2-ways that are close to 3-ways

you might want to think about audio note speakers. there are several available used now.

there are a pair of audes blues on agon for under a grand. these are up to around 4k new(still a value), and they are pretty easy to drive. the audes, like the coincidents are classic balanced sound from top to bottom, and though they're not the flavor of the month , are real keepers. an overlooked music lovers speaker, and a 3 way.

Jaybo - thanks. I do love both of my 2-way TL bookshelf size speakers. Just wish that I could get closer to the fuller sound of the Chorus II's without the size.

It may just require trying one of the recommended speakers: Coincident, Sonist, or Vandersteen.

Thanks again to all for your helpful advice and comments.

you have 3 solid speakers.

Shoulda been "Vman71"... sorry 'bout that.

Drew, just for the record, some of my two-ways go down into the lower 30's... but I think they're physically a whole lot bigger than what Vinman71 has in mind; there's certainly no size reduction from them being two-ways instead of three-ways.

You're absolutely correct about my matching up the polar patterns in the crossover region.

Duke

One practical solution is two-ways plus unobtrusively sized sub-woofers, like the Linkwitz Pluto+ system I run in my bedroom including its pair of 14x14x10.75" high sub-woofers. When such woofers are equalized for low frequency extension you need to watch for thermal compression at low frequencies but this is not a big issue on music (versus home theater) due to the limited power in the last octave. The other is a 3-way speaker system you don't have to move, perhaps with wave guides to limit front-wall reflections.

I've never heard a 2-way which produced both good midrange and bass.

The issue is that with conventional dome and ribbon tweeters you need the midrange driver(s) to be acoustically small approaching the tweeter cross-over point to maintain monotonically increasing directivity, small drivers need to move farther to provide a given displacement, displacement requirements for a given volume quadruple with each lower octave, and both IM and harmonic distortion increase with displacement.

One compromise is reasonable sized mid-range drivers that do fine at low volumes and without bass on things like jazz vocalists but distort both bass and midrange once low frequencies are present at moderate volumes. Ports and transmission lines provide additional low end extension at given excursion limits but aren't enough, and leakage from ports can degrade midrange performance.

The other is large mid-bass drivers that have the displacement for bass but are acoustically large which produces an unnatural sounding power response dip in the midrange. This is especially bad where the speaker designer fails to use an extra beefy tweeter (1" + dome with long throw like .5mm xmax) which can accommodate a low (1.5KHz) cross-over point.

The Earl Geddes (gedlee) / Duke LeJune (audiokinesis) approach to speaker design mates a wave guide which limits high frequency dispersion to a large midrange with similar polar response (perhaps matching -6dB angles). That might get you midrange and bass but those speakers aren't built to have bass below 80Hz; presumably due to efficiency (Hoffman's iron law dictates that enclosures must grow 8X to maintain the same efficiency one octave lower) and quality (distributed bass from separate enclosures produces more uniform frequency response, especially over a seating area).

Merlin VSM-MXe two-ways that are +/-2db down to 33Hz-22Hz with BAM bass module. I don't think the 13 watt SET, however, is not going to do it. You need 20-30 watts or so minimum, preferably tube power.

Jax2 – I too am a big fan of the SET + horns. I really wanted to buy the Galante’s that are listed on A’gon right now but couldn’t afford them unless I sold a couple of things. Your insight as to options is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

Thanks to the other members as well for your recommendations as potential options.

Vandersteen 1C

12 Watt would be enough for the Devore Super 9s which have a nice impedance curve for tube amps and a really small footprint.

Take a look at Sonist. Good Luck

Coincident Speakers. Almost as efficient as Klipsch but not as big or fatiguing.
You could always go the Lowther route?

Your limiting factor, as you probably know, is that SET amp which requires very sensitive speakers. I'm a big fan of SET + Horn sound, so naturally I'd push for your Klipsch combo there. Other than that, with the SET limitation, I liked the concentric driver Galante speakers which are no longer made, but available here once in a while. The Rhapsody, Symphony and Buckingham are the three models. The smaller Rhapsody may not get you as much fullness as the other two, unfortunately larger models. I don't know, that you are going to get that kind of "fullness" without volume of enclosure and size of driver (or number of drivers displacing air). Good question though. There are certainly a few sensitive monitor speakers like Reference 3a, but they will be limited by their size. There's all kinds of exotic single-driver solutions, but in my experience none of those gives you the fullness of a 3-way floorstander. They do other things really well, but fullness and low-end extension are not among them.