active speakers, Paradise? Trouble in paradise?

That pretty much settles it for me then.

Please note that my comments on nearfield two ways is not limited to active speakers at all.

I agree with Shadorne's point, but I'd just note that there is (at least) one (kinda rare) exception to the high x-over point = beaming rule. Omnidirectional drivers (like those in MBL, Ohm, B&O, etc.) are usually designed with a very high "hand-off" from the mid to the tweeter, yet (due to the omni design) the mid driver doesn't narrow its dispersion pattern near the top of its passpand.

Marty

Marty,

Agreed. I was referring to the majority of conventional two ways. Omni's being a rather a minority.

Bob,

In order to disperse evenly and widelythe driver needs to be smaller in diameter than the wavelength of the sound being produced. In order to produce upper midrange frequencies at decent volumes (for farfield applications) it requires the use of a small but extremely robust (expensive) driver (a good size for upper midrange is 3 inch and as I have mentioned a 6 inch mid/bass is simply too large without beaming).

Less expensive to build speakers that beam

This is kind of a "dirty secret" among speaker makers - they know darn well what they are doing when they X-over a 1 inch tweeter with a 6 inch mid/bass woofer at 3 to 4 KHz. Basically they are compromising on sound quality at farfield positions in order to cheaply achieve teh necessary SPL levels (as most 1" tweeters can't cope with the needed SPL levels at 2 KHz).