To SAM or not to SAM and DRC

[Jean-Marie]

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An other consideration is that a phase shift is a phase shift and an attenuation is an attenuation and it does not matter if it is done in the digital, the analog or the acoustic domain. Similarly, if I can insert somewhere in the chain the exact inverse function the end result will be much more accurate, and it does not matter in which domain the correction is done. 
It happens that digital signal processing is the most cost effective way to achieve it. So yes the digital chain is no longer bit perfect but the overall chain becomes much closer to the identity function. 
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Jean-Marie

Good point Jean-Marie and somehow it made 'klick' in my head this morning. I may got it wrong inasmuch as looking ONLY on single sound objects.
Thinking more over it you are right that a phase shift is a phase shift for ALL sound objects in the end.

But there is this last point standing. That's the SAM test from above. The difference/effect in SAM On/Off can clearly be recognized. There has to be a conclusion to this effect for me.

If I think of SAM doing it right in theory but to accomplish its task it has to use digital filters.
SAM compensates for phase and volume flaws of the speakers BUT has to use filters that itself have phase shifts involved on the freq they are used on (6dB/90°, 12dB/180°, 18dB/270°, 24dB/0°).
Even 24dB (no phase shift?) needs processing time, so there is a time dependency here? As I'm no engineer on this task now it would be nice to have Devialet engineer on hand and have some enlightment. It's all patented anyway. He could make detailed comments. Ok, dream on...

But may this be the point?
SAM compensates for the big flaws of a speaker but can not prevent smaller flaws (phase shifts) to appear in the music signal hence its function parameters?

gui

I was only trying to answer to the part whether bit perfect is important or not.

This being said, I don't know enough details about how Devialet is doing its SAM processing to comment on whether or not they are introducing extra phase changes beyond the compensation it intends to do or not.

An other interesting point is not not every phase shift is audible. I find it fascinating that one cannot distinguish by ear whether the bow of a violin is being pushed or pulled, but if you look at the spectrum, the harmonics are seriously phase shifted between the two.

One thing that would be interesting would be to do the test with the SAM percentage to zero, which if I have understood correctly would turn down the bass extension aspect and only leave the phase correction of the phase.

Jean-Marie