Actually, things are rather imcompareable. You said that first (with 0.9d vs. 0.9h). But if you have a good low range woofer (like near 25Hz) or a subwoofer, in that area the differences seem to be best noticeable. 0.9d gives more tight bass than 0.9j, and therefore 0.9j is more prone to standing waves again (but, also in the higher areas). It may sound stupid from a listening point of view, but a not tight bass in that low range should be felt on the driver. You feel the wave and hear the vibes of it in the mean time, or you feel wobbling and hear "low sound".
In the higher regions the main differences can be heard in the timbre. A track like Saling to Philadelphia (Mark Knopfler), played at a higher level, makes you feel the cracking of his voice in the stomache with 0.9d, or just not with 0.9j.
Now, if you'd know that this timbre thing for 95% is determined by the speaker's performance, I already don't know what is best in absolute sense, because a. a speaker can overdo timbre so easily, and b. I don't know the real timbre of a voice.
What I tend to do from a technical point of view is judging tight bass (0.9d) as better than not tight bass or judging less resonating at very difficult base squarish sounds (0.9j) as better than more resonating. Both conflict ...
*That* both conflict seems typical for jittery influence (was this proven anywhere ?) and the one jitter signature makes the bass right but highs not, and the other way around. But, it is far more difficult IMO;
When jitter destroys the bass, it keeps on bugging you all over;
When jitter destroys the highs, it depends. I tend to (start to) believe that jitter actually "destroying" the higher frequencies (say above 5K) is not so much different from what is actually happening by nature already. Destortion from the driver(s), reflections and all that happens wrongly in the analogue domain. So, that natural destroying might be worse than jitter in that area. BUT :
Disclaimer : I don't take scientific or not readings on the internet for granted (if I read them at all), and these are all my own thoughts. So just take it as total BS for now, Maybe later that changes.
When jitter influences the xover area of two drivers, it is a catastrophe. Of course it depends on the phase alignment that was achieved with the speaker for starters, but assumed the creator of it did his best to make it optimal, jitter will shift the connection between the two drivers.
In order to understand this better, let me first try to explain what I only could explain myself at last on the influence of jitter on the base 2 days ago :
First of all, I "proved" before that jitter makes a fluent sine more squarish; When samples are skipped, a volume level of one frequency stays the same too long, and when then the next sample is respected for its actual volume, the smooth step in between is lost and there is a too high jump to the next volume level. Now :
Knowing that the bass is a long wave phenomenon, I could never understand how this long slow moving wave could be "attacked" and destroyed by jitter, while at the same time it is so obvious that jitter impacts the tightness of the bass so heavily. Well, what came up to me two days ago, is that the squareryness which will emerge in that slow wave just the same, can't be followed by the relative slow woofer. It will try to make the jump, and when it at last is moving, it will even overshoot (depening on the control of the amp). Here is the wobbling bass, and while you'd still hear low frequency sound, it is undefined to the original vibe of the string etc., and actually it will be higher pitched than the original.
By kind of coincidence this occurred to me a few weeks ago at 0.9h without then knowing what happened, at Hatfield's End and Stonehenge 4, which "suddenly" showed a crazy volume increase in the sub low area, which I measured at a difference of 26dB (!) compared with the normal frequencies. I knew the record enough to know that this wasn't there before. And, since the normal level I played was at 90dB, the 116dB coming from the (rather continues on that album) low frequencies made it difficult to breath (this is serious).
Where I after this occurrence reasoned out the influence of jitter on the bass as explained above - went back to 0.9d and already noticed the difference on other tracks, I played the album again "knowing" what to expect, and indeed the crazy uplevelled low frequencies were gone.
It was another pure coincidence that my son went out of the room during playing this album, and came back within a few seconds to scream about the creapy things hapening in the hall; it now appeared that all doors were rambling, which I know they do when a good volume level of 15-16Hz is fed to the house. So, without eloborating too much further, 0.9j (already 0.9h would be the same on that matter), had shifted up the 16Hz to somewhere in the 23-25 range.
In addition, because of this jitter distortion a sine becomes squarish, additional energy is added, which may be (partly) the explanation for the 26dB increase of SPL.
Now back to the xover IMO being destroyed by jitter, let's assume we now "know" that jitter can shift a certain more or less steady tone, like that from a bass guitar. And, keep in mind that a bagpipe is not much different, though in an another frequency area (and composed of far more complex harmonics, but never mind that now);
What you'd see is that there will be an unnatural peak in areas of the frequency band, that actually *are* peaks with increased volume level. This is not only because of more squarishness and increased energy, but merely because they add up to the already "playing" tone in that area. Thus, where all "instruments" were playing together creating the homogene sound, now some frequencies add up at another level, and it sure was not mixed like that. The whole point (IMO) is, that when such a peak emerges at the slopes of the xover area (say left side), the carefully calibrated phase alignment of the two drivers will be completely destroyed. Because of the peak at the left side the roll off will shift to the right, and at the xover point there will be a peak now, and right from the xover point there will be a complete cancellout because of the antiphase of the both drivers will just do that. For sound this means a peak with right next to it a dip, and where this might cause four subsequent piano tones to jump (right to left) from normal to too high to nothing to normal, the actual effect for a gliding tone IMO is even worse;
E.g. a trombone gliding from low to high will show a stepping in the increased volume, followed by a giant step to nothing, followed by a step to normal. Effectively this is a squarish sound again.
But now take an instrument that as sibilance from itself, and the sibilance is created by harmonics, the "harmonics" emerging by inteference in air (and so recorded). This high frequency sibilance in the xover area will come to you as a very squarish sound, and it sounds as plain destortion.
Whether the above
explanation for things is total BS or not, it is not different from all the same stuff I can just emulate. Thus, I can play with the xover, and I can play with jitter (XX) at the same time. Things do change largely, and the only thing I can say is that the explanation above I tried to find for it, just fits things.
The real message is, and this was in between the lines of the first post here, that what I hear on this matter (and it is of MAJOR influence), hardly can ever be perceived in the same manner in "your" system(s). We could never trade experiences and track examples, because "you" xover(s) will be at a different place and may be of another type.
As said before, in my system things seem to get profound after making the xover(s) theoretically better.
All together, my own judgements on versions of XX become kind of worthless for that.
