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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

Showing 1 response by esarhaddon

esarhaddon
137 posts
 

I am glad I am a speaker designer and Not a Physicist like some here. Sound is altered not only by distance. Especially when yo consider that the speed of sound is relatively SLOW. Sound is altered and affected by Temperature, Humidity, Barometric pressure... So once again, when it comes to speaker design, I am so glad I don't know anything about sound propagation. One of the first things I worked with 40+ years ago was where I placed my drivers, front to rear. In an effort to find the best placement and the least sound cancelation. If this placement wasn't a factor then room treatments would also be meaningless.


I mentioned just a couple of days ago how I was tweaking the Cant/Tilt to my speakers experimenting on how it changes the WHOLE soundstage. Just by a few degrees. and what it the main thing that is being modified, the forward position of the individual cones by just a few centimeters at a time. This is a simple inexpensive experiment that ANYONE can do on their own at home. You must also realize though that if you are using something like Diraclive this will change how your system is tuned by Dl.

Also, though Diraclive does wonders on manipulating reflective signals and how they interact with each other, it is minimal AT BEST when looking at Frequency.

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