Latency from Microphone to Headphone in AoIP Solutions
26-05-2017
Latency has been a hot topic on and off ever since digital audio emerged a few decades ago. The phenomenon, however, is by no means new
In a digital world, the audio you listen to is delayed by a certain amount, which can be caused by a number of factors, but often the delay is so subtle that you will never notice it. In fact the term delay' is precisely what happens when we talk about latency', and audio delay has always existed. Quite simply, sound waves have to travel over distance and it takes time to get from A to B. Period.
When we talk about sounds reinforcement, for example, various speakers are often deliberately delayed by a few milliseconds (ms) to compensate with regard to the listening position, and if we take a strict analog example, latency is there, but has never been encountered as a problem.
On a live music stage, you will often see wedges - or monitors - placed on the floor. They are most likely triangular in shape, designed to play upwards and towards the musician. This is necessary because if the stage is fairly large, the main speakers would be so far away that the artists would experience a very noticeable amount of delay. With monitors nearby, on the other hand, they are perfectly fine. But considering the distance even from the floor and to the ear of the musician, if the distance is 2 meters, there is actually a latency of 6ms.
Traditional' Points of Latency
Now, the above example was strictly analog, but as mentioned, once we started working with digital audio, latency became an issue. So, even before introducing potential latency on an IP-based audio network, it is important to clarify that there are numerous points where latency occurs - in the both the analog and digital domains. Let's take a closer look in the case of a vocal recording in a typical studio environment:
Distance from the vocalists mouth to the microphone - 25cm of distance equals approximately 0.8ms of analog latency.
AD conversion - Filters typically introduce around 20 samples of digital delay, which translates into 0.4ms of latency.
ASIO / DAW - Getting in and out of your DAW also introduces digital latency. Typically 64 samples, which equals 1.3ms in either direction. 2.6ms in total.
Software Plugins - In many cases added plugins will also add to the total latency, but since these are not necessarily added during tracking (latency is less of an issue when mixing, of course), we will not add a specific amount of latency in this example.
DA conversion - Filters typically introduce between 10-40 samples of digital delay. If we use 30 samples as an example, this equals 0.6ms of digital latency.
Monitoring - In this case a vocalist would wear headphones and there would be no analog latency worth mentioning, but if for instance a guitarist or bassist would be tracking in the control room, there would most likely be at least 1-2ms of analog latency from the monitors and to his/her ears.
OK. If we add up those points of latency, you would experience a total of 4.4ms of latency. This would be at a sample rate of 48 kHz, and in case you record at 96 kHz the latency introduced digitally (AD/DA conversion and ASIO/DAW) would be halved. The distance from mount to mic would of course be the same, so in total the latency at 96 kHz would be 2.6ms.
AoIP Latency
Now, let's find out how much additional latency you could expect in case you decide to establish an IP-based audio solution such as Audinate's Dante network protocol.
There is not a fixed value of ms of latency being introduced on a Dante network. It depends on a number of things, including your computer, the amount of switches in the total network, etc. But if you have less than 4 switches in your network, you could likely go as low as 0.25 ms of latency on either side of the ASIO/DAW instance.
In that case, you should add 0.5ms of latency that is caused by the network:
Total latency @48 kHz: 4.9ms
Total latency @96 kHz: 3.1ms
The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that if we look at the percentage of latency introduced by adding IP audio, the difference is very subtle:
Percentage of latency caused by the network:
48 kHz: approx.. 10%
96 kHz: approx. 16%
Conclusion
We think that it is fair to conclude that adding AoIP is not what is going to make or break your recording in terms of latency. It is a myth that you cannot track live performances that need to be monitored in real time on an audio network. It is indeed perfectly possible, and most artists would be completely fine with a latency below 6ms. Again just consider the musician performing live on the stage, listening to monitor wedges on the floor or an amplifier several meters away.
As a closing statement, we would like to stress that the numbers we used in the above examples are not set in stone. They are examples and may therefore vary slightly depending on the manufacturer of the equipment you use, your computer's performance, etc. But we hope that you now have a better idea of how your overall latency would become affected in case you consider - or decide - to move on to the world of networked audio.
Finally, if you would like to learn more about Audinate's Dante protocol, we have compiled 10 of the most commonly asked questions in this article
Even More Details
Our Business Development Manager, Jan Lykke, gave a speech on this very topic at the AES conference and exhibition in Berlin, Germany, in May 2017. If you want even more details, please watch his presentation right here:
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Latency from Microphone to Headphone in AoIP Solutions 
