In my previous post, when I compared different filter order,
I didn't mean to say that higher order is bad and first order
is good. I think each filter order has its own strength and
weakness. High order filter objective gives you more "clarity"
but I also think high order subtracts the "musical" part of the music.
Higher order tends to give you a more "pin point" image production
vs. first order. Listening to the CS2.4, although it has a lot
of see through clarity of the soundstage, I think I've have heard
better image see through with other speakers, but the CS2.4 is
just more musically satisfy. I guess my English is not good
enough so I want to quote a Stereophile review of the CS3.7
review when he compared the sound of the CS3.7 vs. the
Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 8:
"While the Wilsons did give Francois Couturier's piano in
Brahem's "Vague/E la nave va" a slightly more vivid presence,
I felt the Thiels did a better job of seeing into the heart
of the music. What does that mean? It wasn't a matter of
soundstaging or holographic imaging—both speakers were
champs at that—but the Thiels had a quality I can describe
only as grace. Grace is like a soap bubble: Try to dissect
it and it's gone. Perhaps a better way of putting it would
be that the Thiels got out of their own way, which is what
a high-end speaker is supposed to do."
That is how I felt about first order filter. It communicates
the heart and emotion of the music better. To me, first
order is like tube amplifier which may not be as clear
or have the impact of solid state, but it is just more
musically satisfying.
When I design my speaker, using the same cabinet and drivers,
if I design the cross over network using higher order filter,
it was more or less an academic exercise. But when I
tried to design using first order, it took me a long time
to get right but it's absolutely worth it. As a matter
of fact, it is easy to make your speakers sound "right"
using high order filter, and it's a lot easier to mess up
the sound using first order filter.
The one major disadvantage of first order, time coherent
speaker is that it really restricts your options as far
as driver configuration. That is why almost all time coherent
speakers are essentially three way. All Thiel speakers
and Vandersteen are essentially three way. Vandersteen
has a couple of 4-way but the fourth driver essentially
acts as a subwoofer crossing over at very low frequency
so it's not a problem. If you want to use multiple bass
drivers then it's probably not possible since it would be
very difficult to integrate the sound coming from different
drivers with first order filter. Also if you want to
build large speaker with multiple midrange drivers,
multiple bass drivers, I would think you have to use
higher order filter.
