Separate driver distortion vs. whole speaker distortion

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What if, a 3-way speaker, starring 3 drivers from the same manufacturer, and the manufacturer has provided the distortion graphs of these drivers (for example, Accuton has done this), after carefully implementing, do we possibly get a lower distortion from the speaker?

Why I mention from the same manufacturer is cos those drivers' distortion are tested under the same circumstance, that's kinda fair.

The title has problem, separate drivers.
 
Well, sure. For instance, the distortion of the tweeter measured alone when driven outside its used band will be greatly suppressed in a design with a crossover filter. EQ, a part of almost any competent crossover design, will also change the amount of drive applied to any driver over frequency.

And of course intermodulation distortion (admittedly not the usually measured distortion type, though possibly the more relevant type) will depend on how strongly both the two test tones are applied -- the crossover filter will likely affect that a lot.

Then, if the design has some acoustic filtering applied after the driver (such as in a Synergy horn or a bandpass box), the distortion components can be reduced by that, improving the distortion measurement.

I've also seen a design in which the output in a frequency range from one driver partially phase canceled that of another driver, with the crossover peaked there to compensate. That boosts the drive there, which ups the distortion since the resulting distortion components don't cancel. Kind of an unusual situation there, though (a rookie error, I suspect).
 
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