New WAMM

[f1eng]

Looks like Wilson are on some sort of a SAM quest. With the difference being Wilson adjusting the speaker to the amp and cables:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilso...bVFmA16.97

Quote:

"Transit time can be significant when you're talking about this critical degree of time resolution, and can be ascertained using propriety techniques," he said. "In the low frequencies where many solid-state amplifiers have very close alignment, a vacuum-tube amplifier may lag by about 50 microseconds. With the WAMM's adjustability, that variable can be normalized. If we know a particular amplifier's "time profile", we can derive the appropriate custom alignment. We've looked at six different amps so far, but we are just getting started."

One pair of WAMM P2 prototypes will eventually be permanently mounted at one end of a small, narrow padded room in the Wilson factory, with a permanently affixed microphone at the other end. Here, when essential timing information is not supplied by manufacturers, Wilson Audio will measure an assortment amps and/or cables and determine their timing profiles. In cables, of special interest is the delay time in various ranges, eg, the high frequencies relatives to the upper midrange to the lower midrange and to the bass.

I fully understand that time alignment between the different frequencies can be important. But then again when you're at a concert  you're most likely further away from the artists so what you hear live will be more miss aligned then what's coming from your speakers.

Isn't it funny that Wilson is adressing time alignment of speaker cables and others are still discussing sound differences of cables 
Now that gives some reason of speaker/cables matching, does it?

I don't know what you mean by more miss aligned? Sure all frequencies travel at different speeds but that's what gives us locationability and differentiation of instruments. If you are sitting further away in a concert you will hear the artists more in a sense of a whole atmosphere then single instruments (speaking of classical concert). There can not be any miss alignment though as the continuity of each sound isn't broken.

If you play the live recording of this special concert later at home you will most likely hear more details and single instruments because the microphones were close and aligned to the instruments. But then comes the timely miss aligned signal processing (digital & analogue) into play what makes it sound less natural as the live performance you heard before in the concert hall.

gui

For me, no modern recordings are likely to be phase coherent (ie time aligned) since they are mixed from loads of microphones, often each at different distances from the instrument being recorded (with the musician moving too) and each microphone picking up a bit of sound from other instruments.
It is amazing that these multi-track recordings sound much like anything at all, and in fact I have always preferred simply miked recordings which were the only thing one could do years ago.
My own recordings use only 2 microphones, what I lose in poorer signal-to-noise is more than made up for by a more realistic recording overall IME.

To be honest, if time alignment was genuinely as important as some imply all multi track recordings would sound absolutely dreadful since none of them are even remotely time aligned.
The recorder used, analogue or digital makes a really tiny (negligible) contribution to time alignment compared to microphone position.