Does Time alignment and Phase coherency make for a better loudspeaker?

Room treatments do not add to coherency.  Room treatments subtract.  The speaker must produce a time or phase coherent sound field in order to produce that astonishing three dimensional soundstage.  The reflections- both airborne and the mechanical interaction between the speakers and the floor (as well as to the amps and other components) though small they may be smear the sound.  The room treatments remove those reflections to restore coherency and detail as well as bring more clarity to the bass.  That is my experience.  

Good for you, but the topic was time and phase... so you are out of sync.

Past attempts at DSP were abysmal failures, but perhaps significant gains have been made in the past few years. Funny I still dont consider DSP a viable option which is probably not wise. Just dont like the idea of DSP at a fundamental level. 

So you were bit biased?

I phase and time align every concert venue I mix (hundreds overe decades) , and my home rig also. I never said phase and time don't matter, I simply was pointing out that live music with no sound reinforcement is never specifically adjusted for time and phase, and it still sounds great. Musicians hopefully play in sync and in tune, but not always perfectly and it can still like magic.

 

The signal from a person playing or singing is, by definition, time/phase aligned.
If there is no speaker reinforcement, then why are you there?

Little snarky there holmz...I was referring to the sound of multiple musicians playing the same music with space between them. I attend concerts I don’t mix, and ones I do mix I listen to unamplified sound from various areas during sound check including right in front of or on the stage. If you can’t understand my posts, why are you here?

An argument I've heard for time/phase alignment is that it relieves your brain of the burden of reconstructing the sound as it originally was.  The various frequencies that make up any sound are normally all related in time and most speakers don't preserve the relationship.  Your brain is good at fixing this before you perceive the sound so you don't exactly hear the difference but you can sense the relief of your brain not needing to do the work.  

I don't know if it's true but there are sure a lot of people that like Thiel, Vandersteen, etc.  If I perceive it, and I think I do, it's a relaxing quality that other speakers don't have in my experience.  It sounds more correct and I can just relax and listen.

it does seem that snippy and snarky are in fashion, unfortunately - i fall into the rut occasionally as well

as for time alignment allowing the brain to work less hard, maybe so, dunno, but while i would agree that vandy's are very relaxing to listen to, my recollection is that thiels are less so, in fact they are quite dynamic and can get edgy, so not sure time alignment is behind their characters (more likely the metallic tweeter used in thiels)... other speakers are lovely and relaxing - harbeths, spendor classics, grahams... those are not time aligned

actually the major difference is the Jim T objective to be flat at the listening position vs at 1m for Richard V. One can debate the merits of both. Until recently i owned both and while i prefer the Vandy, I can understand the allure of increased treble energy inherent in the JT approach.

For those interested , no violin in flat at both 1m and 3 m...... of course if your reference is 32 track studio stuff, keep chasing your tail....