subtractor said:Otherwise, there are infinite variations of sound, slight as they may be, between any given monitors and amps.
I really like the BlueSky's also..If I was gonna go to different monitors,those would be in the runnin' for sure!My take on it is if you don't already have some nice amps..Go active..Look at it this way..Our boxes cost $600.00{Paradigm's ref.20's} our amps cost about $700.00 for the 6.5 speaks. and for the domes I think it was about 500.per{monoblocks..used} one for eact tweet...My partener already owned the amps..If he didn't already have those amps..$2300.00 Dammit.. we could have been into A.D.A.M'ssubtractor said:Those are both good ones. Tex says the "blue sky's" are supposed to be the shit though. You might check those out too. And they are a 3 piece with a sub, so bass won't be an issue.
IMHO better 90% (or whatever actual% it may be) than not even attempting for any kind of time/phase accuracy. At a minimum, the critical midrange and the highs will be phase accurate with one another. I would argue a speaker can be described as accurate only if the sound wave produced by it bears a close resemblance to the electrical wave/signal that was input to it. Only time and phase accurate speakers can do this. It is a suprising fact to most people that the waveform generated by most speakers (ie non phase coherent designs) do not look at all like the original electrical waveform. Obviously other people have differing views on what accuracy means and that is fair enough.BlueSky said:Any speaker that is ported (or uses a passive radiator) can not be 100% phase accurate.
Agreed - I pointed out this issue in the concentric speaker thread being discussed in this forum (perhaps you could contribute some of your experience to that discussion). Vertically arranged time/phase coherent designs have to be optimised for a certain listening height. If you plan conducting your critical listening at a number of significantly different vertical heights then you had better go with a coaxial design.BlueSky said:A 2-way system, that does not have the drivers mounted in a coaxial arrangement, will only be time correct when the distance between the acoustic center of both drivers, is equidistant from your ears. If the driver arrangement is vertical, the time-alignment will change as you move off axis vertically.
Agreed - the point I made (I thought quite clearly if you reread my post) was that as far as I was aware there are currently no commercially available active speakers that are time and phase accurate. Therefore one has no choice but to go the passive speaker route if they want time and phase accuracy.BlueSky said:"time-alignment" or "phase accuracy" has nothing to do with powered or passive speakers. It can be done physically, by placing the drivers in time alignment, with active electronics / DSP, or a combination of those 2.
alfalfa said:
Agreed - the point I made (I thought quite clearly if you reread my post) was that as far as I was aware there are currently no commercially available active speakers that are time and phase accurate. Therefore one has no choice but to go the passive speaker route if they want time and phase accuracy.
alfalfa said:You seem to be misunderstanding what I am trying to say. There is no reason why you cant build a time and phase accurate active speaker. I am saying that I do not know of any that are currently commercially available for me to buy. The only time and phase accurate speakers I am aware of utilise a passive design eg Thiel, Vandersteen, Meadowlark, Earthworks, Dunlavy, Quad electrostatics. They make speakers that are considered time and phase accurate (no one ever said 100% perfectly accurate - as you and I both agree there is no perfect speaker). Their step response measurements indicate time and phase coherence.
BlueSky said:I can tell you that our monitoring systems exhibit very good time and phase response, even down at low frequencies, but I can not speak for others. Although we currently don't have any impulse or step response data on our website, I will try to have our engineering department provide some data soon and uploaded so that it can be viewed.
I better go to bed now...
subtractor said:What's your name?
alfalfa said:I just took a look around the blue sky website. I would say it is very unlikely that the blue sky sat 6.5 is time and phase coherent given the crossover used and the vertical baffle (tweeter is not stepped back as would be needed to achieve time/phase coherency). Anyway lets wait and see what the engineering dept of blue sky says and what the step response looks like.
Are you saying that 2way non concentric time/phase coherent speakers are not practical because of the restricted vertical listening height? Or are you saying that time and phase accuracy is not a good indicator of speaker performance or subjective quality.BlueSky said:If you take a standard 2-way (non-concentric) out of the lab and into the field, do a lot of measurements, you will see that having "perfect" time alignment in the vertical plane (which will be defined as a very tight window) is not a good real world indicator of speaker performance or subjective quality
alfalfa said:
In conclusion:
Am I right in my understanding that your speakers are not time and phase coherent?
Is my original statement that all the commercially available time and phase coherent speakers, utilise passive designs valid?