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  1. #1
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    Question 2 , 2.5, 3 way !!!

    wt does 2.5 way mean
    i have seen some speakers like paradigm, b&w saying 2.5 way???

    and also
    does it reallyy make any differance having sperate mid range other then base drivers, i m not abt sub woofer
    i mean like paradigm or polk or b&W or etc, many manufacturers use same size driver for mid and woofer, but they keep the mid sperate and just for mid freqs, and use
    2 or 3 drivers gruoped for base, does it make any diff having seperate midrange, does it make it more defined when it does not have to produce bass freqs??


    thx

  2. #2
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    It is a marketing gimick. It is when you have one bass only woofer and another when the woofer acts as a bass/mid-range driver.

    I prefer a 2-way to most 3-ways in the sub-$3500 price range.
    Remember, different isn't always better, but it is different.
    Keep things as simple as possible, but not too simple.
    Let your ears decide for you!

  3. #3
    RGA
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    More drivers cause phase problems take a look at the Audio Note AN E/D ~$2500.00 It's a two way with one 8 inch woofer. you'll get more bass and better sound from it thatn you will get from The Paradigm Studio 100 with it's 4 drivers or Energy Veritas etc or B&W CDM 7 or 9NTs etc.

    As the other poster mentioned...it's a gimmick...looks like you're getting more when in fact you're getting less. Most speakers are designed to LOOK good rather than sound good. Most speakers use cheap parts cheap wood - if it is even wood, and then spend money to advertise and advertise and seduce reviewers with advertising dollars to keep the magazines going. Then when you dig you find out what speakers those reviewers actually own. And reviewers from Hi Fi Choice, Enjoythemusic.com, and Stereophile own Audio Note's or Quads or Apogees etc.

    http://www.stereotimes.com/speak071701.shtm

  4. #4
    3db
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    Where are you getting all of this speculation from?

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    More drivers cause phase problems take a look at the Audio Note AN E/D ~$2500.00 It's a two way with one 8 inch woofer. you'll get more bass and better sound from it thatn you will get from The Paradigm Studio 100 with it's 4 drivers or Energy Veritas etc or B&W CDM 7 or 9NTs etc.

    As the other poster mentioned...it's a gimmick...looks like you're getting more when in fact you're getting less. Most speakers are designed to LOOK good rather than sound good. Most speakers use cheap parts cheap wood - if it is even wood, and then spend money to advertise and advertise and seduce reviewers with advertising dollars to keep the magazines going. Then when you dig you find out what speakers those reviewers actually own. And reviewers from Hi Fi Choice, Enjoythemusic.com, and Stereophile own Audio Note's or Quads or Apogees etc.

    http://www.stereotimes.com/speak071701.shtm

    RGA.. Sometimes I think yer pullin some of these idea's out of your rectum. Companies like PSB who use the NRC's facilities do not use them to tweak a speakers esthetics. They have design goals in mind which include minimizing the effects of the cabinet on the sound wave leaving the driver ( refraction) among other things. I have hard time believing that companies spend their efforts on appearances rather than sound. Thats just your opinion with no facts to back it up.

    http://www.goodsound.com/equipment.shtml Reviews of the Axiom 60 vs the Axiom 80 indicates that the 80 digs deeper into the lower end than its the 60. Cabinet volume plays an effect on this but so do the extra drivers;


    http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...rs-3-2004.html
    The reviewer here owns PSB Image 6T and found that they have better base extension then the Axiom MTi69 because of the extra driver per cabinet compared to that of the Axiom. It also demonstrates that reviewers own and use other speakers other than Audio Notes, Quads, etc

    Reference systems used by Audioholics;

    http://audioholics.com/about/staffsystems/system1.php

    http://audioholics.com/about/staffsystems/system2.php

    http://audioholics.com/about/staffsystems/system3.php

    Home Theater uses B&W CDM 9NT Towers .

  5. #5
    RGA
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    I have problems with audioholics because they don't compare apples to apples. Nor do they review high end speakers IMO.

    PSB is not interested in the high end field. Using NRC facilities - well yeah thta is a lot cheaper than actually having your own facilities...you can rent out your overhead.

    PSB makes some good speakers - that wasn't really my point.

    Once people get away from the reviews and go from what they themselves hear from desgns that are not carbon copies of PSB...after all look how many have the same approach, then the opinion of them may change. It did for me I can't speak to what others will feel.

    And of course Audio Note is much smaller than many of the others...many reviewers have not heard any Audio note products. UHF magazine has been around since 1982 and they finally got their hands on Audio Note's entry level CD player...which they said in many ways beat their reference cd player. The point is that they have been reviewing a long time and only now got a product.

    Audioholics reviews all like systems. 6 slim line designs all sorta look the same with a metal tweeter and they're trying to figure out which one is best? I did the same thig they did with some of the exact same speakers they listened to and arrived at a very different opinion. It's not an issue that I'm right and they're wrong...each person has to decide that for themselves. reviews tend to push people.

    Then when I look at owner's responses of Axiom on Audio Asylum - we get more of the truth from people who have lived with them long term...and they are not the deal the reviewers tout them to be it would seem.

    Reviewers give a short listen generally...Speakers that have a wow factor are loved...wow factor speakers over the long run tend to be up for sale or worse owners stop listening.

    If you can't listen for 4-8 consecutive hours at a relatively high level because it gives you a headache chances are the speaker has a problem IMO. http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/spe...es/156829.html

  6. #6
    3db
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    I have problems with audioholics because they don't compare apples to apples. Nor do they review high end speakers IMO.

    PSB is not interested in the high end field. Using NRC facilities - well yeah thta is a lot cheaper than actually having your own facilities...you can rent out your overhead.

    PSB makes some good speakers - that wasn't really my point.

    Once people get away from the reviews and go from what they themselves hear from desgns that are not carbon copies of PSB...after all look how many have the same approach, then the opinion of them may change. It did for me I can't speak to what others will feel.

    And of course Audio Note is much smaller than many of the others...many reviewers have not heard any Audio note products. UHF magazine has been around since 1982 and they finally got their hands on Audio Note's entry level CD player...which they said in many ways beat their reference cd player. The point is that they have been reviewing a long time and only now got a product.

    Audioholics reviews all like systems. 6 slim line designs all sorta look the same with a metal tweeter and they're trying to figure out which one is best? I did the same thig they did with some of the exact same speakers they listened to and arrived at a very different opinion. It's not an issue that I'm right and they're wrong...each person has to decide that for themselves. reviews tend to push people.

    Then when I look at owner's responses of Axiom on Audio Asylum - we get more of the truth from people who have lived with them long term...and they are not the deal the reviewers tout them to be it would seem.

    Reviewers give a short listen generally...Speakers that have a wow factor are loved...wow factor speakers over the long run tend to be up for sale or worse owners stop listening.

    If you can't listen for 4-8 consecutive hours at a relatively high level because it gives you a headache chances are the speaker has a problem IMO. http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/spe...es/156829.html

    Apples vs oranges? I don't understand what that has to do with owning Audio Notes or other high end products?

    I know your not knocking PSB. Ive ony used them as an example because I know for certain that they use the NRC facilities. I would have to look up the others to make sure. I think PSB"s new Platinum series is there step into the high end market. I also appreciate that PSB passes there cost savings onto the consumer by using rented facilities rather than factoring in the overhead of owning their own facilities into the cost of the products

    This carbon copy I think is an evolution of speaker design brought onby home theater in an attempt to provide good frequency response with a smaller footprint. I'm pulling this one out of my butt

    I'm not saying Audio Note is good or bad . My point is that other reviewers own a variety of equipment other than Uadio Note or Quad.

    Audio Asylum tends to be snobbish IMO and the speakers that they find pleasing, I cannot afford. And they scoff at all the rest. The longer term reviews of Axioms on this forum are still favourable. But you make a good point. Maybe we should have along term review section in here based on a minimum of 3 years of ownership.

    Oh, and theres no way in hell I can sit for 4 -8 hours.. My butt always gives up long before than.

  7. #7
    RGA
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    In my view home theater has completely destroyed the quality of loudspeakers. It is precisely the point that they are trying to get better graphs by changing the way they measure and making a small footprint. This way they can stick 6 loudspeakers on a plane instead of two and sell six speakers instead of two - sound? Well since all the competitors do the same thing they all pretty much sound the same...and people go out and listen to an Energy and Paradigm and they both sound sorta the same - both use NRC too - or did.

    I was a big B&W supporter for a long time but now that I've been hearing different design concepts and B&W to me is falling back...actually they are not falling back they were always there...I just never bothered to hear different KINDS of designs. Pretty much ALL the home theater set-ups are slim line designs with multiple drivers and a metal tweeter. I continue to recommend them because of budget but really I doubt I could stomach the thought of owning them long term.

    Dynaudio's new SE might be kind of the price range along with VR...but then those two are not home theater first companies either nor do they use metal if memeory serves. both pluses IMO.

    PSB used to not use metal...if that's still the case it's probably a bonus.

  8. #8
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    As you split the signal 1 more time with 3 way speakers compared to 2 way speakers, you may run into some problems syncronizing the times of arrival to each driver. So instead of 1 inaccuracy in a 2 way, there are now 2 inaccuracies.
    I think I also heard that if you dont design a good crossover, then you might end up with humps in the music, much like it you set the crossover on the subwoofer too high.

  9. #9
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    I have a pair of...

    ...Paradigm Studio 60s... a 2.5-way.

    A 2 or 3-way is self-explanatory... the 2.5 utilizes a midrange that is cut off on top, but allowed to roll off naturally, as opposed to being cut off at a certain low point.

    This is, of course, if memory serves... :*)

  10. #10
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    thx 4 de help

    sorry for my ignorance RGA but wt u mean by more drivers ???
    more ways ( 3way or 4 way)
    or 3-4 mids or 3-4 woofer stuff

    secondly wt is phase problem
    is it a big one for average listener??


    regards

  11. #11
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    dont think there is such thing as a 4 way in the market unless you match a 3way speaker with a subwoofer.

    2 way just means that the input signal is split between the tweeter and the other drivers (such as the midrange/base). Each driver is just each cone with magnet.

    I think RGA was talking about how its hard to match the signals after you split them to go to each driver. So the signal may reach the tweeter before it reaches the midrange/base. With each time you increase the times you split the signal, there is difficulty matching the signals. 3 way just means that you are spliting the signal between high freq, midrange, and bass. Sometimes you might see a tweeter, a 4 inch midrange, and a 7-8 inch bass. Its more common in older stuff, these days all I see is a tweeter and the midrange and bass drivers are about the same size.

  12. #12
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    Legacy Audio makes a Five-way. Super Tweeter, tweeter, mid-range, woofer, and Sub-woofer. It has four cross - over points.
    Remember, different isn't always better, but it is different.
    Keep things as simple as possible, but not too simple.
    Let your ears decide for you!

  13. #13
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    wow o.o must be a chunky thing

  14. #14
    RGA
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    3-4 or 5 etc way speakers can be good but generally not cheap.

    UHF magazine among others generally hold that the best sound would come from a point source(a tiny point in space) and that a two way standmount is the closes to the ideal. The difficulty is achieving bass and volume from small speakers. The designers of my speakers hold that anything beyond a two way is inherently inferior...and since they achieve full range with a two way they deem it unnecessary to over-complicate things because each addition also adds a problem which must be corrected. It's a rather extreme approach but at least theystick to it throughout ALL of their products including the no times oversampling cd players. Oversampling is a system where by the player corrects errors when reading the disc and must INVENT information to fill the gaps causing a measurable time delay problem. There approach is not to make any error in the first place so you don't have to CORRECT anything...that is passed through as far as possible to the end result.

    None of this means others are not making good gear but if you listen to even some very highly touted two ways such as the B&W N805 a two way very good product you can here a "GAP" from where the midrange leaves and the metal tweeter takes over. One reason I bought my seaker over the N805 is because the drivers are not treated as separate entities. The Audio Note has a very similar material for botht he tweeter and the woofer which overlap each other with an ever so slight pass-off at 800hz or so. The N805 is a clearly audible suck-out - which is why some find the speaker bright because part of the midrange is basically gone. You can imagine that adding ANOTHER driver so you can have the same problem at another frequency isn't helping matters. Of course in a chamber it all looks nice testing each speaker driver. Bahh.

    Metal tweeters add a lift to the upper frequencies and when people are comparing they stand out more with bit of extra "detail." This term is ridiculous and if you hear a speaker salesman blathering on about the extra detail run don't walk away from such speakers. Chances are the detail that gets you to buy em today will be the same detail that gets you to sell em in 6 months.

    This is not to attack metal tweeters...there are some very good spekaers using them...The JM Labs Utopia and the B&W Model Nautilus and N800 line...Still not sure I would want to own them though compared to some competition.

    Just try and listen to totally different designs and see if you can tell what is good bad and ugly about them. For instance listen to three speakers with a metal tweeter and are SLIM designs...like the Paradigm Studio 100 or B&W CDM 9NTor 603S3. Then try and listen to an electrostatic panel from Quad or Martin Logan and a planar design such as Magnepan. Then listen to some speakers using silk domes like Audio Note, Reference 3a and if you can some speakers using horns or ribbon drrivers.

    The reviews are mostly funded by the home theater driven speaker companies and most of them say little other than it's a great speaker...well no actually not every speaker is great, but reading the magazines you certainly would get that idea.

    Sorry to take this off topic - but the only thing that should really concern you is the sound not the designs. There is no need to go beyond a two way unless you listen to the pedal organ...adding a sub will make it a three way but with proper set-up it's better generally than a built in third way unless we're talking 10k speakers. Most of us can't do it so buying a good $2k 2-way and maybe adding another 1k sub or two you're looking at $3-$4k ... you'll probably better most 10k speakers on the market - depending on your set-up(requiring an SPL and test disc and possibly a parametric EQ) and the quality of the standmounts you get at the outset. The Subs will likely produce more bass than a 10k speaker.

    As Woochifer often says and is very correct...the best place for bass is not always the best place for the mid range and tweeter. Trouble is most people including me, have had nightmares with subwoofer integration(Same problem i mentioned above with the suckout in the N805) that we'd rather not have the sub and live without bass. But, we learn from our mistakes...back then I had never heard of the parametric EQ and the dealers were no help and there was no internet to get help from people - so if you were not a studio engineer you'd probably have no clue.

  15. #15
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    thx all
    i was asking abt designs rather than sound cuz i m thinking to build or buy actually custom built speakers ( from a local guy).
    i need deep impact in movies and kick in music
    there r many options when u r the boss what kind of design u want, like built in subs in towers is an option or two way bookshelf or 2 or 3 way typical floor-speakers.
    i was thinking of having a side firing sub in a tower or something like NHT evolution T5 ; bookself over sub,, but reading over here suggests that side firings are not always suitable for every room, other suggestions to me were like floorstandig with 3 or 4 mid/wofers with a tweeter and seperate sub, etc
    ofcourse i would have to ask him to make a test version first but that would came at a cost so wanted to have it correct the first time, that local guy can also help me in design but i dont think he does know much abt designs he will make what claint will say, so wanted a thought here.

    most econmical and simple and better option i to have simple good quality 2way tweeter-woofer thing all around the room and one sub in corner but he doesnt have good quality drivers, they are all the same average quality drivers from a company called CLARION, i searched on the net abt them they produce car speakers but not any high quality HT drivers

    i think i will test a tweeter and 4x 6 to 8inch mid/woofer 2way floorstander??? but RGA said there can be phase probs when to many drivers r involved but i guess i would have to try myself if they bother me.

    there r lot of debates going in my mind but will save them for later
    btw my room is 23x17x10feet, brick-concrete structure, carpeted , not a dedicated HT room.


    regards

  16. #16
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    vr ? as in the vr series of Boston Acoustics ?

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Dynaudio's new SE might be kind of the price range along with VR...but then those two are not home theater first companies either nor do they use metal if memeory serves. both pluses IMO.

    PSB used to not use metal...if that's still the case it's probably a bonus.
    RGA in your reference to VR, is that as in VR series of the Boston Acoustics ?

    If yes, then your memory isn't serving you well, on this point anyway.

    I'm posting this as information only, not making a statement of good design or bad design, to each his own in the sound you like. (I happen to like the sound of BA )

    Here is the specs on the tweeter implemented in the Boston VR series:


    THE VR® TWEETER


    You may notice that all our Reference speakers have at least one thing in common: the VR tweeter. So what makes it tick? Aluminum. We use a specially anodized aluminum dome in our VR tweeter for several reasons. Compared to a soft dome, aluminum is equally light, yet more rigid. Compared to other hard dome materials—such as titanium, phenolic, and polycarbonate—an aluminum dome is unrivaled in its ability to accurately track the input signal. In other words, when the voice coil says “jump,” our aluminum dome does so, without changing shape.

    AMPLITUDE MODIFICATION DEVICE (AMD™)

    AMD is used to further optimize the aluminum dome's output, without taking anything away. AMD is a patented acoustical tuning device that uses precisely sized hollow tubes positioned in front of the tweeter to refocus short wavelength energy and create an extremely smooth, flat response. This is done without using elaborate electronic components that can degrade the sound's purity. A Boston engineer figured it out: Blow across a straw, and it produces a tone, right? Reproduce that same exact tone and pass it in front of the same straw, and the tone will be, miraculously, canceled. Finally, every VR tweeter with aluminum up front has some aluminum in the back—this time in the form of a die-cast heat sink that removes damaging heat from the equation and allows the tweeter to handle a lot more power.

  17. #17
    3db
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    Its all in your hearing

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    In my view home theater has completely destroyed the quality of loudspeakers. It is precisely the point that they are trying to get better graphs by changing the way they measure and making a small footprint. This way they can stick 6 loudspeakers on a plane instead of two and sell six speakers instead of two - sound? Well since all the competitors do the same thing they all pretty much sound the same...and people go out and listen to an Energy and Paradigm and they both sound sorta the same - both use NRC too - or did.

    I was a big B&W supporter for a long time but now that I've been hearing different design concepts and B&W to me is falling back...actually they are not falling back they were always there...I just never bothered to hear different KINDS of designs. Pretty much ALL the home theater set-ups are slim line designs with multiple drivers and a metal tweeter. I continue to recommend them because of budget but really I doubt I could stomach the thought of owning them long term.

    Dynaudio's new SE might be kind of the price range along with VR...but then those two are not home theater first companies either nor do they use metal if memeory serves. both pluses IMO.

    PSB used to not use metal...if that's still the case it's probably a bonus.

    I guess what you like is what you like and I'm happy that you found soemthing you liked. However, I think its incorrect to say that speaker designers designing towers try and measure frequency differently. And I think aiming for a flat frequency curve is inherently a good thing as no frequency /range gets emphasized. But that doesn't mean that Paradigms, PSB, B&W all sound the same. Thats simply not true. You also mentioned that the ideal source is a point source and in that sense, tower designs are trying to achieve this by minimizing the width of a speaker.

    I've never heard electrostats or planars before and I need to go down and listen to a pair just to see what their all about. But thats not everybody's cup of tea either. From what I've read, they give a very diffuse sound stage where as the regukar old drivers give a more
    detailed stage in terms of depth..etc. BUt I have to listen for myself.

    And your absolutely right. Lsiten to a speaker and ignore the design behind it. If it sounds good and its in one's pricve range, buy it.


    I do have a question about cross-overs. I knowthey induce phase distortion because of the capactivce/inductive effects. But is it correct to say that they split up the signal? I was always under the impression that the signal gets filtered into its frequency components in series; ie full range in, (bass to woofer) and mid-high signals move on to the next filter stage where the mids get stripped from the signal and passsed to the mid leaving the highs to the tweeter.

  18. #18
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    What?
    Remember, different isn't always better, but it is different.
    Keep things as simple as possible, but not too simple.
    Let your ears decide for you!

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by aimen
    thx all
    i was asking abt designs rather than sound cuz i m thinking to build or buy actually custom built speakers ( from a local guy).
    i need deep impact in movies and kick in music
    there r many options when u r the boss what kind of design u want, like built in subs in towers is an option or two way bookshelf or 2 or 3 way typical floor-speakers.
    i was thinking of having a side firing sub in a tower or something like NHT evolution T5 ; bookself over sub,, but reading over here suggests that side firings are not always suitable for every room, other suggestions to me were like floorstandig with 3 or 4 mid/wofers with a tweeter and seperate sub, etc
    ofcourse i would have to ask him to make a test version first but that would came at a cost so wanted to have it correct the first time, that local guy can also help me in design but i dont think he does know much abt designs he will make what claint will say, so wanted a thought here.

    most econmical and simple and better option i to have simple good quality 2way tweeter-woofer thing all around the room and one sub in corner but he doesnt have good quality drivers, they are all the same average quality drivers from a company called CLARION, i searched on the net abt them they produce car speakers but not any high quality HT drivers

    i think i will test a tweeter and 4x 6 to 8inch mid/woofer 2way floorstander??? but RGA said there can be phase probs when to many drivers r involved but i guess i would have to try myself if they bother me.

    there r lot of debates going in my mind but will save them for later
    btw my room is 23x17x10feet, brick-concrete structure, carpeted , not a dedicated HT room.
    Here's the problem aimen, not only do you not know what you want, which is OK, but to compound the problem your local speaker builder doesn't know squat, which is inexcusable. Any speaker builder that uses Clarion speakers is someone that I wouldn't trust. There are so many better options by reknown speaker manufacturers such as Dynaudio, Seas, Scanspeak, Vifa, and Focal/JM Lab, among others. Honestly, I think you'd be better off getting a kit from PartsExpress.com and doing it yourself. It'd probably sound better than anything your local guy is doing. If you want "impact" to your music, buy/build a powered sub.

  20. #20
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    Frequency Crossovers

    Quote Originally Posted by 3db

    I do have a question about cross-overs. I knowthey induce phase distortion because of the capactivce/inductive effects. But is it correct to say that they split up the signal? I was always under the impression that the signal gets filtered into its frequency components in series; ie full range in, (bass to woofer) and mid-high signals move on to the next filter stage where the mids get stripped from the signal and passsed to the mid leaving the highs to the tweeter.
    Yes, each stage gets the full signal input ... in PARALLEL, The signal is feed to the crossover circut all at one time, then there are seperate frequencies sent to the respective speaker componts (Tweeter, Mid, Woofer, sub)

    Here's an excerpt from an article that I was reading:

    When you get to the part about ACTIVE versus PASSIVE ... think of your receiver when you think of active .... where you can set your mains to large or small, and freq crossover for the sub ... all can be adjusted in the receiver and by setting this options you are actually determining the freq range that is going to be sent to those speakers.

    Enjoy:

    to dedicate each driver to a particular frequency range, the speaker system first needs to break the audio signal into different pieces -- low frequency, high frequency and sometimes mid-range frequencies. This is the job of the speaker crossover.


    The most common type of crossover is passive, meaning it doesn't need an external power source because it is activated by the audio signal passing through it. This sort of crossover uses inductors, capacitors and sometimes other circuitry components. Capacitors and inductors only become good conductors under certain conditions. A crossover capacitor will conduct the current very well when the frequency exceeds a certain level, but will conduct poorly when the frequency is below that level. A crossover inductor acts in the reverse manner -- it is only a good conductor when the frequency is below a certain level.



    The typical crossover unit from a loudspeaker: The frequency is divided up by inductors and capacitors and then sent on to the woofer, tweeter and mid-range driver.



    When the electrical audio signal travels through the speaker wire to the speaker, it passes through the crossover units for each driver. To flow to the tweeter, the current will have to pass through a capacitor. So for the most part, the high frequency part of the signal will flow on to the tweeter voice coil. To flow to the woofer, the current passes through an inductor, so the driver will mainly respond to low frequencies. A crossover for the mid-range driver will conduct the current through a capacitor and an inductor, to set an upper and lower cutoff point.

    There are also active crossovers. Active crossovers are electronic devices that pick out the different frequency ranges in an audio signal before it goes on to the amplifier (you use an amplifier circuit for each driver). They have several advantages over passive crossovers, the main one being that you can easily adjust the frequency ranges. Passive crossover ranges are determined by the individual circuitry components -- to change them, you need to install new capacitors and inductors. Active crossovers aren't as widely used as passive crossovers, however, because the equipment is much more expensive and you need multiple amplifier outputs for your speakers. Crossovers and drivers can be installed as separate components in a sound system, but most people end up buying speaker units that house the crossover and multiple drivers in one box.
    Last edited by omikey; 03-29-2004 at 10:00 AM. Reason: typeo

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by bturk667
    It is a marketing gimick. It is when you have one bass only woofer and another when the woofer acts as a bass/mid-range driver.

    I prefer a 2-way to most 3-ways in the sub-$3500 price range.
    Not necessarily. A 2.5 way is a very legitimate design that has its advantages. In your typical 2-way design, you've got to design a crossover that includes a baffle step compensation. Do a google search for more info on baffle step, but basically it's a 6dB drop below frequencies that are the same wavelength as your baffle width. To compensate for this in a typical 2 way speaker requires you to attenuate everything above the baffle step frequency by 6dB. That means that you're going to have to pad the crap out of your tweeter, which is going to give it a lifeless sound. With a 2.5 way design, that 2nd woofer has a single inductor wired in series to produce a 6dB/octave low pass to compensate for the baffle step. With a typical system, you get the 3dB of added sensitivity from the extra cone area, as well as an additional 3dB from the halved impedance within the low-pass region. With commercially available speakers that still adhere to the "8-ohm" guideline, I'm guessing that they are using 16 ohm bass drivers, so compared to a single 8 ohm equivalent driver, you're only getting an additional 3dB from the 2nd driver. But... that's still 3dB less padding that you need to stuff on the tweeter.

    Also, keep in mind that not many people are going to buy a speaker with an 83dB sensitivity. Designers target AT LEAST an 87dB efficiency for mass-market speakers. This forces 2-way designers to use extremely efficient drivers. This is generally a very small pool to choose from, and typically doesn't include very much stuff that sounds all that good.

    Far more than marketing.

  22. #22
    M.P.S.E /AES/SMPTE member Sir Terrence the Terrible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    3-4 or 5 etc way speakers can be good but generally not cheap.

    UHF magazine among others generally hold that the best sound would come from a point source(a tiny point in space) and that a two way standmount is the closes to the ideal. The difficulty is achieving bass and volume from small speakers. The designers of my speakers hold that anything beyond a two way is inherently inferior...and since they achieve full range with a two way they deem it unnecessary to over-complicate things because each addition also adds a problem which must be corrected. It's a rather extreme approach but at least theystick to it throughout ALL of their products including the no times oversampling cd players. Oversampling is a system where by the player corrects errors when reading the disc and must INVENT information to fill the gaps causing a measurable time delay problem. There approach is not to make any error in the first place so you don't have to CORRECT anything...that is passed through as far as possible to the end result.

    None of this means others are not making good gear but if you listen to even some very highly touted two ways such as the B&W N805 a two way very good product you can here a "GAP" from where the midrange leaves and the metal tweeter takes over. One reason I bought my seaker over the N805 is because the drivers are not treated as separate entities. The Audio Note has a very similar material for botht he tweeter and the woofer which overlap each other with an ever so slight pass-off at 800hz or so. The N805 is a clearly audible suck-out - which is why some find the speaker bright because part of the midrange is basically gone. You can imagine that adding ANOTHER driver so you can have the same problem at another frequency isn't helping matters. Of course in a chamber it all looks nice testing each speaker driver. Bahh.

    Metal tweeters add a lift to the upper frequencies and when people are comparing they stand out more with bit of extra "detail." This term is ridiculous and if you hear a speaker salesman blathering on about the extra detail run don't walk away from such speakers. Chances are the detail that gets you to buy em today will be the same detail that gets you to sell em in 6 months.

    This is not to attack metal tweeters...there are some very good spekaers using them...The JM Labs Utopia and the B&W Model Nautilus and N800 line...Still not sure I would want to own them though compared to some competition.

    Just try and listen to totally different designs and see if you can tell what is good bad and ugly about them. For instance listen to three speakers with a metal tweeter and are SLIM designs...like the Paradigm Studio 100 or B&W CDM 9NTor 603S3. Then try and listen to an electrostatic panel from Quad or Martin Logan and a planar design such as Magnepan. Then listen to some speakers using silk domes like Audio Note, Reference 3a and if you can some speakers using horns or ribbon drrivers.

    The reviews are mostly funded by the home theater driven speaker companies and most of them say little other than it's a great speaker...well no actually not every speaker is great, but reading the magazines you certainly would get that idea.

    Sorry to take this off topic - but the only thing that should really concern you is the sound not the designs. There is no need to go beyond a two way unless you listen to the pedal organ...adding a sub will make it a three way but with proper set-up it's better generally than a built in third way unless we're talking 10k speakers. Most of us can't do it so buying a good $2k 2-way and maybe adding another 1k sub or two you're looking at $3-$4k ... you'll probably better most 10k speakers on the market - depending on your set-up(requiring an SPL and test disc and possibly a parametric EQ) and the quality of the standmounts you get at the outset. The Subs will likely produce more bass than a 10k speaker.

    As Woochifer often says and is very correct...the best place for bass is not always the best place for the mid range and tweeter. Trouble is most people including me, have had nightmares with subwoofer integration(Same problem i mentioned above with the suckout in the N805) that we'd rather not have the sub and live without bass. But, we learn from our mistakes...back then I had never heard of the parametric EQ and the dealers were no help and there was no internet to get help from people - so if you were not a studio engineer you'd probably have no clue.
    RGA,

    The trouble I am having with you post is that it is filled with some truths, and some VERY obvious biases.

    UHF magazine among others generally hold that the best sound would come from a point source(a tiny point in space) and that a two way standmount is the closes to the ideal.
    Not necessarily true. If that two way speaker is not phase/time correct, then it will have the same arrival problems as a three way. In order for a point source to exist, all frequencies my leave the speaker at the same time, and the DIRECT output must arrive at you ears at the same time. Just because a speaker is a two way, it does not mean it meets this objective.

    The designers of my speakers hold that anything beyond a two way is inherently inferior...and since they achieve full range with a two way they deem it unnecessary to over-complicate things because each addition also adds a problem which must be corrected.
    This is an obvious bias. It is almost impossible for a two way to be full range and behave cleanly because if it were, it would suffer one or two problems. One is a distortion effect that comes when a speaker tries to do deep bass and the midrange out of the same driver. The long excursions from the cone doing deep bass, will shift the pitch of the midrange which depending on frequency requires very fine movements. That is why it is beneficial to seperate the bass from the mids(whether its by using a sub, or a seperate driver within the speaker enclosure).

    The Audio Note has a very similar material for botht he tweeter and the woofer which overlap each other with an ever so slight pass-off at 800hz or so. The N805 is a clearly audible suck-out - which is why some find the speaker bright because part of the midrange is basically gone.
    With speakers with overlapping crossover points presents another problem. Driver interference. When two drivers are producing the same freqencies, there is cancellation and boosting of frequencies at wavelengths that equal the distance between the two drivers. If you are sitting on axis, this may be an audible problem if the acoustics of the room does not swamp it. Another has to do with the dispersion pattern of the particular drivers, and the power response also. 8" drivers cannot do deep bass, it takes a 12" and larger to accomplish that. 12" drivers do not operate well above 800hz, and 1" tweeters do not do well at below 2000hz. A 12" driver would beam profoundly at 1200hz, and a 1" tweeter would burn up trying to reproduce 1200hz. .Using the same material for the tweeter and woofer from what I understand is not the greatest of ideas when trying to insure accuracy over both of the drivers operating range.

    A good two way speaker can sound VERY good. A well made three way can sound better, play louder, and be a little more accurate over most of the audible frequencies we can hear. So it is not good to make a blanket statement that two ways are better than three ways.
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  23. #23
    Forum Regular thepogue's Avatar
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    Good Post Sir TtT...

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
    RGA,

    The trouble I am having with you post is that it is filled with some truths, and some VERY obvious biases.



    Not necessarily true. If that two way speaker is not phase/time correct, then it will have the same arrival problems as a three way. In order for a point source to exist, all frequencies my leave the speaker at the same time, and the DIRECT output must arrive at you ears at the same time. Just because a speaker is a two way, it does not mean it meets this objective.



    This is an obvious bias. It is almost impossible for a two way to be full range and behave cleanly because if it were, it would suffer one or two problems. One is a distortion effect that comes when a speaker tries to do deep bass and the midrange out of the same driver. The long excursions from the cone doing deep bass, will shift the pitch of the midrange which depending on frequency requires very fine movements. That is why it is beneficial to seperate the bass from the mids(whether its by using a sub, or a seperate driver within the speaker enclosure).



    With speakers with overlapping crossover points presents another problem. Driver interference. When two drivers are producing the same freqencies, there is cancellation and boosting of frequencies at wavelengths that equal the distance between the two drivers. If you are sitting on axis, this may be an audible problem if the acoustics of the room does not swamp it. Another has to do with the dispersion pattern of the particular drivers, and the power response also. 8" drivers cannot do deep bass, it takes a 12" and larger to accomplish that. 12" drivers do not operate well above 800hz, and 1" tweeters do not do well at below 2000hz. A 12" driver would beam profoundly at 1200hz, and a 1" tweeter would burn up trying to reproduce 1200hz. .Using the same material for the tweeter and woofer from what I understand is not the greatest of ideas when trying to insure accuracy over both of the drivers operating range.

    A good two way speaker can sound VERY good. A well made three way can sound better, play louder, and be a little more accurate over most of the audible frequencies we can hear. So it is not good to make a blanket statement that two ways are better than three ways.
    Very well said....I seached a bit the other night and edumacated meself on 2 1/5 way design and found quite a few (including the B & W Natilus) non-obscure speaker companies use it....and for good reason I'm sure. Thanks for a good read. Peace...
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  24. #24
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    omickey,

    Not to come to Anyones defense. I think the "VR" that RGA may have been refering to was: Von Schweikert Audio
    Which uses Soft/Fabric Dome Tweets.










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  25. #25
    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by omikey
    RGA in your reference to VR, is that as in VR series of the Boston Acoustics ?

    If yes, then your memory isn't serving you well, on this point anyway.

    I'm posting this as information only, not making a statement of good design or bad design, to each his own in the sound you like. (I happen to like the sound of BA )

    Here is the specs on the tweeter implemented in the Boston VR series:


    THE VR® TWEETER


    You may notice that all our Reference speakers have at least one thing in common: the VR tweeter. So what makes it tick? Aluminum. We use a specially anodized aluminum dome in our VR tweeter for several reasons. Compared to a soft dome, aluminum is equally light, yet more rigid. Compared to other hard dome materials—such as titanium, phenolic, and polycarbonate—an aluminum dome is unrivaled in its ability to accurately track the input signal. In other words, when the voice coil says “jump,” our aluminum dome does so, without changing shape.

    AMPLITUDE MODIFICATION DEVICE (AMD™)

    AMD is used to further optimize the aluminum dome's output, without taking anything away. AMD is a patented acoustical tuning device that uses precisely sized hollow tubes positioned in front of the tweeter to refocus short wavelength energy and create an extremely smooth, flat response. This is done without using elaborate electronic components that can degrade the sound's purity. A Boston engineer figured it out: Blow across a straw, and it produces a tone, right? Reproduce that same exact tone and pass it in front of the same straw, and the tone will be, miraculously, canceled. Finally, every VR tweeter with aluminum up front has some aluminum in the back—this time in the form of a die-cast heat sink that removes damaging heat from the equation and allows the tweeter to handle a lot more power.
    No I actually meant Von Sweikert...VS oh well.

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