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
4krowme's avatar
4krowme
542 posts
 

Wow, just wow. I never would have dreamed that this topic could be so 'diverse'. I read one post after another, saying one thing only to be roughly corrected by the next couple of posts. 

 I suppose that my take here is that you want the drivers to launch the audio signal 'in step' with each other. Also to be taken into account is the ear/brain acceptance of receiving of the audio. Let's say that 8 milliseconds are insignificant to the ear/brain acceptance (meaning that this draws a meaningful amount of attention). OTOH, 30 milliseconds are another matter, and will be noticed. I am not using actual millisecond references, but just rough ideas of time.

 If I were to design a loudspeaker, I certainly would want a certain amount of alignment between drivers, whatever that number in milliseconds needs to be. If mounting the drivers makes no discernable difference to ear/brain were golden.

 

  

timlub
2,039 posts
 

@kenjit       Nope

timlub
2,039 posts
 

@paul6001     Sorry that I derailed your thread with Kenjit,  but overall and I can tell you that a handful of people that gave you answers had a very good understanding and gave accurate answers. It looks to me that regardless of the many answers, most concur.  The speed of sound makes all frequencies travel at the same speed regardless of wavelength.  Phasing does matter to some degree, but is not the be all end all.  

I can tell you that there are differences.  I have taken a nice 2way out of a standard type of cabinet and switched it to a sloped front cabinet. To be fair, also changed the crossover a bit to compensate for listening angle at the seating position, but in the end.  I was able to add depth to the soundstage as well as a more pinpoint placement of instruments...  Overall,  in some speakers, it may not be dramatic, but in others, depending on design, it very well could be.   Good luck,  I hope this helps in some way,  Tim

jerryg123's avatar
jerryg123
3,429 posts
 

So what in the hell is a Master Audiophile?

kenjit
1,771 posts
 

@jerryg123 

It is an audiophile that has achieved a higher level of knowledge and understanding than other audiophiles about how to obtain perfection. We know what to listen for and we do not settle for anything less than perfection.

More to discover