Phantom Gold measurements: a stunning web first!

[ogs]

ogs - I suspect this one might be difficult to describe in words, but I am interested in your comments above.  When you listen to a reasonably decent speaker that happens to have poor time alignment, what is it you actually hear that you do not like?  I am kind of wondering if I have ever heard this myself, but actually had no idea what it was that I had noticed!  (although I think it is more likely I am one of those not sensitive to this, I have read about others that are though)

Hi Confused - you are right, it is difficult to describe but I'll try.

First of all, on a flat baffle passive speaker, sound from the treble unit will arrive first. This creates a very specific colouration that may sound favourable on some recordings/music and not good with other types of music. You will play more music that matches the speakers and less of the type that does not match well.

Secondly, you'll notice that the stereo image, stage or perspective, whatever one calls this, is not coherent. It can be compared to looking through a window pane where the glass is not evenly thick. The view will be distorted. On good recordings the stereo stage will have different properties depending on which part of the frequency spectrum is prominent.

The worst part for me is treble or overtones arriving before mid and bass. One does not loose all dimensionality if the time domain is not corrected so it is perfectly possible to live with an otherwise good speaker, but having learned how time coherent sounds I always end up trying to fix it.

A time coherent speaker design can sound less impressive compared to other speakers in a shop demo, so it is not as easy to 'sell' (to an inexperienced customer).

One of the best examples I know of is the Celestion SL600Si speaker with the DLP600 correction unit. The speaker was reviewed by Stereophile around 1992. http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspea...index.html I do not think Celestion had a huge success with this, mostly because the DLP600 had to be inserted in a digital chain between a CD transport and DAC for example. Too complicated. Today this would be very easy.
The review has many parts and is quite long, but is worth reading - and the measurements is worth studying. I never owned this speaker my self.

If you have heard a time compensated speaker that you like, it will be quite obvious when you return to a 'conventional' speaker. You'll miss the special open and often 'effortless' character of it's presentation.
There is of course much more to speaker design than time coherence. A bad speaker will not suddenly be world class when it is time coherent - but it can help.
Like this DEQX demo: http://www.soundandvision.com/content/de...azing-demo or youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2I4DpmaNU