First order/Time Phase-Coherent speakers discussions


"The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!"


I would like to use this thread to talk about this subject which I find rather fascinating and somewhat difficult to get my hands on. I went through a course in electromagnetism in college and I have to say this is even more confusing and you won’t find the answer in calculus, physics, Einstein relativity be damned it’s not in there either and definitely not in quantum physics. Listening to the "experts" from Vandersteens and Stereophile but ultimately it all came down to a missing link sort of argument ... something like this:
"Since if a speaker can produce a step response correctly, therefore it is time-phase coherent, and therefore it must be "good".

It’s like saying humans come from chimps since they share 90% genetic content with us, but we can’t find any missing links or evidence. FYI, we share a lot of gene with the corn plants as well. Another argument I’ve heard from John Atkinson that lacks any supporting evidence and he said that if everything else being equal, time-phase coherence tends to produce a more coherent and superior soundstage, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has been able to produce some semblance of evidence since there is no way to compare apples to apples. Speaker "A" may have better soundstage simply because it’s a BETTER design, and the claim "time-phase coherent" is just a red herring. There’s no way one can say the "goodness" from "time-phase coherence" because you can’t compare apples to apples. Ultimately it’s a subjective quantification.

I’ve been doing some simulation and I will post some of my findings with graphs, plots, actual simulation runs so that we are discussing on subjective personal opinions. Some of my findings actually shows that intentionally making time-phase may result in inferior phase problem and NOT better! (will be discussed more in detail).

Having said all that, I am actually in favor of first order/time-phase coherent if POSSIBLE. I am not in favor of time-phase coherence just for the sake of it. It’s just that there are a lot of mis-information out there that hopefully this will clear those out. Well hopefully ...

Here my preliminary outline:

1. My "subjective" impression of what is "musicality" and how it’s related to first order filters.
2. Interpretation of step-response. I’ve read a lot of online writing with regard to the interpretations but I think a lot of them are wrong. A proper interpretation is presented with graphs and simulations.
3. A simulation of an 1st order and higher order filters with ideal drivers and why time-phase coherence is only possible with 1st order filter. This part will use ideal drivers. The next part will use real world drivers.
4. A simulation with actual drivers and how to design a 1st order/time phase coherent speaker. Discuss pros and cons. And why time-phase coherence may actually have phase issues.
5. Discuss real world examples of time-phase coherence with Thiel’s and Vandersteens speakers (and why I suspect they may not ultimately be time-phase coherent in the strictest sense).
6. I’ll think of something real to say here ... :-)
andy2
Andy, you have opinions that you don't understand. I'm happy to stick to your original premise, but slamming others for giving accurate information does not work.
I am still waiting for someone to tell me who can understand time-phase coherent, including all the experts in the world  )-: :-(
George Washington is in the car
Is he doing Ms. Washington :-)  That's the whole reason being Mr. George Washington.
" I am still waiting for someone to tell me who can understand time-phase coherent, including all the experts in the world )-: :-("
That I can help with....
First understand "Time Alignment" 
The speed of sound moves at the same speed at all frequencies, so the first battle would be to make the sound of the tweeter,  mid,  woofer or any other driver to hit your ears at the same time.  The most common way is to align the voice coils, where the sound of the speaker originates from.  When coils are in alignment,  the sound from all drivers hit the ear at the same time.  Could be done by staggering or a slanted front etc. 
Next ... Phasing: 
One reason that a single driver does so many things right is that there are no phase issues.  A single driver does not have to move in unison with any other drivers. 
So what is phasing?  All drivers moving in perfect unison.... when one driver starts moving outward,  all drivers move outward at the same time,  when it comes back,  all drivers move back at the same time.  This helps tremendously to prevent smearing or to improve pinpoint imaging. 
So what did I mean when I said that cross overs change phasing... A single cap or 1st order crossover,  normally will cause a phase shift of 90 degrees,  so to keep the next driver moving in unison,  it must also be moving 90 degrees out of phase to stay in unison with the other driver. 
Again,  24db per octave brings you back around 360 degrees to put drivers back in phase,  but the crossover parts count, the sound of the crossover parts being used and the practice vs theory that you don't truly end of with absolute phase cause most to not use 24db per octave slopes. 
Time/Phase Coherence is just what it sounds:  Time and phase working in conjunction to form a Unified Whole.  

I hope that I have expressed this in a way for everyone of any level to understand, 
Tim 
By the way,  to be clear: 
Absolute phasing is IMPOSSIBLE. 
You can get phasing done at the crossover point which is the goal.  
a woofer playing bass at 50 cycles will move at a different rate than a tweeter playing at 15000 cycles. 
When we align phase at the crossover points, that is as close as you can hope for. 
I hope this helps,
Tim