Minbean,
You say you don't understand my viewpoint. Allow me to try to explain. Relative phase is a circular function and cycles through the same start point like the hands of a clock 360° of phase equals one full rotation or cycle. Because phase describes the relative time difference between two signals, it can be expressed in degrees or radians, which measure the completed portion of a circular period or wavelength. For example, 90° of phase delay is a quarter of a period (wavelength) at any frequency. The amount of time delay it takes to move apart 90°, however, is frequency-dependent. Thus, a given time delay will produce different amounts of phase shift at different frequencies. In other words, what you have with higher order speakers (12db/octave or higher) is essentially a time delay circuit that adds a different amount of delay to each and every frequency. Therefore, what you have is not your 0.01 second delay across the entire frequency spectrum as in your sample, but a delay that varies with frequency, something quite un-natural. Putting it another way, that 0.01 delay at 50hz is magnitudes higher at 1khz or 16khz. It is heard on complex music. Live sound direct from an instrument to our ears does not have delay that changes with frequency superimposed on its original response. It is an artifact of speaker physics. Does that help? Taking nothing away from the Merlins, I agree with elsneb.... audition the Callisto's also.
