Wayne Parham Messages: 18787 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
I would not choose the option with the mids and tweeters near the ceiling and the woofer on the floor. I'd prefer the mids and tweeter down closer to the woofer, with a fairly wide overlap and smooth blend between woofer and midrange. The second option with the tall mid source - something like a line array - might be a good option. You could do this with a line of drivers perhaps. But in that case, I might be also tempted to use a line of tweeters instead of a point source.
Naturally, my way of doring this is what I've done in my six π and seven π loudspeakers. In those, the woofer and midhorn have a wide overlap to smooth the upper modal region. The midhorn and tweeter are tightly coupled to provide good summing over a 90°x40° pattern. You could always scale up the midhorn if you wanted. Larger horns tend to provide acoustic loading and pattern control down to a lower frequency. The only thing to watch out for is that you don't also reduce the upper frequencies or make it too large to give good verticals. There are lots of competing priorities to balance.