Bookshelf : 2 way or 3 way?

[joyous]

3 way sounds good for me. 3 way have distinct woofer for lows. in 2 way, mid and low are shared with main driver. Not great in sound reproduction perspective.

But most manufacturers produce 2 way bookshelves. why?

What's your thoughts?

 

[mpw]

Simpler construction and cabinet. Many 2 way sound better than 3 way because of this.
Simpler crossover.

The price to product ratio would increase with good 3 way standmounts.

They would come closer in spec to floorstanders making marketing floorstanders difficult.

Mpw

 

[koushik]

One of the best speaker ever made is a humble 2-way design. Yes I am talking about B&W Matrix 805.

Speaker sounds good or bad because of its design and not on number of drivers. IMO.

 

[koushik]

To add to that, one can say that with a bigger dedicated bass driver the bass could be more but sounding better is all together a different thing.

 

[asliarun]

One of the best speaker ever made is a humble 2-way design. Yes I am talking about B&W Matrix 805.

Speaker sounds good or bad because of its design and not on number of drivers. IMO.

Oh how I love those speakers!

 

[corElement]

I prefer 2 way bookshelf speakers for music, 3 way floor standers for home theater.

 

[SatMumbai]

I would always go with a 3-way design to a 2-way design from the same manufacturer (Ex Kef R300 Vs R100)
3-Way offers better instrument separation and vocal clarity normally.
Of course, the reasons why a 2-way is produced more in bookshelf speakers are already mentioned by the other FMs.

 

[captrajesh]

3 way sounds good for me. 3 way have distinct woofer for lows. in 2 way, mid and low are shared with main driver. Not great in sound reproduction perspective.

But most manufacturers produce 2 way bookshelves. why?

From your post, it is appearing that you are giving more attention to the gear than sound. My humble suggestion is, try to concentrate on what is being played rather than bothering on what type of speakers are you hearing to and trying to correlate with what you know already.

Speaker sounds good or bad because of its design and not on number of drivers. IMO.

:thumbsup:

 

[joyous]

From your post, it is appearing that you are giving more attention to the gear than sound. My humble suggestion is, try to concentrate on what is being played rather than bothering on what type of speakers are you hearing to and trying to correlate with what you know already.

:thumbsup:

No importance to gear over sound. Never.

I just asked from a logical perspective.

I thought separate drivers may produce better sound than all in one drivers. I see more logic on it, just asked to know opinion of other fms from their experience to verify.

Discussions reveal the truth.

 

[omishra]

I thought separate drivers may produce better sound than all in one drivers. I see more logic on it, just asked to know opinion of other fms from their experience to verify.

Discussions reveal the truth.

Let me try with an example and some physics -

we listen 20-20KHz, (ideal condition for super human).
Your speaker (ideally should) reproduce that complete band with 3 drivers - D1(20-200), D2(200-2K) and D3(2K-20K).

Ideally at the boundary condition 200 (@D1,D2), 2K (@D2, D3) must be reproducing same 200 and 2K by both the drivers where they are cutting off. Cutoff is sharp at that point. But no, there is cross over which is cutting this points for each driver and bands for each driver. Nothing is ideal and there is some phase difference added at cutoff frequency in a way that both drivers produce same frequency with different phase and amplitude. Also cutoff is downward and upward slopes crossing at cutoff point. Now you can imaging what is happening to these cutoff points.

For simple reason - 2W has one cutoff to deal while 3W has two. Now it comes design and implementation costs to minimize these ill effects. Otherwise 2W is less chaos and 3W is more chaos. To escape you enter into implementation of 1st order and 2nd order so on ...

 

[joyous]

Let me try with an example and some physics -

we listen 20-20KHz, (ideal condition for super human).
Your speaker (ideally should) reproduce that complete band with 3 drivers - D1(20-200), D2(200-2K) and D3(2K-20K).

Ideally at the boundary condition 200 (@D1,D2), 2K (@D2, D3) must be reproducing same 200 and 2K by both the drivers where they are cutting off. Cutoff is sharp at that point. But no, there is cross over which is cutting this points for each driver and bands for each driver. Nothing is ideal and there is some phase difference added at cutoff frequency in a way that both drivers produce same frequency with different phase and amplitude. Also cutoff is downward and upward slopes crossing at cutoff point. Now you can imaging what is happening to these cutoff points.

For simple reason - 2W has one cutoff to deal while 3W has two. Now it comes design and implementation costs to minimize these ill effects. Otherwise 2W is less chaos and 3W is more chaos. To escape you enter into implementation of 1st order and 2nd order so on ...

I guess you know something about speaker design. So asking few questions.

Why should both drivers produce same frequency with different phase and amplitude, rather than dealing with their own frequency? And where those tiny Xovers get current to add it to existing signal?

 

[omishra]

I guess you know something about speaker design. So asking few questions.

Why should both drivers produce same frequency with different phase and amplitude, rather than dealing with their own frequency? And where those tiny Xovers get current to add it to existing signal?

Thanks! I am learner and there are masters present here.

See below pic from Linkwitz While one driver before crossing cutoff point will responding beyond that point too. Same for next driver which start responding before its cutoff and this both create overlapped response area with different amplitude.

At certain point in overlapped region, both drivers have same frequency from different filter of crossover - low pass or high pass. These low-hi pass are built with LRC which changes phase for different leg of crossover for particular driver.

 

[Audio_Freek]

3 way are the best for Music IMHO, But due to space issue i would go with 2way anyways.

3 way with better crossover can sound sweet. Apart from general thoughts on 2 way and 3way soundings, I feel its about the type of music which you listen to "For classical" and instrumental 3 way wins the range for with good dynamics.For normal tracks 2 way seems fine for me.

Overlapping of Freq would occur in 3 way but not in 2 way, which adds more color for music.

 

[asliarun]

Thanks! I am learner and there are masters present here.

See below pic from Linkwitz While one driver before crossing cutoff point will responding beyond that point too. Same for next driver which start responding before its cutoff and this both create overlapped response area with different amplitude.

At certain point in overlapped region, both drivers have same frequency from different filter of crossover - low pass or high pass. These low-hi pass are built with LRC which changes phase for different leg of crossover for particular driver.

OMishra, if we had 2 drivers (good quality) that are fairly linear with sharp cutoffs, and if the bass driver was significantly more sensitive than the tweeter or wideband (fullrange) driver, can't we cover the full range with those two drivers without requiring a crossover and also avoiding the dips? It would require careful matching of good quality drivers, but can't it be done?

I ask because I've seen a couple of DIY designs like this. One I saw paired a Fostex driver in a small open-baffle configuration with a large sensitive bass driver (forgot the make) in a sealed sub. There was no crossover needed because the Fostex dropped off where the bass picked up.

Just a thought. Wouldn't this be a simple but good design?

Edit: I hope I am not taking this thread offtopic. If so, please let me know and I will delete this comment.

 

[omishra]

OMishra, if we had 2 drivers (good quality) that are fairly linear with sharp cutoffs, and if the bass driver was significantly more sensitive than the tweeter or wideband (fullrange) driver, can't we cover the full range with those two drivers without requiring a crossover and also avoiding the dips? It would require careful matching of good quality drivers, but can't it be done?

I ask because I've seen a couple of DIY designs like this. One I saw paired a Fostex driver in a small open-baffle configuration with a large sensitive bass driver (forgot the make) in a sealed sub. There was no crossover needed because the Fostex dropped off where the bass picked up.

Just a thought. Wouldn't this be a simple but good design?

Edit: I hope I am not taking this thread offtopic. If so, please let me know and I will delete this comment.

That's possible. In fact I used same things before laying hands on good crossovers.
I can see one benefit, no phase difference from driver cones in absence of cross over. But it has one bad and considerable effect - changing impedance and efficiency. One driver will respond to LF and other to HF. But input is shared within them directly. That will lower the impedance and unnecessary current pulling will happen as drivers DCR and voice coil reactance are still in connection at all time.

For that purpose simple first order crossover will do help. Simple inline capacitor for cutoff below one octave of tweeter and inductor at one octave above woofers cutoff make that. In fact I am using same now with local Bolton driver within 2W BS. I don't have data about drivers but 10.5 liter volume helped with 2.5KHz cutoff. Makes amps life easy driving them. It sounds good to the price but not near to designs like GRR kits.