The tweeter generally reproduces the high frequencies. A tweeter can perform the exact same job in a two way, as in a three way. The tweeter doesn't care. Two way speakers can have strengths in some areas, but a well designed speaker trumps the design details.  Good and bad sounding speakers come in all flavors.

There are two-way speakers that cost over $10,000, and they are not limited in any way you would notice...lol. His comment about limited treble makes no sense at all and is just plain wrong.

Most two-way speakers are a bit limited in the bass output, because the tweeter covers the frequencies from around 2 Khz up, and the woofer is usually between 5 and 8 inches in diameter, and may not be able to go really low (although some go pretty low).

One big debate is whether 2-Way or 3-way speakers are better. There is no answer to this question. There are excellent speakers of both types.

The advantage of 3-way is that there are 3 drivers; tweeter, midrange, and bass. This allows each driver to be well-suited for its frequency range.The disadvantage (and it IS a VERY big one), is that two crossover networks are needed. Crossover networks cause phase distortion, and can be quite expensive if the needed high-quality capacitors and coils are used.

My feeling is that in speakers under $500 the crossovers will usually NOT be made with very good components, and therfore a 2-way design may be more cost-effective in producing good sound quality. But it is hard to generalize.

In any case, the crossover frequencies are where the drivers and crossover components tend to have problems that are audible, NOT the highest frequencies, which depend only on the tweeter quality.

An ideal design solution, IMO, is found in the Gallo Acoustics CL-3 and CL-2 speakers. They use NO crossover network at all.

This is possible because they are two-way systems with tweeters that roll off fairly sharply at a low-frequency limit of around 4 Khz, and low-frequency drivers that go up to 4 Khz and then roll off rapidly.

This requires the use of special drivers that are designed to do this, so the speakers are not cheap. They sure do sound great though.

hcsunshine wrote:

in a thread recently posted in this forum, some guy who i'm not sure knows what he is talking about, said that if the speaker is a two-way speaker then the high end (treble) will be limited. can someone tell me what he might be talking about or if this is even true at all? i always thought that two-way speakers were the best anyway. any comments welcome.