Phase + Time Coherence

D

Docks

Audioholic
How do you guys feel about a speakers phase + time coherence?
Do they change things for everyone?
Are they worth the trouble?
If you do think they matter what did they change for that listening experience?
Do you find time or phase coherence is more important?

Im just looking for some general input and perhaps some electrical theory regarding it. (I'm an electrical eng technologist - feel free to use fancy terms, etc.)

Thanks guys!
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Uhh, it depends who you ask, but the current science says that it's not the first thing on the list to take care of. Flat response is. Now, phase is not a bad goal by any means, it's just that you shouldn't focus so much on it that you incur other compromises that might be of greater severity.

Anyhoo, supposedly the Quad ESL is the only perfect speaker there is with phase. I've heard him talk about the square wave reproduction before.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=781319#post781319

He goes on to mention that he thinks that our research should be focused on a wide band driver to cover the greatest/all of the midrange (and then some, perhaps depending on xover slope), and that there are only two that are really good, one by BW and the other by PMC. That's what he says anyways, and none are available to the consumer as an OEM driver.

I've asked him about 1st order xovers, and he taught me about getting lobing tilt right with sloped baffles like with Thiel, but in the end, there are compromises of getting transient response, such as offaxis response. We are not so sensitive to phase, and one of his main points is that most recordings aren't in phase anyways, so what's really the point of focusing so much here if you're going to screw other things up. Offaxis response OTOH is very important according to the studies of Toole and others.

Here is his take on the difficulty of dealing with one thing in the face of a hundred things.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=781319&postcount=332
 
GranteedEV

GranteedEV

Audioholic Ninja
personually i feel high order digital crossovers are the way to go iezi DEQX or MiniDSP.

and interesting so called time coherent design is tom danley's SH50. i would love to hear one.
 
I

InTheIndustry

Senior Audioholic
personually i feel high order digital crossovers are the way to go iezi DEQX or MiniDSP.

and interesting so called time coherent design is tom danley's SH50. i would love to hear one.
The best system I have ever heard, and what we are putting into our reference system in our show room is the Phase Technology dARTS. It uses a 4000 watt 16 channel digital amp. The speakers all get bi-amped, except for the center which is tri-amped. NO internal crossovers in the speakers as that, and much more, is done in the amp via a PC & mic. Each driver has it's own DSP.

Check out the video.... You'll like this I think....
http://www.youtube.com/user/MSEAudioGroup#p/u/9/CGbpfiX47j4
 
walter duque

walter duque

Audioholic Samurai
The best system I have ever heard, and what we are putting into our reference system in our show room is the Phase Technology dARTS. It uses a 4000 watt 16 channel digital amp. The speakers all get bi-amped, except for the center which is tri-amped. NO internal crossovers in the speakers as that, and much more, is done in the amp via a PC & mic. Each driver has it's own DSP.

Check out the video.... You'll like this I think....
http://www.youtube.com/user/MSEAudioGroup#p/u/9/CGbpfiX47j4
Phase-Tech are one of the best speakers that I have ever listend to. They are not mentioned often on this forum, I wonder why.
 
GranteedEV

GranteedEV

Audioholic Ninja
The best system I have ever heard, and what we are putting into our reference system in our show room is the Phase Technology dARTS. It uses a 4000 watt 16 channel digital amp. The speakers all get bi-amped, except for the center which is tri-amped. NO internal crossovers in the speakers as that, and much more, is done in the amp via a PC & mic. Each driver has it's own DSP.

Check out the video.... You'll like this I think....
http://www.youtube.com/user/MSEAudioGroup#p/u/9/CGbpfiX47j4
Yes, the few commercial companies catching on the phase (among other things) benefits of digital definitely have some rather nice products. Focal also has the SM11, NHT had the XD, and I believe Genelec and JBL Pro have offerings in this area. B&O of course has ice power based speakers as well although I don't recall if they're analog or digital. I know Mark Seaton's Catalyst uses a digital icepower approach and looks just plain excellent with pro-audio drivers and SPLs in a home audio environment:

http://www.seaton-sound-forum.com/post?id=3044980

If I ever spend $2000 on audio electronics, it would definitely be a DEQX.
 
Last edited:
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
My only thoughts would be after all this great advances in getting the speakers well tuned, what happens when the speakers in a studio is not so well tuned and the engineer of course masters with those untuned speakers. A good recording in the studio may not be so good in any home.
There should be something like the original intent of the THX standards, at least recordings would be very close no matter where mastered.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
My only thoughts would be after all this great advances in getting the speakers well tuned, what happens when the speakers in a studio is not so well tuned and the engineer of course masters with those untuned speakers. A good recording in the studio may not be so good in any home.
There should be something like the original intent of the THX standards, at least recordings would be very close no matter where mastered.
I would think that the tape or disc from a studio with bad speakers would make that problem pretty clear when played on a system at another facility. I can't conceive of this sounding good since they should be listening on several different systems, just to check for issues. This is less likely in a major studio since the mastering may be done at a different location.
 
digicidal

digicidal

Full Audioholic
Well, I'm not a recording engineer, but I've spoken to a few over the years - although they may not have been nearly as good at it as they led me to believe :rolleyes: - and in their case they were simply working on volume levels and striving to create a consistent FR - I'm not aware that phase adjustments/concerns were high on the list if even considered at all.

They did however, have a range of several monitors that were used for 'sampling' different likely scenarios - i.e. in car, in 'bright' rooms, with headphones, etc... as a test of a final product. Just to make sure that the things that each did wrong - were as little wrong as possible at least.
 
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