Do distortion 's affect enjoyment of speaker?

08-07-14: Melbguy1
Bombaywalla, I acknowledge your fair comments. However on the one
hand Magico are telling me the S5's are time coherent, and on the other
you are telling me they are not. One might ask who do you believe? May I
pose this question to you, Is a speaker either time coherent or not? Or can
there be different degrees in between? And are (objective) measurements
more important than (subjective) listening in assessing the overall
coherency of a speaker?
Melbguy1

hi Melbguy1
who do I believe? I believe myself & my research & my understanding of the matter.
The S5 are not time-coherent if they use higher order x-over i.e. 2nd order or higher. Period.
Bifwynne's answer/post is exactly correct re. the S5. The use of higher order x-over destroys the phase difference relationship amongst the various frequencies in the audio band 20Hz-20KHz. The physics of using a higher order x-over prevents the speaker from being time-coherent.
Doug Schneider's review of the S5 is a nice read but Doug is not trained in engineering math & physics to understand the subtleties between phase coherence & time coherence. So, I would not latch onto Doug's words & find comfort in them re. the speakers being time-coherent.
Like Bifwynne wrote, you can still buy & like the S5. Just don't call it time-coherent - it's at best phase coherent/phase linear at its x-over frequencies.

Is a speaker either time coherent or not? Or can
there be different degrees in between? And are (objective) measurements
more important than (subjective) listening in assessing the overall
coherency of a speaker?
Melbguy1

either a speaker is time-coherent or it's not. There's nothing in between - just varying degrees of time-INcoherence. Those like Magico (which are time-incoherent) try to minimize the distortions & other brands have them worse.
Objective measurements verify that the speaker is time-coherent or not (see Stereophile measurements over the years of various time-coherent speakers). And, subjective listening verifies the measurements. Listening & listening carefully with the right kind of music is important towards assessing the merits of any speaker & is always recommended.

Bombaywalla. You invested much time in pressing your point labeling the
S5's as time IN-coherent as you put it. Somehow I find your comments
overly-forensic and rigid (which is I suspect how you like your music to
sound). Let's ignore all the rave reviews of the S5's, let's ignore thier strong
sales. Let's ignore the fact I own a pair and have over 500 hrs logged
listening to them and could not possibly have a well considered view of
their sound. Let's even ignore the fact you own panel speakers and
could not possibly be heavily invested in a completely divergent point of
view. Indeed let's pretend you are open minded and completely objective
for a moment. If I had to choose the viewpoint of a well respected reviewer
with over 20 years experience who spends more time listening to speakers
than someone who spends every waking hour reading Freshman textbooks
on acoustical engineering or staring at waterfall plots, whose view do you
think i'm more likely to respect?

Bombywalla,
I always find your comments interesting and informative. This topic is no exception, I just came across it very recently. Are first order crossovers a prerequisite for proper time alignment?
Would a single driver crossoverless speaker be another example of true time alignment?
Are you able to consistently hear the results of time alignment?
Thanks,
Charles,

Hi Melbguy1,
Somehow the conversation diverged into talking more about the S5 than the original topic of "Do distortion 's affect enjoyment of speaker?". Sorry about that. I'll stop talking about the S5 & concentrate more on the OP's topic.
You're assuming too much about rigidity & my music sounding that way & freshman text books, etc, etc. I'm not going to bother to correct you. Please feel free to think the way you are already....
On the topic of whose opinion you respect more - I'll let you be the judge of that as well since you have to live with your decision. What your ultimate selection is, has no bearing on me.

Anyway, the whole point of this discussion is that one needs to know what situation one is in w.r.t. music & playback equipment. The situation doesn't have to be perfect for the person to enjoy the music. But, if one is unaware of the situation, one can never become a better audiophile, a better listener & a better chooser of playback equipment. One needs to understand one's equipment, it's limitations & what can be done in the future to improve. That's one main reason to discuss these topic on public forums. But if new information is not going to be incorporated in becoming better in this hobby, why be on a forum?

Sorry that you are offended - I was trying to bring forward information on the speaker that I felt was important with the idea that you may chose to do something with it in the future. I/We'll stop the chatter on the S5 & concentrate on the "Do distortion 's affect enjoyment of speaker?" topic.