Crossover type for Stereo Speakers - 1.5 or 2.5 or 3 way?

[john_k_antony]

Dear All,

Does the cross over type matter when it comes to stereo speakers? The options we have are 2.5 vs 3 way and also a rare option of 1.5 way cross over.

coreElement advised me to go for the speaker with minimum cross over and a full range driver setup for stereo. Does this mean 2.5 way is better than 3 way for stereo?

3-way speakers are more expensive than 2.5 way from the same brand.

Thanks,
John.

 

[corElement]

Hmm, this is quite a broad question but the best way to describe it is this:

In theory, the lesser number of things you have in the pathway of the sound, the truer it will be to the source you're playing it from.

In full range speakers the signal can be fed directly to the driver. However full range drivers are difficult to make, use much stronger magnets and just like any other driver has their own issues.

Now if you step away from full range speakers and look at multiway speakers, here the crossovers are CRITICAL components that heavily determine the outcome of the sound.

You can have very very expensive drivers but if the crossover uses poor components or is poorly designed, the very expensive drivers will basically sound like garbage.

As for 1.5 way 2 way 2.5 way or 3 way or even 4 5 6 way, the more drivers you add, the risk of sound going further and further away from the pure signal becomes an issue.

This is why a crossover must be well designed and should influence the sound as minimum as possible and use high quality components to retain the pure signal quality once it divides the sound and sends it to the assigned drivers.

The best crossover is no crossover. Thats why full range speakers appeal to a lot of people. Does not mean all multiway speakers are bad though, just that the crossover has to be well designed and use good quality components. Otherwise multi range speaker production would have stopped ages ago.

Your Kef IQ7 is a good example of a crossover that has overly suppressed the lower frequencies.

 

[john_k_antony]

Hmm, this is quite a broad question but the best way to describe it this.

In theory, the lesser number of things you have in the pathway of the sound, the truer it will be to the source you're playing it from.

In full range speakers the signal can be fed directly to the driver. However full range drivers are difficult to make, use much stronger magnets and just like any other driver has their own issues.

Now if you step away from full range speakers and look at multiway speakers, here the crossovers are CRITICAL components that heavily determine the outcome of the sound.

You can have very very expensive drivers but if the crossover uses poor components or is poorly designed, the very expensive drivers will basically sound like garbage.

As for 1.5 way 2 way 2.5 way or 3 way or even 4 5 6 way, the more drivers you add, the risk of sound going further and further away from the pure signal becomes an issue.

This is why a crossover must be well designed and should influence the sound as minimum as possible and use high quality components to retain the pure signal quality once it divides the sound and sends it to the assigned drivers.

The best crossover is no crossover. Thats why full range speakers appeal to a lot of people.

Wow. Thanks for the details. So you mean to say that if some one has designed a 2.5 way cross over better, then that system should sound as good as a similarly designed 3-way system? I read somewhere that a good 3-way system is better than a good 2.5 way system as in 2.5 way you sometimes over burden the mid range driver to produce low frequencies that it should not supposed to!. I may be completely wrong with the information here. I thought I read something like this somewhere.

OT : You know what.. I still love those antic speaker boxes with 4-5 drivers in them. With a huge Bass driver and couple of mid rangers and couple of cute looking tweeters .

-John.

 

[john_k_antony]

Your Kef IQ7 is a good example of a crossover that has overly suppressed the lower frequencies.

Did they do it to get the Highs and Mids exaggerated?

 

[corElement]

It depends on the quality of the components and the design of the crossover, theres all sorts of crossovers, parallel crossovers, serial crossovers, each component in a crossover dramatically influences the quality of the sound output.

There is no hard and fast rule that 2.5 is better than 3 way or 2 way is better than 3 way. It's an overall result dependant entirely on the quality of the drivers, internal wires, crossover components, crossover design, binding posts on each speaker.

For example the bookshelf speakers in my signature and other bookshelf speakers on the forum used by members and speakers like thiel 1.6 are all 2 way and very expensive, why 2 way when you have 2.5 & 3 way.

The reason is they're just different types of configurations, you have to hear them and decide which configuration / sound signature you like more.

Did they do it to get the Highs and Mids exaggerated?

It's possible, but one can only speculate why, so I cant say. I know my Jamo e875 suffers the same issue however has excellent VFM midrange and highs. Though i didnt know 1/5th the things I do now. I would probably go for a Lyrita harmony one with a Lyrita tube amp if I had the option to dump my present setup for a new one under 70k. But that's just my preference, you're free to make your own.

 

[john_k_antony]

How about the Lyrita Amity?

6" full-range,
12" bass,
8 ohm
Sensitivity 95 dB, at 1 watt

Paired with Lync Preamplifier
&
845 SET
Single ended integrated amplifier
15 watts/channel

Sweet deal ? :licklips:

How much do you think the above setup will cost me ?

BTW, have you got a chance to hear Lyrita setup? Do you think its worth a trip to Delhi from Bangalore to listen to Zu and Lyrita ?

-John.

 

[corElement]

I don't think it makes sense coming to Delhi just for auditioning stuff.
Not to mention bringing them back would be a big hassle. Especially an amity one as it's huge.
In the future service would be an issue if something went wrong in the transport and if you ever needed spare parts,
youd have to arrange for parts to come across the country.

You've auditioned and liked the Jamo concert series so you should look at those first in Bangalore itself,
The c607, c803, c805, c807, don't worry about the crossovers as the concert series is a premium line.
Jamo pairs very nicely with Cambridge audio and marantz.

The c803 will pair well with marantz sound signature
(My recommendation for you as it's 2way, compact and less expensive than c805 c807 and has more controlled-punchy accurate bass instead of extended-linear bass floorstanders have. Only two drivers would be getting all the power instead of 3-4 drivers running off the same amount of power from the amp.)

The c607 pairs well with cambridge audio azur 840a
The c805 and c807 would pair well with a marantz stereo amp with high wattage.
The c809 would be out of your budget and a power hungry monster so ignore that one.

If you ever decide to get ZU essence in the future like your boss, Jamo's resale value is very high so you can sell it off very easily at that point.

 

[Sumanta]

Crossovers are there to feed drivers correctly. Like feeding a baby with breast milk and a boy with sandwich.
Any crossover is crrect if it feeds correctly.

You are in Bengaloru, to me the heaven in India for sound hobby. There are so many HFV friends there to have auditions, so many shops to hear and so many options to do DIY.

With your expense for to and fro Delhi, one can make a stereo speaker set and buy a roadside amplifier to start (I have consider 6K for to and from Delhi). This is just a bare comparison of extreme utilities of money.

 

[corElement]

Exactly what Sumanta said!

 

[Sumanta]

John,
I think my last post was incomplete.

Any cross over should feed the frequency range that a driver is comfortable with.
Hence speaker designers choose drivers first with some basic cross over type and number in mind.

Yes, more crossover generally means more problems and complexity in design. So, for a DIYer, simpler way is to let a good driver handle critical frequency range (to me it is 300Hz to 4kHz) and then decide whether to go for additional driver for lower and higher frequencies or NOT.
Some designer choose lower friequencies too to be driven by the same widebander driver and add a tweeter for the high friequencies. So, the designer add a crossover for the high frequency break up.

There's another way to channelize sound frequency pre amplification. Which is called active cross over.

I suggest you search and read basics of cross over in the net. A lot more options will open for you and will mostly make you more confused than now. Soon after, things will be clear to you from your perspective.

You will take a better suited decision then.

 

[john_k_antony]

I don't think it makes sense coming to Delhi just
The c803 will pair well with marantz sound signature

I did like the Jamo + Marantz sound signature very much. BTW, have you heard Jamo with Roksan Amp ? I will be trying out Jamo with Marantz and Roksan side by side this weekend.

-John.

 

[corElement]

I'm afraid I have but roksan is 1 notch above from mass market mainstream amp makers like marantz denon cambridge audio so id imagine it'd be good.