A Question About Time Alignment

I have read through this thread over the past few days and have purposely stayed out.  There are some reasonable explanations in this thread and others that don't show a real understanding of time & phase..... I will try to provide an accurate and very simple explanation.   

Over all time alignment is addressed.  All frequencies travel at the same speed,  Just because one frequencies wave length is longer, does not mean that the frontal wave of one frequency will reach you at a different time as another.  

On speaker design what we align is the portion of each driver where the sound is emitted, which is normally, aligning the front of each voice coil.  This allows all drivers sound to reach the ear at the same time. .... drivers can be staggered or sloped.   

Phasing.... fairly simple actually.... If it were possible to have a PERFECTLY phased speaker, which does not exist, 2 way, 3 way 4 way does not matter.  In each of these speakers, perfect phasing means all speakers cone movement would operate in unison.  This really cannot happen, so perfect phase cannot happen.  What we normally do is to get phase alignment at the crossover frequency.  When each driver is in phase at the crossover frequency, you normally get a quite good sound stage.  Each crossover type will cause some sort of phase shift, normally 60 to 180 degrees out of phase.  With alot of work, I have seen some drivers as close as 15 degrees of absolute phase with another, but normally achieving near phase alignment at the crossover point works very well. If you think about it in frequency, its fairly easy to understand why you cannot achieve absolute phase alignment. a tweeter may produce 3000 hz and up, well its obvious that the tweeter is moving at 3000 cycles per second, so a woofer moving at 60 cycles, obviously cannot produce sound waves in perfect unison.  Each driver does its job and we do the best that we can to produce time and phase alignment.  The better that alignment the better soundstage and imaging are produced.   If you think about it in the deepest sense,  Phase really is time, if drivers are out of phase with each other, frequencies are leaving the drivers at different times, thus effecting time alignment.  I hope this all makes sense and helps in some way.  Tim

Phase really is time, if drivers are out of phase with each other, frequencies are leaving the drivers at different times, thus effecting time alignment.  I hope this all makes sense and helps in some way.  Tim

No you are just confusing the issue even more. Phase and time are two different things. time cohesion implies phase cohesion but not vice versa. So not equivalent at all. Time coherence between two drivers is about aligning the start of the waves coming out of each driver. You can have phase aligned yet time non aligned. 

On speaker design what we align is the portion of each driver where the sound is emitted, which is normally, aligning the front of each voice coil.  This allows all drivers sound to reach the ear at the same time. .... drivers can be staggered or sloped.   

This is also nonsense. 90%  of speakers are not sloped or staggered and nobody is complaining. Time alignement has never been proven to be beneficial let alone audible it is only for marketing. 

I am very disappointed in you Tim. Was waiting for your custom tuned circuits and they never materialized.

~Master Kenjit, speaker tuner and master audiophile.

in colloquial speech fast or slow refers to time. For example fast food refers to food that is prepared quickly. There is no mention of distance in that.

@kenjit but we’re not talking about cables being like a pizza, or how quickly KCF gets a bucket ready.
It started off with time alignment, and then went towards the speed of sound… so it seemed like a technical discussion rather than a colloquial one?

First, if you intend to "pick up" a pair of any Wilson speakers....bring a crane!

Second, while the provability of "time alignment" claims for speakers has been argued since the launch of Dahlquist DQ10s, the fallacy in your reasoning is this...the arrival time cues in a recording are baked into the stereo microphone pickup of the event.  The speaker's job is to restore them to your perception in your room without altering them.  That's High Fidelity 101.  Which is also why assessing playback fidelity with multitrack recordings is a waste of time.  Only "live to 2 track" unamplified, unprocessed recordings, whether classical, jazz, or folk or any subgenre of acoustically produced music is of actual use.  Once accuracy is found acceptible, bring on your favorite commecially recorded selections, knowing you are hearing them as they are.  

I remain unconvinced.