Rick, I'm sure JohnK will be along shortly to explain, but my understanding is that the speed of sound is much slower than the speed of the electrical current running through the cables. Consequently, if you don't put up little traffic lights in the cable every so often, then the signals reach your speaker before you are able to hear them.
It's all very simple, actually. It is probably only relevant if your amplifer goes more than 88 mph and your speakers' throughput is less than 120 gallons/hour. In addition, those redbook CD's with the green marker and blue laser really confuse the traffic patterns.
Combined with the fact that the CD sampling rate is 44.1kHz but most speakers only reproduce up to about 20kHz, and I'd think the necessity of time correction is obvious.
M80 owners. Sheesh.
