I think the key to understanding how important time and phase coherence is that, once you have experienced it and "learned" the cue to listen for in playback, it becomes apparent when it is taken away and the brain expects these timing cues to be intact. Instead one is sensitized and hears things that are out of time with regard to timbre and attack microdynamics across the frequency range. These most subtle cues add up. I think this is the reason why when I left Thiel for Dynaudio many years ago, a year later I just had to return to Thiels (or Vandersteen).
