4 ms·

> Anything over 2ms is not acceptable for live music. That's the difference between a band sounding "in-time" to "needs practice" Obviously you want your in-ea

> Anything over 2ms is not acceptable for live music. That's the difference between a band sounding "in-time" to "needs practice" Obviously you want your in-ear sound to be as exact as possible, but a 2 ms difference will not make a band sound bad. I remember hearing 9 ms was the threshold for live music, but I can't find any references. If it truly is lower I would love to read some source material. There are very few people in the world that would be capable of playing within a 2 ms tolerance (but maybe you're just holding you in-ear reference to a higher standard to allow for human error). Edit: here's an interesting resource, not much data but they did find problems start between 10-20ms. http://blog.highfidelity.com/blog/2013/05/how-much-latency-can-live-musicians-tolerate http://blog.highfidelity.com/blog/2013/05/how-much-latency-c...

soundwave106 10y ago
The problem is Bluetooth audio, from all sources, is far higher than 2ms latency. The best codecs seem to be (per sources like this -- http://stereos.about.com/od/glossary/fl/What-is-aptX.htm http://stereos.about.com/od/glossary/fl/What-is-aptX.htm) 40ms or so. "Typical" Bluetooth audio seems to have a latency of 150ms-200ms. Musicians can compensate to some degree of latency, but not when your audio is delayed by approx. an 1/8th note at 140bpm. (1/8th note at 140bpm = 214ms). Even 40ms isn't terribly tight. So rule Bluetooth audio out for this. The dongle is an option, of course, but it probably is not as robust as a soldered-in 3.5mm jack. I'm sure in-ear monitoring with an iPhone is unfortunately too much of a niche application for Apple to care much, though...
exabrial 10y ago
+-2ms is with unpredictable jitter, you can go up to 6ms-8ms with predictable latency, anything over 10ms it gets difficult. Source: personal experience in the field with various in-ear and stage monitor systems, and lots and tons of research over the years

soundwave106 10y ago

The problem is Bluetooth audio, from all sources, is far higher than 2ms latency. The best codecs seem to be (per sources like this -- http://stereos.about.com/od/glossary/fl/What-is-aptX.htm http://stereos.about.com/od/glossary/fl/What-is-aptX.htm) 40ms or so. "Typical" Bluetooth audio seems to have a latency of 150ms-200ms. Musicians can compensate to some degree of latency, but not when your audio is delayed by approx. an 1/8th note at 140bpm. (1/8th note at 140bpm = 214ms). Even 40ms isn't terribly tight. So rule Bluetooth audio out for this. The dongle is an option, of course, but it probably is not as robust as a soldered-in 3.5mm jack. I'm sure in-ear monitoring with an iPhone is unfortunately too much of a niche application for Apple to care much, though...

exabrial 10y ago

+-2ms is with unpredictable jitter, you can go up to 6ms-8ms with predictable latency, anything over 10ms it gets difficult. Source: personal experience in the field with various in-ear and stage monitor systems, and lots and tons of research over the years