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Is the ideal multi-way a 3-way with limited bass?

Hear me out here.

3 way speakers with the traditional large woofer benefit from high bass output, and improved midrange clarity due to the lack of Doppler distortion affecting the mids, but with a lot of modest listening areas the big woofer can also be detrimental.  They produce too much bass, which together with room gain and room modes causes flabby and exaggerated bass.
So, lacking ARC or EQ capabilities perhaps the best compromise for the purist is to have a big woofer 3-way but with a limited -3 dB point, say 45 Hz or so.


erik_squires

Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,105 posts
 
There's something to be said for huge woofers and not making them dig too deep would be easier to drive
I certainly don't find this to be the case! My speakers are 98dB, 16 ohms and are flat at 20Hz owing to dual 15" TAD woofers. 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,105 posts
 
I've been advocating something like this for a while, since really there isn't much point to making a speaker go down to 20Hz since standing waves 'stand' a good chance of causing the bass to not be right at the listening chair.


A Distributed Bass Array (like the Swarm from audiokinesis.com) can take make the deep bass and break up standing waves. As long as the speaker can make it below about 60Hz or so and the DBA set up to not go above 80Hz, the main speakers will convince you that the bass notes are coming from in front of you and there won't be any bass problems, right down to 20Hz (at least in the case of the Swarm). The only issue I see that could be a problem is out-of-band bass messing with the woofer in the main speaker. But otherwise you should be able to put something together that would rival a speaker that costs in 5 or 6 figures unless your room was enormous.
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