There is general agreement that voice onset time (VOT) is functionally related with the glottal opening at the moment of the oral release of a stop. However, systematic investigations of tempo 8n4 the place of articulation as affecting the glottal opening and VOT have relatively neglected. Various instrumental techniques were used to verify the claim with BrEng and korean speakers, under controlled experimental conditions, tempo being one of them. It was found that voiceless aspiration (i.e. VOT) is not simply a function of the glottal area at the moment of the oral release of a stop as it is normally defined in the existing literature. Within a given place of articulation and across temper VOT was generally insignificantly related to the glottal area. It is inferred that the glottal adduction onset time for the following vowel is actively control led by the speaker to meet aerodynamic requirements in relation to class (i.e. aspirated and unaspirated) and tempo. Some possible underlying physiological mechanisms for various phonetic aspects of intervocalic stops, associated with the glottal area and VOT, were discussed.