahs.
Mermans:
The JBL 4435 is also a 2.5 way design.
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Sometimes things just aren’t what they appear to be! N-way refers to the number of ways the frequency spectrum is divided before being fed to a driver complement. It does not directly relate to the number of actual drivers.
Take KEF for example. Most of their speakers include two drivers mounted concentrically. The tweeter sits in the middle of the mid-range driver and to the casual observer the assembly looks like just one driver. But there is a crossover where the higher frequencies are sent to the tweeter and the lower frequencies go to the mid-range.
The very popular LS50 is an example. Now move up to the much more expensive Reference series. In addition to a concentric tweeter / midrange assembly, separate woofers look after lower frequencies. There are 3-way designs that look like two-way ones (the Reference 1). Move up again, and the Reference 3 has two woofers so it is a 3-way that actually looks like a 3-way, even though the two outer drivers are fed the same signal. The Reference 5 uses four woofers, so I guess it could look like a 5-way although it is really a 3-way.
Crossovers are tricky. They cannot have a sharp switchover of frequencies, so in the crossover region, some signal is fed both ways. Two drivers have less impedance than one, so more current flows in the crossover region. Amplifiers have to work harder to produce this current, giving some speakers the reputation of being hard to drive.
Two separated drivers playing the same frequency produce waveforms that interfere (reinforce and cancel) as you move off-axis. Concentric drivers were invented to eliminate this effect, known as comb filtering.
Ideally there would be no crossovers and a single driver. The laws of physics make this impossible for conventional dynamic drivers - those with big magnets, and cones driven by electric coils. To get good bass, the driver needs to move a lot of air, so it needs to be big. Big cones cannot move fast enough to produce higher frequencies without the cone going into nasty bending modes known as breakup. Hence the use of specialised drivers and crossovers.
Move to different technologies, such as electrostatics, and audio nirvana may await - full frequency range with no crossovers.
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For those who thought I was joking about the "2 1/2 way" design, it is a real thing.
Essentially, a 2-way with an active woofer added for bass extension. The mid/woofer is allowed to naturally play down as low as it can (no high pass filter). And a low-passed woofer adds more low bass energy.
Several models of well-known brands had 2 1/2 ways in their lineup.
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...don't be nasty 'bout Bose....they might decide that the market for Macs' is too small to be maintained within market churn.....😏
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Bring Other Sound Equipment.
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And then there was the Bose 901. No way.
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No highs, no lows - must be Bose.
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Up until recently, the best overall loudspeaker I have owned were a pair of Eclipse TD712z Mk Is. They use one very special driver in a very special enclosure. No crossover. Direct connection to the music. They are surprisingly good at moderate levels and lack only a small amount of high treble and deep bass. The imaging and soundstage are amazingly accurate—sometimes too much so. I owned five-way, four-way, three-way, and two-way speakers that only did one thing better than the TD712s. But my latest speaker is a three-way with four drivers. It is a very, very good three-way, the TAD Evolution One. It is better than any speaker I have owned and on par with many other configurations of loudspeaker.
My conclusion: The number of drivers and crossover design is less important than their execution in the speaker.
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And then there was the Bose 901. No way.
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@OP the term 'way' refers to how the frequency range is split. For the most part this will equate to the number of drivers used in the design. In a classic three way speaker, the drivers will cover the bass, midrange and treble. In a two way, the drivers will cover the bass and midrange - one driver, and the treble - the second driver. However, there are variations. For example, some of the classic BBC designs were three ways where the frequency range involved the use of a midbass unit, tweeter and supertweeter. However - this still involved three drive units.
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I thought it had to do with crossover design. ie The crossover is cut into three sections and therefore you can feed the three individualized signals to as many drivers you want. This is a three-way I guess
To say how many drivers a speaker has doesn’t necessarily mean whether it’s a two-way three-way or four-way.
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Sound advice from jrareform. I’m old enough to have owned and sold all the driver perturbations. It’s not intuitive. For example my flagship model Voxativ single driver speakers were faster and more precise than Zu flagship 3 way model (with built in separate bass unit — so maybe 4 way). Audition them as best you can.
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Whether a design is two way or three way won't tell you a whole lot about its capabilities. Some people even swear by a single driver design (although I have yet to hear any of the exotic examples of them). As most audiophiles will tell you, listening to a speaker in YOUR room with YOUR components is the only true way to see if a speaker is to your liking. There are subjective measurements like tonal accuracy and dispersion patterns, but only your ears will tell you what works well in your setup. I personally love the three and four way designs by Tekton Design because the concentric tweeter arrangement handles different frequencies within the mid and upper mids. I own the double impacts and impact monitors.
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A 2 way speaker has a bigger physical demand put upon the 2 drivers of a tweeter/mid bass. Think about this...those 2 drivers have to make ALL the sounds!
The load is reduced when you divide the frequency and add a speaker to handle just the mid-range and a speaker for just the deep sub bass. The mid-base driver isn't jumping around as much trying to reproduce everything when the load has been greatly reduced by adding a dedicated mid-range and a sub-bass driver.
The same reason why a subwoofer is designed to handle ONLY the deep bass. With the addition of a high pass filter the mid-bass driver can breath easier and has much less movement to the cone surface. Less distortion is the goal.
4 way speaker... is a tweeter/midrange/midbass then add a subwoofer.
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Then there’s the 2 1/2 way …
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this ’speakerchoices’ link has cool diagrams that give you clues, you can sort by any column, put in limits ...
https://speakerchoices.com/index.html
number of drivers does not tell you the whole story, here’s
a 2 way with 3 drivers
https://amphion.fi/products/helium520/#specifications
a 3 way with 5 drivers
https://www.aperionaudio.com/products/verus-v8t-tower-speaker
the crossover which divides the frequencies, and sends only some frequencies to specific drivers is the determinant regarding 2 way, 3 way,
sometimes a single diaphragm will work with two horns like this
https://products.electrovoice.com/binary/847A%20EDS.pdf
thus a 3 way crossover becomes a 4 way speaker
Tekton V12 is a 4 way with 25 drivers
https://tektondesign.com/product/full-range-speakers/flagship/1812-model-v12/#color
also, you used the word bookshelf, caution, there are very few speakers designed shallow enough to fit a shelf (11-1/2" deep max let’s say), and many have rear vent(s)/port(s) which won’t work in a bookcase.
My Office AR-2ax are 3 way, and true bookcase size, no ports, wire terminals recessed within the 11-1/2 depth, even the rear mounted level controls for the mid and tweeter are recessed. Compact 3 way Bookshelf with 10" woofer. AR-2ax grilles were not designed for easy frequent removal.
KLH Model 5’s, re-introduced, compact stand mounted 3 way, also 10" woofer, are 13" deep, too deep for a bookshelf, they have a single rear mounted level control
JBL L100’s have easily removable grilles and front mounted level controls, a much easier arrangement for adjusting them in place while playing. 12" woofer, too deep for a bookcase
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It is easier to have a coherent sound with two drivers. Simpler crossover. More drivers equates to more power handling and louder output.
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