Floorstanding Speakers?

Question

What is the difference between 2-way and 3-way floorstanding speakers and what is the benefit and best use for each, in regards to music and movies.

Answer 1

Speakers have an individual driver or speaker for a certain range of sounds.

Two way speakers have a small "tweeter" for the high frequencies (cymbals, etc) and a woofer for low bass frequencies.

Three way speakers have a "Tweeter" mid-range (voice frequencies) and woofer.

The advantage to three way versus two way is that the individual driver can more efficiently and more accurately handle a narrow range of frequencies. To cover the entire audio spectrum, you use more drivers. The audio spectrum is split into the desired bands by a "crossover" or filter network.

Floor standing speakers have a large inside volume to allow the lower frequencies to be produced more easily via resonance. The cabinet material should be a dense wood or synthetic material. Veneer over particle board is preferred due to it's non-resonant characteristics.

Ideally for video installations two smaller midrange & tweeter combinations cabinets are used as "satellite" speakers with a single large bass cabinet, or sub-woofer used for the bass sounds. The subwoofer can be located anywhere because the human ear cannot sense the direction of low frequency sounds.

The smaller satellite speakers can then be easily magnetically shielded to be placed near the TV screen, the sub-woofer can be used as an end-table.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

This refers to the number of crossover points in the electronic design. The reason for crossover points is that they send different ranges of the signal to different styles of drivers that are usually different in size. Larger drivers ("woofer") are intended to handle the lowest range of sound and smaller drivers; well, you get the picture. Sometimes a 2-way speaker will have better performance than a 3-way speaker. A third driver is needed if two drivers cannot handle all the frequency range of the sound. If the two drivers are, say, 8 inch and 2 inch, adding a middle-size driver may not improve the frequency response much. But if they are 12 inch and 2 inch, perhaps a 4 inch mid-range driver will improve the sound quality.

The highest and lowest end of the frequency response is not the only consideration here. The narrow range of frequencies where the sound is mixed between two different size drivers will have out of phase effects that can degrade the quality so there is some trade off when adding more crossover components to make a 3-way instead of a 2-way design. You will have to listen to a few music samples through different speakers to know which you like best. Even then, it can be as difficult as picking your favorite food.

Answer 4

Not much difference in sound quality in music or movies.
Two way speakers have a tweeter and a woofer, three way speakers have a tweeter,midrange, and woofer. The basic difference is what frequency what speakers handle when fed a signal.

Answer 5

i guess i'll go for 2.5 way.the best i've ever heard for a floor standing speaker. jamo e-855.