2. speakers
  3. 180329-102842

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?

paul6001
ditusa's avatar
ditusa
1,887 posts
 

TIME DOMAIN RESPONSE IN MONITOR LOUDSPEAKERS

http://proaudioencyclopedia.com/time-domain-response-in-monitor-loudspeakers/

antigrunge2
1,418 posts
 

As you go down this particular rabit hole, you‘ll end up concluding that time allignment isn‘t sufficient. For anything but deep bass having a point source is ideal because you avoid both phase and differential reflection issues: hence Tannoy dual concentric and various other point source designs.

erik_squires
16,134 posts
 

Ahem, if you are looking at 2-ways, the Fritz models IMHO are highly competitive with the Wilson Tune tots. :)

dynamiclinearity
270 posts
 

Be sure to not confuse time alignment with linear phase. Wilson speakers are time aligned, not linear phase, fundamentals and harmonics do not arrive at the same time. What time alignment is concerned with is when seperate drivers play the same frequency at the same time. You want those frequencies to arrive at the ear at the same time. That's time alignment and it occurs at and around the crossover frequencies between two drivers and or when two drivers are acoustical mirrors of each other such as dual mid ranges, both of which circumstances occur in Wilson speakers. And this is what is solved, albeit best for one seat, in Wilson speakers. There are compromises such as aligning voice coils but they are not as accurate as Wilson's adjustable enclosures. I suspect time alignment is important especially in speakers where the many other problems are well handled. Just keep in mind what time alignment is and what it isn't and what it does and what it doesn't do.

jeffseight's avatar
jeffseight
574 posts
 

P6001,

Before you go buy the two pair of Wilsons I suggest

you read up a bit. Plenty of reference material for audiophiles

available. 

Not too long ago I sat in large listening room that featured the Wilson ($700K)

speakers.+ the Perry subs.  I heard 4 different speakers. Now they must have been 

poorly setup. But this dealer claims to sell more Wilson than anyone.

Later I was invited to listen to the same speakers in a customers home-

Different city- Only these were powered by Spectral instead of Burmeister.

Whole different coherent sound. 

Without correct time alignment the sound will never be right. 

 

 

 

 

More to discover