TIME is arrival time. Ignoring Xover phase, a flat baffle box with a 8" woofer and dome tweeter has a driver arrival delta of about 500µS or about 2kHz. In a 2 way system, the kick beater will arrive ahead of the fundamental. In a multi woofer system, the direct arrival is at multiple times, PLUS first reflections varying in both time and intensity. Imaging suffers.Very clear and very right....Thank you for the post....
PHASE is the synchronicity between fundamental and harmonics. If harmonics arrive asynchronously to fundamental, imaging suffers.
A system with TIME wrong cannot get PHASE coherent.
Most systems make no attempt to get TIME or PHASE coherent.
Imaging is NOT level (volume). Imaging is when the speakers disappear and one can walk into the stage! Most systems fail miserably. Ditto rooms.
Timbre recording technique induce a trade-off that exclude perfect reproduction, and ask for some acoustic room conditions also for his recreation....It was more difficult in my experience to create acoustic condition for naturalness of timbre envelope perception in my room than some imaging...But if someone enjoy very natural timbre perception in his room i am sure that his imaging will be very good....i am not a scientist, i speak only by my experience and wait to be corrected if this is the case....
Imaging is NOT level (volume). Imaging is when the speakers disappear and one can walk into the stage! Most systems fail miserably. Ditto rooms.I am happy to say that i enjoy this phenomena in my room...
But i must add that if some systems fails miserably, it is probably most of the time, with relatively good design audio system and speakers, it is i said probably most of the times because the acoustical settings of the room is not adequate and in synergy with the acoustical properties of the speakers....It was my case ....
My best to you....