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Is time coherence more important than dynamics: Gallo versus Green Mountain

The question I am posing is whether time coherence is more important than dynamics for long term music listening pleasure. Some background on how I arrived at this question in the course of shopping for new speakers.

In my secondary system, which is in a small room 12ft x 8ft in my Florida condo,  I substituted B & W 705 s3s for Green Mountain Chroma's which I had and enjoyed for several years. I always liked the Chromas but thought I wanted more dynamics and resolution. I planned to sell the Chroma's, but ended up taking them to my summer home where my main system is located in a larger room. (I am happy with the B&Ws, by the way.)

Spring comes and I migrate to my house in the North (nice to be a retired snowbird). I decided to upgrade the older but excellent kit speakers in my summer house and was lucky enough to be loaned a pair of Gallo Strada IIs with sub-woofer. After thorough break in I listened to them for about a week. Wonderful big sound stage, detailed, and dynamic. I was almost ready to pull the trigger when I decided to swap in the Chromas, just for fun.  To my surprise, the Chromas beat the Gallos, not with sizzle, but with a much more believable illusion of real music.  It was immediately apparent.The sound felt natural and the imaging was more precise, if not quite as big. The Chromas sounded better than they did in the small Florida room. I returned the Gallos, but kept researching to get an even better upgrade than the Green Mountains without the use of subs. I'm not sure this quest was rational, but I had the itch to approach my ideal speaker.

The real challenge is to get both the ease and natural feeling of real music with, good sound stage, full dynamics and frequency response range. After a few weeks of searching, I settled on the Legacy Audio Signature SEs. They should be delivered in a few days.
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almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Everything else being equal, IMO time coherence can actually enhance perceived dynamics, as the better time alignment of "fundamental frequencies" and "overtones" it can provide will tend to result in "cleaner" and more sharply defined transient response.

However there are so many variables and tradeoffs involved in speaker design that IMO it would be unwise to choose a speaker, or even to choose a range of speakers to audition, based on any such generalities.

Regards,
-- Al
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,213 posts
 
Things are always best when the stars are aligned properly. 
gdnrbob
4,445 posts
 
I have always favored time/phase aligned speakers. For some reason, they always sound 'right' to my ears.
B
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Dynamic range ("jump factor") trumps time-coherence - though they are not mutually exclusive! And can be implemented in the same speaker by a savvy designer! Two cases of successful designs: DCM Time Windows and Ohm Sound Cylinders (Steve Eberbach and John Strohbeen, respectively)! I still own both. And they both have a sense of "liveliness" lacking in many contemporary (and touted) speakers!
ejr1953
914 posts
 
When I was going thru the (year long) process of auditioning speakers, at one shop the salesman asked me if I prefer "analytic" or "musical" speakers.  It was an interesting question, one I hadn't thought of in those terms before.  My choice was "musical".

I believe that we all hear music differently.  Speakers that have the characteristics that are pleasing to your ear, may not be pleasing to mine.

Back in the day, evaluating speakers I used to do that "A/B" comparison, pressing the "clicker" to switch back and forth, frequently during a track.  Now I prefer to spend some "quality time" listening to "speaker A", then switch the cabling and do the same for "speaker B".  That has given me the opportunity to discover (among other things), how loud a particular speaker needs to be to "come alive".
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