Phase Coherence or Time Alignment: Which More Imp?

Actually, I WOULD expect the 'forward' or brightness from a first order design. It's almost a sure bet that everyone who's heard THIEL would agree that they sound forward in the high frequencies. My speakers measure flat, (inasmuch as any can or will) yet the tweeter is invisible to the ear; this has the effect of making fatigue a virtual non factor. Plus older recordings, some of the sixties abortions which sound so awful, (this was the moment when engineers found the eq switch, I like to say), and they sound different than contemporary, but listenable, instead of ear splitting.
The principal design behind any speaker, should be fidelity, that is the output should equal the input, and here we're walking a fine line. A quarter of a db across a broad enough bandwidth, makes all the difference in the world tonally.
I theorize that the forwardness comes from the rather 'odd' sounds created by the multiple bandwidths covered by the drivers-- and how tonally mismatched they are in reproducing what should be similar sounds. That 'blend' of sounds creates a secondary sound, amusical to me, which I find offensive, and 'bright' as described by
Opalchip, even though he surmised that first order 'would not' sound bright.
This is based on listening to the contribution of the drivers individually, as they 'try' to play frequencies, which reside normally, well out of their range.
Theory, not scientific fact, but my ears hear the composite of each individual driver, and the sound is abberational.

Larry,

Great post.

In my opinion, the only manufacturer who really implements low order crossovers properly is Jim Thiel. His crossovers are complex, but he is much more advanced in his thinking than any other designer in that camp. If you took his speakers and ran them at moderate listening levels in a well damped listening environment and sat at just the right height you'd hear the best results that particular method has to offer.

Dear Josephaud- with my unbridled respect for you, I hubly accept this complement.
Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you again soon, (perhaps in Vegas.)

> There is no 'patent holder' per se on cross overs

Please forward your remarks to Richard Modafferi _and_ Roy Kimber, and let me know what you find. OTOH, I don't know if Kaminsky is still alive, or if that site is a licensee of his, or what. (Here's a small hint: "Our Infinite Slope (US Patent #4771466) reduces wave interference down....") God, I mean it's so obvious.

In a similar vein, your opinion that you would expect a first order crossover speaker to sound forward is without foundation. It's fine if you like Thiels, or if you like that attribute, but there are other first order designs which are anything but bright, including Vandersteens and presumably out of your awareness Symdex.

When Thiel was first getting dealers, including Herb Hamburger in PA, he maintained that other speakers rolled off the high end improperly. It was a design decision, which in my opinion he has somewhat moderated since the early days.

And most speakers do not measure flat to 20khz, although in recent years more and more might than was the case in the past.

I said there are no patent holders on First Order Crossovers, not 'any crossovers', and I didn't mention the Infinite Slope or Ray's special, relatively new crossover, as I recall--the issue at hand though, isn't that no one can patent them, its just that one infinitessimal change makes enforcing the intent of the patent impossible. Jim Thiel who had not patented anything up through 1999 when I worked for him, said, and I am recanting his words to me, as to the efficacy of patenting what I thought were some great ideas. It simply isn't realistic to patent certain items which are replicated with such frequency and similarity, in which changes of small measure destroy your case in court.(Not to mention the cost of enforcing, and protecting your patent.) I do notice from his web site that he has a patent pending re his SmartSub.(So all things change in time.)
The comments I made about first orders sounding 'bright' were, in this context, probably more regarding THIEL. Vandersteen is not only, not bright, many people find it lacking in what they call fine detail. I say they sound rather neutral and pleasant. One designer I was roaming the CES show with when it was still in Chicago, so an Ice Age ago, said upon hearing the latest Vandersteen, "Typical Richard design, not bad, won't offend anyone, but it lacks enough detail to make it interesting."
I have a wide berth of listening experiences, having visited about 100 stores across the United States while working as Director of Sales for THIEL, owning a retail store for 12 years, and attending every CES for many years; and my experience was that MANY 1st orders sound odd, and as Joseph of Joseph Audio was pointing out after my post, Jim is the most talented or advanced of the known designers employing first orders, and that the issues surrounding that design are, at least to him the same as to me. "Sit in the right place, eliminate room reflections, and play them at a moderate level." (I paraphrased to save time.)
What I hear, (and I don't expect you to hear the same thing by the way) is that the sounds emanating from the drivers well out of the dominant sound (frequency) range, sound odd, and amusical, creating a sound which is foreign, (to me) from the orignal and or intended sound.
Jim Thiel, insofar as I know, still thinks that all speakers should go 'flat' to 20Khz, it's just that most designs don't achieve that goal.But the perceived 'brightness' that people carp about with THIEL's aren't near the 20Khz region anyway, more like the 4 to 8Khz regions.
I hope this clarifies what I meant in my previous comments.