PS - Looking at the step response (Figure 5) this is not a time-aligned speaker. If it were there would be a single rising impulse followed by a long decay. The two peaks are indicators that these speakers are phase aligned.
A Question About Time Alignment
I was reading a review of the Wilson Alex V on Stereophile recently. (Published just in time. I’m thinking about picking up a pair. Maybe a couple for the bedroom, too.) And it raised a long-standing question of mine, one that I hope the wiser minds on this site can answer.
Wilson’s big selling point is aligning the different frequencies so they all reach your ear simultaneously. As I understand it, that’s why they have minute adjustments among the various drivers. The woofers put out bass notes that move slowly thanks to their long sound waves while the tweeters are playing faster moving, high frequency notes with short waves. Wilson lets you make adjustments so that they all arrive at the ear at once.
It seems to me, however, that live music isn’t time aligned. Suppose I’m playing the piano and you’re sitting across the room. When I stretch out my left hand to hit the low notes, those notes travel along the same long, slow wavelengths as the notes from Wilson’s woofers. Similarly, the treble notes I play with my right hand move quickly through the short wavelengths. The notes from the piano are naturally out of alignment. If Wilson’s goal is to achieve a lifelike sound, aligning the frequencies doesn’t seem like the way to do it.
Wilson has been selling lots of zillion dollar speakers for lots of years and people continue to gobble ‘em up. Something must be wrong with my line of reasoning. Would someone please point out where I’ve gone wrong? Nicely?
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A reason why you want time aligned drivers in a multi-driver loudspeaker is that you want the fundamental frequency to arrive at your ear at the same time the overtones arrive. There are multiple ways to achieve time-alignment in a loudspeaker including the placement of the drivers. As mentioned above by others, some people think it's important and others don't. |
My Sonner Legato Unum are time aligned and sound fantastic in my system. As are the entire Sonner line. Simply a wonderful speaker no matter what amplifier I use. Much of this is due the the driver time alignment.
Sonner Audio Legato Unum Loudspeaker | REVIEW - Part-Time Audiophile (parttimeaudiophile.com) |
Google: Physical time alignment of drivers is accomplished by building them into the cabinets so that the magnets/voice coils are vertically aligned so they are radiating the same info in temporal alignment, reaching the listeners ear at the same time. What is audio time alignment? In other words, the high frequencies and low frequencies much reach the listener's ear at the same time. A system which meets this criterion is said to be “time aligned.” One way to accomplish this is to place the tweeter further away from the listener than the woofer, and this is done in many speaker systems. ASR answer to the question:
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Suppose you (the woofer) hit the bass keys of the piano and someone else (the tweeter) hits the treble keys, but not at the same time. The music is no longer time aligned. But if you both hit the keys at the same time, is is aligned even though one frequency gets to the ear first. It's part of the experience of listening to the piano. |
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