I think that Kiddman makes good points here. There are so many interactions and variables in the design of loudspeakers that it's got to be very hard to isolate which factor results in a speaker that you ultimately love.
To wit: you couldn't have two more different small speakers than, say, GMA Chromas and Harbeth P3ESR's. "Leaky" plywood cabinet vs. synthetic stone cabinet. Metal dome tweet vs. cloth tweet. "Complex" crossover vs. "simple" 1st-order crossover. Inverted driver polarity (!) vs. not. "Radial" cone material vs. paper-composite. Flat face baffle vs. slanted baffle. And the list goes on and on.
Now, then, various audiophiles swear by one or the other of these speakers. But who can really say whether it's the cabinet material, driver material, crossover topology, phase/time coherence or (most likely) some combination of all of the above that gives the results that you get? And THEN, factor in the room and the associated equipment and the tastes and hearing of the listener and you have more variables than anyone can deal with.
So, yeah: I can see that you might become fixated on the theoretical merits of time coherence and then fall in love with a non-time-coherent speaker, anyway.
Reminds me of the joke about the unmarried scientist who feeds his theoretical preferences in women to a computer and then cross-references it to a database of women in his city. One day he approaches his lab assistant and says, "Well, it seems I have actually found the woman of my dreams. She meets every one of my requirements."
"Then why the glum face?" asks the assistant.
"I just don't like her," he sighs.
To wit: you couldn't have two more different small speakers than, say, GMA Chromas and Harbeth P3ESR's. "Leaky" plywood cabinet vs. synthetic stone cabinet. Metal dome tweet vs. cloth tweet. "Complex" crossover vs. "simple" 1st-order crossover. Inverted driver polarity (!) vs. not. "Radial" cone material vs. paper-composite. Flat face baffle vs. slanted baffle. And the list goes on and on.
Now, then, various audiophiles swear by one or the other of these speakers. But who can really say whether it's the cabinet material, driver material, crossover topology, phase/time coherence or (most likely) some combination of all of the above that gives the results that you get? And THEN, factor in the room and the associated equipment and the tastes and hearing of the listener and you have more variables than anyone can deal with.
So, yeah: I can see that you might become fixated on the theoretical merits of time coherence and then fall in love with a non-time-coherent speaker, anyway.
Reminds me of the joke about the unmarried scientist who feeds his theoretical preferences in women to a computer and then cross-references it to a database of women in his city. One day he approaches his lab assistant and says, "Well, it seems I have actually found the woman of my dreams. She meets every one of my requirements."
"Then why the glum face?" asks the assistant.
"I just don't like her," he sighs.