Quote Originally Posted by ken88
Great comments. I notice that the more high-end speakers tend to have more drivers, thus, implying the more drivers a speaker has the higher quality of sound it can reproduce. This is why I am confused. So why does high-end speakers have, in general, more drivers, if the quality of the sound is the same regardless of the number of drivers? Thanks
Designs using more drivers provides greater power handling and wider bandwidth. There are some systems like the Scaena that employ dozens of drivers in a three-way design. This they do not only for power handling, but also to act as a vertical line source. As for me, I prefer the inherent coherency and transparency of using a single very large driver whose mass is less than the air around it They will not, however, deliver 100 db output nor vast quantities of first octave bass unless you employ them in large arrays.

A "two-and-a-half" way speaker implies using two similar drivers (usually woofers) that have overlapping frequency ranges. One is optimized for the low end at cuts off more quickly. The other is allowed to respond into the midrange to blend more evenly with the tweeter. An example is the Paradigm Studio 80 using two 8" drivers and a 1" tweeter.

rw