Are first order crossovers best?

Unsound...Where did you (and a lot of other guys)get the idea that a first order (6 dB/oct) crossover has no phase shift? Actually the woofer and tweeter phase varies with frequency, but always differs by 90 degrees. The tweeter can be physically positioned so that at some particular frequency, usually the X/O frequency, the two drivers are in phase. As you get away from the X/O frequency the phase difference between drivers becomes unimportant because one or the other is attenuated. Inverting the polarity of one driver changes the phase discrepancy from plus90 to minus 90...take your choice.

Polarity inversion makes more sense for a second order crossover, where the phase discrepancy is 180 degrees. The selling point for fourth order, apart from the 24dB slopes, is that, with 360 degrees of phase shift the drivers are in phase. Fourth order is difficult and expensive to implement with a passive speaker level X/O, but quite easy for an electronic line level crossover.

Correct you are.

And after listening to many different speakers in many different price ranges, Vandersteen speakers sound the most correct (realistic) in their respective price ranges, and even when compared to higher priced models. Geeze, did I piss away money before wising up!!!!!!

Beware the quicky listening tests at dealers!! Can you live with the speakers in your own home for years after the purchase? Why do you see SOOOO MANYYY speakers on this site for sale? I bet that most have a problem area with certain music in the living space that makes the owners want to "upgrade".
Just an idea...

Eldartford, just trying to keep it simple here. That's part of the reason I was suggesting that one has to consider a speaker as a system and that taking one parameter from the whole can be problematic.

For the people that haven't seen it.Here's a nice little walk through by Pat McGinty on Time Coherence and how to read a step response of a loudspeaker..The Step Response Reveals All.Of course time coherence is just one part as speaker design is quite complicated atleast for me.

I am a fan of first order crossovers and Thiel, Vandersteen and Meadowlark designs. But to get back to the basis of this thread I feel it is simply hogwash and marketing hype for any cable manufacturer or dealer to say that certain cables are/are not appropriate specifically for first order designs. The electrons couldn't give a rat's ass about phase effects in the wire; that is simply silly snake oil mumbo jumbo. While I am convinced from first hand experience that cables do make a difference in sonic quality, this imparting of anthropomorphic behavior to electrons is complete horse hockey. Go with the cables that sound best, not those which some cable marketeer tells you is compatible with the electronic bahvior imparted by the freakin' crossover design. Man, it really gets my goat when good people on agon get messages like this from industry jerks with nothing more than $$$ signs in their eyes.

Blindjim, you are a good man, don't fall victim to this nonsense. Would you care to share those particular manufacturers with us?