Having jumped into a two channel system head first I took the advice of some very experienced audio experts and went with what I felt were the speakers with the fewest crossover/phase issues that would deliver the audio signal across the entire frequency range.
As Tim has stated, there are ways to bring drivers back into phase and the really good speaker manufacturers do this with aplomb, I'm sure. But you still have notches in critical areas of the frequency response as well as crossover inefficiency and IM distortion as the crossovers heat up.
Active crossovers that sit outside the speaker and are placed between the preamp and the amps with the amps wired directly to the drivers had some appeal and serve as answers to the above problems, but all in all the simple full range driver with first order crossovers to the tweeters and built in subs had appeal in many facets. Coherence in a speaker is a pretty strong quality.
JMO, but any move toward straight wire with gain is a plus. Full range drivers have their issues as well but phase/polarity isn't one of them. Actually the immediacy of the sound is startling at first, becomes endearing with time.
As Tim has stated, there are ways to bring drivers back into phase and the really good speaker manufacturers do this with aplomb, I'm sure. But you still have notches in critical areas of the frequency response as well as crossover inefficiency and IM distortion as the crossovers heat up.
Active crossovers that sit outside the speaker and are placed between the preamp and the amps with the amps wired directly to the drivers had some appeal and serve as answers to the above problems, but all in all the simple full range driver with first order crossovers to the tweeters and built in subs had appeal in many facets. Coherence in a speaker is a pretty strong quality.
JMO, but any move toward straight wire with gain is a plus. Full range drivers have their issues as well but phase/polarity isn't one of them. Actually the immediacy of the sound is startling at first, becomes endearing with time.