In a large orchestra, you can have people sitting 10m away from each other which given the slow speed of sound is 30ms between them. A 60ms round-trip means th

In a large orchestra, you can have people sitting 10m away from each other which given the slow speed of sound is 30ms between them. A 60ms round-trip means that if they were to each try to play in time with the other by sound it would get horrendously out of sync quickly. Which is why the conductor is so important. I'd guess concert players must have to train themselves to "tune out" what they're hearing and focus on the conductor because the whole thing is set up for the benefit of the audience.