Sloped baffle

Excellent comments gents. I'm hoping Al (Almarg) and Ralph (Atmasphere) get around to reading Roy's articles and sharing their comments.

Although it has been said many times, designers of audio gear take into account many features and do their best to balance, maybe better said ... optimize, what comes out of the metaphorical oven. I'm sure phase coherence is just one of many important factors. That's why I'm hoping Al and Ralph weigh in here to help us better understand the relative significance of phase coherence as compared to other factors.

Bombaywalla, I agree that one shouldn't base expensive purchase decisions solely on reviewer comments. But there's a problem; one that has been touched on by many A'goners including me over the years. There are very few hi-end B&M stores around anymore. And to the extent such stores are around, setting up meaningful and fair auditions is very difficult. Oh ... and as far as Green Mountain is concerned, no dealers near me.

Not sure what else to say. Another potentially huge sleeper problem that is finally getting the press it deserves.

Bandying about technical claims by manufacturers and trying to determine how it affects the final product, whether it be a car, motorcycle, amplifier, airplane, or missile is almost totally useless. Investing hours in driving to dealers, or flying, asking manufacturers to let you hear them, flying to audio shows, those are all much better ways to make an educated guess about how you will react to the sound in your home.

Maybe this is a subject for another discussion, but I was wondering if coaxial drivers (TAD, KEF, Tannoy) are more likely to be time and phase coherent?

TAD and Tannoy are not time coherent. The little KEF 50 with the coincident driver is not.

What does this mean to the listener? Without a listen, it means little. The TAD Reference represent some of the best speakers at any price. That little KEF is great. The Tannoy are some of the most loved speakers, and have had a very long life as a studio speaker, with uncountable numbers of musicians hearing themselves on them after playing. Would anyone postulate that these musicians don't know how they themselves sound?

Again, this would be a nice thing to have, as perfect radiation patterns, perfect frequency response, perfectly inert cabinets, zero harmonic distortion, zero intermodulation distortion, and zero driver resonances would be nice things to have. No speaker has it all, so the sonic result of the compromises chosen is the real key.

Again, listen. Do not fixate on any one or two features, that will lead you nowhere in your quest for a speaker that sounds most like real music to you.

06-24-14: Bifwynne
I'm hoping Al and Ralph weigh in here to help us better understand the relative significance of phase coherence as compared to other factors.

Hi Bruce,

As I indicated earlier, speaker technology is not one of my areas of expertise, and about all I can offer is my suggestion that some insight into that degree of significance can potentially be gained by attempting to correlate one's subjective reaction to a wide range of quality speakers with JA's step response plots for those speakers.

I'm hoping Al (Almarg) and Ralph (Atmasphere) get around to reading Roy's articles and sharing their comments.

I've read through the "Loudspeaker Phase Accuracy and Musical Timing" article. IMO it is a brilliant and informative article, which certainly inspires very high confidence in the designer. But my feeling, consistent with Kiddman's comments, is that in audio there are always multiple ways to achieve success.

Best regards,
-- Al