Floorstanders - 2 way or 3 way ?

[jandl100]

4 way for me, in my speakers of choice.

But the old adage of a good 3 way always being better than a good 2 way has a lot going for it.

I've never heard a 1 way I could tolerate, apart from full range electrostatics but that's a different set of principles anyway - the frequency response of a single cone driver seems to go all over the place when asked to cover so many octaves (cone breakup resonances?) and it ends up terminally coloured, imo.
Personally I think Tannoy DC drivers suffer from that as well.

[Macca]

In the case of Tannoy DC it must have been the cabs or crossovers or both. You can get them to measure almost flat. There's still going to be colouration but from the driver materials, not big humps and dips in the FR.

[Barry]

There is also going to be Doppler intermodulation of the compression tweeter by the moving horn that is the woofer cone. It is to Tannoy's credit that this IM is sufficiently low.

[Reffc]

Such effects are very limited Barry because of two things. Firstly, acoustic slopes are relatively steep and secondly, the Qts of the driver units is very low, typically around 0.2 for the vintage series of drivers. This means that very little energy is stored in the drive unit out of band, and combined with the slopes, the effect is very minimal. Distortion is higher for the horn resonance area hence the need for the notch filter, but even that can be well controlled to the point of being all but inaudible. Martin has heard the effects of well controlled DCs in very rigid cabinets and I think can attest to the neutral and very linear acoustic properties of a well set up DC. The crossover region on the RFC Canterburys for example is all but inaudible (the critical area here lying between 700 and 1300 Hz), even to the golden eared amongst us

[Macca]

The RFC Canterbury is the most neutral-sounding Tannoy DC I have heard. In fact the mid-band is one of the most neutral I have heard of any speaker, electrostatics excepted. I wasn't that keen on Pauls' Rega CD player but with vinyl on his 401 it was a 'studio' experience.

[RobbieGong]

Can't go wrong with Spendors Rob, wish you could hear my SP2's, simple 2 way speakers with very simple crossover but they sound wonderful, so much so they have stayed with me for 30 years!

When they do die I will have a listen to the D7.

This is what I've been led to believe Jimbo. Musical, Great in the mids, detailed and non fatiguing which are musts for me and as per my Mission 752 Freedoms. My next speakers will defo be Spendors.
Never ever heard a pair strangely, however I know what I like and have made some great punts over the years on the back of extensive researching, reading lots of customer reviews etc and knowing the sound I like and dont like which actually helps a lot

[Barry]

Such effects are very limited Barry because of two things. Firstly, acoustic slopes are relatively steep and secondly, the Qts of the driver units is very low, typically around 0.2 for the vintage series of drivers. This means that very little energy is stored in the drive unit out of band, and combined with the slopes, the effect is very minimal. Distortion is higher for the horn resonance area hence the need for the notch filter, but even that can be well controlled to the point of being all but inaudible. Martin has heard the effects of well controlled DCs in very rigid cabinets and I think can attest to the neutral and very linear acoustic properties of a well set up DC. The crossover region on the RFC Canterburys for example is all but inaudible (the critical area here lying between 700 and 1300 Hz), even to the golden eared amongst us

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying when talking about driver resonances and their low Q values. I was simply refering to the modulation of the high frequencies by the low frequencies in concentric speakers, either of the Altec Lansing coaxial type or that of Tannoy dual concentric type.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-concentric_speakers

Dupont, Edward; Lipshitz, Stanley P. (September 2010)
“Modeling the Intermodulation Distortion of Coaxial Loudspeakers”.
Audio Engineering Society. Retrieved May 1, 2011

[Reffc]

I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying when talking about driver resonances and their low Q values. I was simply refering to the modulation of the high frequencies by the low frequencies in concentric speakers, either of the Altec Lansing coaxial type or that of Tannoy dual concentric type.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-concentric_speakers

Dupont, Edward; Lipshitz, Stanley P. (September 2010)
“Modeling the Intermodulation Distortion of Coaxial Loudspeakers”.
Audio Engineering Society. Retrieved May 1, 2011

I assumed that you meant the out of band distortions caused if the bass cone was still operating into the upper mids Barry, my mistake. Yes, in theory, inter-modulation distortion can be present when you have two coincident sources outputting different frequencies with modulation of frequencies occurring as a result, more precisely, modulation of HF due to the cone displacement of the LF. In practice, it really isn't that much of an issue with Tannoy DCs and your ears will tell you that when listening to a well set up pair. Also, by the time you get to the crossover point, the physical movement of the cone drops right off, so limiting non-linear outputs which could be caused by phase differences induced if cone movement was significant at crossover. This is an area which could have given a lot of trouble but where Tannoy seem to have done a decent job. Once again, the most audible distortion with many DCs is the horn resonance which occurs way above crossover or in the case of home brewed crossovers using the wrong values for LF inductors, LF cone resonance above 1KHz can introduce audible distortion at higher SPLs. These issues can be especially notable with female vocals at upper registers, and with some piano recordings, but in the case of DC's this can thankfully be all but cured by appropriate crossover design.

[vinyljunky]

My 2 way audio note ane Handel the full octave range sublimely the one woofer handling mids and bass.Really good seperation in the mid range with deepish bass plus no colouration of the sound I'm happy for now

[agk]

With respect Steven I'd Bach a four way design over less any day although there aren't too many I could Liszt.