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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
andy2 OP
1,554 posts
 
Personally, I've been called worse. How far you care to sink is your call.
It depends on the level of weirdness of your posts.  If there are more than three run-on sentences and more than three random thoughts randomly put together into a sentence, then that would be qualified as being "drunk posting".

midnight_rider's avatar
midnight_rider
5 posts
 
I can see there is no point in going any further. 

Nobody in their right mind would attempt to fully model a physical system when a perfectly good approximation will get you 98+% of the way there with a fraction of the work. Simple harmonic oscillator and rigid rotor are perfect examples of this. Yes, the electron probability density function is infinitely more complicated than our simple model, yer we are still able to predict with stunning accuracy observable properties using these simple models. This extends to many, many practical examples.

Granted, with access to a supercomputer, it can be fun to attempt to add as many perturbations as one can, but that's an entirely different exercise.

I leave you to it, as you are obviously very capable.
atdavid
736 posts
 
I am with you midnight_rider. You can't proclaim one hypothesis to start the post that defines a holy grail, then claim that something else is too complex and variable to model .... which means no holy grail.
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,680 posts
 
Sorry, @andy2 .  My excuse is that I 'was born this way'.  If you haven't run into a 'personality type' of my sort, that's not my problem.

If you'd care to note the time this post has been made, it's a bit early for even my lifestyle to get fried enough to 'drunk post' this early in the day.

As is said, "It takes a lot of souls to fill a freeway."  And, having been born in SoCal (Long Beach) some 68 years ago, I might be able to legitimately claim the effects of smog causing mental dismangement....

But I won't.

As for the way I express myself; if you'd prefer monosyllabic retorts....not very likely from this mortal. 'Short & terse' isn't really my style, here or IRL.

Besides, this is really 'off-topic', you Are the 'OP', so...get back to it.
No apology sought or required.
Have a good week. 
audition__audio
1,500 posts
 
Did someone earlier call Jim Thiel a genius and then reference his 5 model crossover? Look at this crossover and tell me this isnt actually the work of a designer concerned with only one aspect ignoring all else. All I can say is that this crossover is an affront. 
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