Notes on How Phase and Delay Distortions Affect

the Quality of Speech, Music and Sound Effects

JOHN K. HILLIARD, FELLOW, IEEE

Summary-Phase and delaydistortionsinthereproduction of

Withinaperiod of threeyearsthiswasaccom-
speech and music have always beenan importantconsideration in the
plished principally by increasing the inductance of in-
design of high-quality systems. Early authoritative literature indi-
cated this type of distortion could be disregarded. In 1935, events
put, interstage and output transformers by a factor of
occurred in which phase delay in a two-way loudspeaker severely 10. This reduced the phase shift a t low frequencies. The
distorted sound effects. From this observation, a research program leakageinductanceanddistributedcapacity of the
was set up to evaluate the minimum detectable delay that could be transformers was also materially lowered to reduce the
tolerated in two-way theater type loudspeakers;the finalrecom- phase shift at high frequencies, so that a uniform fre-
mendation was 2 ms. During the period of 1930 to 1940 an intensive
redesign of recording equipment was made for lower phase shift,
quency response within 1 d b was obtained between 30
and the quality increase is now long a matter of record. and 10,000 cycles.

s
Recordings through these amplifiers when compared
PEECH, MUSIC and sound effects contain signals with earlier amplifiers of much more limited frequency
whichhaveawavecompositionquitedifferent response indicate a marked increase in the quality. To
fromthose of singlefrequencies.Thesecomplex accomplishthis,thephaseshift in the amplifiershad
wave forms are continuously changing a t a very rapid beenreducedfrom 1600' down to 250" fortheentire
rate and are defined as bei,ngcompletelytransient in system, which hadapproximately100-dbgain.With
character. They therefore determine the naturalness of this dramatic increase of naturalness due to the reduc-
reproduction. It is necessary to retain all of the distin- tion in phase shift in the amplifiers alone, i t was only
guishing qualities of a signal to give natural reproduc- natural to conclude and originate a program for reduc-
tion of sound. In an electroacoustic system, this can onlytion of phase shift in the transducers.
be accomplished by making the frequency spectrum as In 1922, E. C. Wente of the Bell Telephone Labora-
wide as is commercially possible. In the reproduction of toriespublishedapaperonthesensitivityandpreci-
sound, certain distortions enter into the transmission to sion of the electrostatic transmitterfor measuring sound
give imperfect results. They are due principally to three intensities. -4 few yearslater,the394WCondenser
causes: 1) the volume of the sound may be changed so Transmitter System was made available for radio and
as to be too loud or not loud enough; 2) amplitude dis- recording. Even though the signal-to-noise ratio on this
tortion has taken place due to the fact that not all of microphone system was not ideal because of the noise
the essential frequencies are transmitted with the same generated in thefirststage of theamplifier, i t was
amplitude; and 3) phase distortion is present to some recognized that the electrostatic device had advantages
extent in all reproducing systems. The latter is caused over other formsof microphones. In the following years,
by the fact that the different frequencies composing the improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio of preampli-
waveform travel with different velocities such that their fiers wereobtained,anditthereforebecamepossible
relative arrival times differ from their relative starting and practical to reduce the size of the condenser micro-
times. For undistorted transmission, the time of propa- phone so as toavoid the obstacle interference which was
gation of the various component frequencies must be present in Wente's microphone because of its 2.5-inch
the same. This equalityis obtained when the phase shift diameter.
is linear with the frequency. T h a t is, when the phase Since it is only the impedance of the condenser micro-
shift is plotted as a function of frequency, the resulting phone that changes when all of its dimensions are altered
graph should be a straight line. bythesamescalefactor,thesensitivityremainsthe
In the very early years of soundreproduction,the same. Thus, the basic resonanceof the condenser micro-
transducers and amplifiers had very limited frequency phonewasgraduallyshiftedfrom 3000 cycles in the
response. Up to 1930 the typical phase shift in a single Wente design to the current practiceof 12,000 to 15,000
recordingsystemwasasmuchas 1600' overthefre- cycles, orat the very top of the audio transmitting band.
quency range of 50 t o 5000 cycles. I t was then realized Therefore,withonlyoneresonantfrequencyascom-
that the over-all frequency characteristics of the ampli- paredtomanyresonantfrequencieswithothertypes
fiers must be extended to reduce the phase shift. of microphones, its inherent phase shift is a minimum.
Manuscript received January 27, 1964.
Today itis universally recognized as the highest quality
The author is with Ling-Ternco-Vought, Inc., Anaheim, Calif. microphone.
23
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 24 1EE.E TRANSACTIONS 0-3' A U D I O

As early as 1925, Minton and Ringel proposed a two- ON AXIS TIME DELAY emsec
way loudspeaker system inwhichelectricalfilternet-
works were used to divide the frequencq- spectrum into
two parts. HIGH FREP HORN

The early thirties saw the introduction of a three-way

wide-range system, flat baffle woofers, 6- to 9-fOOt ex-
ponential horn for mid range, compression driver, and
8-inch horn for the tweeter above 3 kc. This system had - 1
a short life for reasons to be explained later.
3' -
II' PATH LENGTH 4
By 1933, Wente and A. L. Thuras produced a two-
wayloudspeakersystemwhichincorporatedmany of LOW FREP HORN

the neededelementsforextremelyhighquality.This \
two-way loudspeaker system had as a woofer a folded
horn with an air column length of 11 feet. The tweeter,
or high-frequency horn, was of the multicell type and
had a straightexponentialhornapproximately3feet
in length.The crossoverwas a t 350 cycles. Thesine
wave reproduction of this system covered the frequency
ON AXIS TIME DELAY ZERO
range of 40 to 15,000cycles. Thus,by 1934 a loud-
speakersystemwasavailablewhichcouldmoreade-
quately reflect the other improvements that had taken
place in the reproducing system. Speech and symphonic
musicwhenreproducedoverthissystemhad a new
measure of naturalness. The author was then given the
task first to study thoroughly the more important types
of extended range loudspeaker systems in current use,
and second to develop a system which would combine A !
these features in a practical theater loudspeaker system.
TheWente-Thurassystemwas used as a laboratory
I U FREP H O R N 1

standard and all commercial efforts were compared with

it on an A-B basis.
During an early phase of this work, an historic acous-
tical event happened in1935which introduced a new
basic requirement in future designs. The tap dancingof
Eleanor Powell mas reproduced both on direct monitor Fig. 1--(a) Loudspeaker arrangement which produces delay dis-
and film playback on this system. I t was found that the tortions. ( b ) Loudspeaker arrangement n.hich produces no delay
distortions on axis.
reproduced taps had a pronounced echo. The taps were
then played back on a single-unit horn system and no
echo was present, indicating that the echo was being portant, could be identified as detrimental and should
generated in the two-way loudspeaker system. The high-no longer be ignored. The very steep repetitive wave
frequency unit was disconnected, and it was found that forms of a tap dance required a system to have higher
when the taps were played through the low-frequency qualitythanthatthoughtnecessary forspeech and
unit there mas no echo. Then, the low-frequency unit music.
was disconnected and it was found that there was no When speech and music were reproduced with this zero
echo on the high-frequency unit. D. Shearer suggested time delay between low- and high-frequency units, an
that since the mouths of both the low- andhigh-fre- expected improvement in quality resulted.
quencyhornswere in thesameverticalplane(Fig. On the basis of the available frequency range, an ex-
l(a) and (b)) a time delay of 8 msec was present, due periment was then set upin a n effort to detect the mini-
to the difference in the lengths of the horns. The high- mum delay which could be perceived by the ear. A criti-
frequency horn was then moved back so that its mouth cal panel of listeners was used with a wide variety of
was approximately 8 feet back of that of the low-fre- speech, music and sound effects. I t was determined that
quency horn and the drivers were equidistant from the a delay of less than 2 msecbetweenhigh-and low-
listener. The taps were then reproduced and the echo frequency units in two-way loudspeaker systems using
had entirely disappeared. Only one conclusion could be a crossover in the region of 350 to 800 cycles could not
drawn from this experiment; the element of phase shift be detected.
and delay in high quality sound reproduction was irn- By 1938, thestandards formotionpicturetheater

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udio and196.4
Distortions
Delay and PhaseHilliard: 25

loudspeaker systems limited this two-way delay to less
than 2 msec. During the intervening 30 years, all of the
high-qualityauditorium-typeloudspeakersystemsin-
corporated this minimum delay. Home-systems design-
ers would do well to recognize this.
Earlier a three-way wide-range theater system was
mentioned. I t preceded the present two-way system by
a few years. When a comparisonwasmadewiththe
accepted two-way system, the inherent problems of a
three-way system were exposed. T h e phase shift of two
dividing networks and the large change in distribution
patternsduetovariedcharacteristics of baffles and
horns, a t assigned crossover points, plus the time delay
in the long mid-range horn caused its short and con-
troversial life.
Early authoritative literature on sound reproduction
either did not consider the problem of phase shift and
delay, or indicated it was not an important factor. In
1936, the author discussed with Dr. Fletcher how we had
taken the delay outof the system of Wente and Thuras.
He had been of the opinion that delay could not be de-
tected by the ear and was very surprised. In 1939 and
1940,when Bell Laboratoriesdemonstratedstereore-
cording, they repositioned the system for zero time de-
lay, and at the Rochester meeting Fletcher mentioned
the delay problem which was now corrected.
Later writers have always used the gospel of Fletcher's
early remarks and no publication has been made with
Fletcher'sadmissionaboutthedelaybeingdetected.
This has to a great extent influenced the views of later
workers. I t therefore seemed important at this time to
discuss earlier experiments which verified the harmful
effects of phase shift and delay, and how it was mini-
mized.

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