Abstract: Disclosed is an ultrasonic phase aberration correction method and apparatus. One preferred embodiment employs a translating transmit aperture for transmitting two separately transmitted pulses through two different transmit apertures but which are focused to the same predetermined target in the human body. A receiver element measuring a first echo from a first transmit pulse is matched with a receiver element measuring a second echo from a second transmit pulse from a translated aperture, the match corresponding to receivers with a separation equal and opposite to the spatial translations of the translated transmit apertures. The matched elements are compared for signal variations which estimate phase aberrations and especially improve on estimates of distributed aberrations. The transmit or receive signals can then be compensated for or adjusted based on the signal comparison and variation estimates.