Is there a 3-way speaker with 12' in it's own cabin & mid + tweeter in a secon cabin?

[hariskar]

Is there a 3-way speaker set that has: a 12' (sub)woofer in it's own cabin and a midrange and tweeter in another smaller cabin?
Is it a good idea? What are possible disadvantages?
Thanks!

[topspeed]

I don't know of any that specifically use 12's, but there are plenty of manufacturer's that separate the woofers from the mid/tweets. The first to do this that I recall is Wilson Audio with their Watt/Puppy system.
Others have since copied the design such as Von Schweikert, Joseph Audio, and Hyperion. The advantages are that there is less vibration and coloration from the bass module as the mid/tweet cabinet is decoupled via spikes or some other form of isolating method. Disadvantages are that they are usually more expensive (two cabinets to produce instead of one), you have at least two sets of binding posts (one for the top, one for the bottom), and they are usually pretty heavy. I don't think stability for the top module is an issue as most are seated into cones so you'd have to hit it pretty hard to knock it off.
Why do you want to know?

[hariskar]

Thanks, because I want to buy something like this or find a DIY kit to make it myself.

[topspeed]

The least expensive design like this that I know of is the Von Schweikert VR4jr. Retail $4K or used on audiogon for around $2.5k.

Hope this helps.

[corwin99]

My Gershman Acoustics X-1/SW-1's are also like this. The bass unit has a single 11" woofer though, not 12". Price is around $3700US for the pair retail.

[kexodusc]

Funny you brought this up...my parents new 57" tv is eating up too much space along their 14 ft wall, and in their particular room (and the MAF - mother acceptance factor - and you thought WAF was bad...) their 12" Titanic MKIII sub isn't really placeable anywhere.
I'm working on cabinet plans to incorporate something similar to Topspeed's photo based on one of the bookshelf speaker designs I've built. Not sure which one I'm going with - baffle step compensation is the culprit here, but I have ideas for cabinet sizes for both.

Edit: actually that's misleading - my cabinet prototypes are just normal rectangular towers, not nearly as ugly or yellow as those things