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Not only is it a pain to work in this manner, but it will also likely increase a project’s production time. (USB turntable latency isn’t usually detected unless you’re close enough to hear the noise coming off the surface of the vinyl record as it is being played.) We might slow our speech while talking into the microphone to try and match the sound we hear coming out of the computer or headphones. But digital audio latency, especially when experienced with USB microphones, can be quite annoying and even disruptive. Naturally occurring latency, like that mentioned in the baseball example above, doesn’t usually bother us or cause any problems. The type of device, the computer and the recording software all factor into determining the latency. (Latency with Audio-Technica digital wireless systems is so low – under 4 ms – that it’s not an issue of concern.) It can be difficult to predict how much latency you might experience with such devices, because there are usually multiple components that process the digital audio signal. With digital audio, latency is typically associated with USB Microphones, USB Turntables and digital recording interfaces. Therefore, at 11 feet you experience approximately 10 ms of latency, which is likely the least amount of latency that humans can detect. That’s latency! Mathematically, it works out to approximately 1 ms for every 1.1 feet the sound has to travel.
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Think about that time you were at a baseball game you saw the batter swing and hit the ball, but you didn’t hear the sound until a little bit later. Of course, latency isn’t unique to digital audio devices – it occurs naturally all the time. Since the conversion takes time, the user experiences latency.
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Latency can occur with any digital audio device and is related to analog-digital/digital-analog (AD/DA) conversion. The delay experienced is called “latency.” Latency is basically the amount of time it takes a digital (audio) signal to be processed. Once your computer reads that signal, it needs to be converted back to analog in order to be heard through speakers or headphones. When you speak into a USB microphone, the analog signal picked up by the microphone element needs to be converted into a digital signal that your computer can read. Question: I’m hearing a delay with my USB Audio Device, is this normal?Īnswer: When using a digital audio device, such as a USB microphone, you might experience a delay from the time you speak into the microphone to the time you hear the audio come out of the computer speakers or headphones. Frequency-agile True Diversity UHF Wireless Systems
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