4 ms·

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophile

by nness 12y ago

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?

Joona 12y ago
Imagine if you were playing an instrument, and your hand moved a little (36ms) before any sound came out. Or imagine trying to listen to your own voice, but having the sound delayed by that 35ms, so it feels like someone is talking over you every time you open your mouth.
fredley 12y ago
Say you want to create an app that adds a sound-effect to your voice, live. On Android, the time it takes for the audio from the microphone to get into the app, be processed, and sent back out to the speakers is long enough that it'll be jarring to use. For musical instrument apps, the latency between touching the screen and the speakers responding is too long to be useful.
analog31 12y ago
Audio processing on Android devices is Slow. Even seemingly small delays (10 milliseconds) is enough to make apps seem clunky and erratic. This puts the Android platform at a disadvantage for developers whose product ideas involve delivering high quality audio performance. The embedded graph with the U shaped figure pretty much sums up the author's search for the components in the software that are the culprits.
- valdiorn 12y ago
  > Even seemingly small delays (10 milliseconds) is enough to make apps seem clunky and erratic Not just that, if you try to play guitar with a 10ms latency from input to output, you'll find that it's impossible to keep rhythm at all. It's the same effect as a speech jammer: http://www.stutterbox.co.uk/ http://www.stutterbox.co.uk/ And I don't think many people outside the the tech audio community realize how many people have ditched their guitar amplifiers and are playing guitar purely through the iOS devices. It's a great use case for tablets, but is completely infeasible to do on Android at the moment.
  - vkjv 12y ago
    > And I don't think many people outside the the tech audio community realize how many people have ditched their guitar amplifiers and are playing guitar purely through the iOS devices. I'm super interested in this question because I honestly don't know. My assumption is that among serious guitar players (defined as individuals who play in groups or in front of people at least monthly) the number is almost nil. I'm sure the number of casual guitarists (those who rarely play, but technically own one), this number is quite high. I'm unwilling to even concede the tubes in my amp let alone the amp itself...
  - CPLX 12y ago
    If you take out the word "purely" you're absolutely right. Few serious guitarists would resign themselves to exclusively playing through an iOS device. Nearly all serious guitarists will do it on a regular basis though, which is the more relevant point.
masklinn 12y ago
Audio processing in Android is low-priority, highly layered and each layer has extensive buffers. This means samples take a long time to move through layers, and as these delays accumulate you end up with fairly big and definitely noticeable audio latencies. This is obviously an issue when doing real-time audio processing or generation: if you're using virtual instruments and the feedback to your cans is 1/10th of a second behind the interaction it's unusable. But it's also a problem for more mundane applications: a 200ms roundtrip (100ms to move samples from the mic to the application on the talker's side, and 100ms to move them from the application to the speaker on the listener's side) is is more delay than the transmission time from somebody literally on the other side of the earth. Same with fast-paced game, audio feedback >100ms after an action is highly bothersome or even game-breaking (the sound is output several frames behind the gamestate)
oldmanjay 12y ago
Audiophiles are a group of people who believe that they have magical hearing powers that are enhanced with oxygen-depleted gold cables and the scratch/hiss/pop of vinyl. This is targeted at musicians.
rasz_pl 12y ago
TLDR: Press a button, wait 200-300ms for a sound to play. This is android.

by nness 12y ago

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?

Joona 12y ago

Imagine if you were playing an instrument, and your hand moved a little (36ms) before any sound came out. Or imagine trying to listen to your own voice, but having the sound delayed by that 35ms, so it feels like someone is talking over you every time you open your mouth.

fredley 12y ago

Say you want to create an app that adds a sound-effect to your voice, live. On Android, the time it takes for the audio from the microphone to get into the app, be processed, and sent back out to the speakers is long enough that it'll be jarring to use. For musical instrument apps, the latency between touching the screen and the speakers responding is too long to be useful.

analog31 12y ago

Audio processing on Android devices is Slow. Even seemingly small delays (10 milliseconds) is enough to make apps seem clunky and erratic. This puts the Android platform at a disadvantage for developers whose product ideas involve delivering high quality audio performance. The embedded graph with the U shaped figure pretty much sums up the author's search for the components in the software that are the culprits.

valdiorn 12y ago
> Even seemingly small delays (10 milliseconds) is enough to make apps seem clunky and erratic Not just that, if you try to play guitar with a 10ms latency from input to output, you'll find that it's impossible to keep rhythm at all. It's the same effect as a speech jammer: http://www.stutterbox.co.uk/ http://www.stutterbox.co.uk/ And I don't think many people outside the the tech audio community realize how many people have ditched their guitar amplifiers and are playing guitar purely through the iOS devices. It's a great use case for tablets, but is completely infeasible to do on Android at the moment.
- vkjv 12y ago
  > And I don't think many people outside the the tech audio community realize how many people have ditched their guitar amplifiers and are playing guitar purely through the iOS devices. I'm super interested in this question because I honestly don't know. My assumption is that among serious guitar players (defined as individuals who play in groups or in front of people at least monthly) the number is almost nil. I'm sure the number of casual guitarists (those who rarely play, but technically own one), this number is quite high. I'm unwilling to even concede the tubes in my amp let alone the amp itself...
- CPLX 12y ago
  If you take out the word "purely" you're absolutely right. Few serious guitarists would resign themselves to exclusively playing through an iOS device. Nearly all serious guitarists will do it on a regular basis though, which is the more relevant point.

masklinn 12y ago

Audio processing in Android is low-priority, highly layered and each layer has extensive buffers. This means samples take a long time to move through layers, and as these delays accumulate you end up with fairly big and definitely noticeable audio latencies. This is obviously an issue when doing real-time audio processing or generation: if you're using virtual instruments and the feedback to your cans is 1/10th of a second behind the interaction it's unusable. But it's also a problem for more mundane applications: a 200ms roundtrip (100ms to move samples from the mic to the application on the talker's side, and 100ms to move them from the application to the speaker on the listener's side) is is more delay than the transmission time from somebody literally on the other side of the earth. Same with fast-paced game, audio feedback >100ms after an action is highly bothersome or even game-breaking (the sound is output several frames behind the gamestate)

oldmanjay 12y ago

Audiophiles are a group of people who believe that they have magical hearing powers that are enhanced with oxygen-depleted gold cables and the scratch/hiss/pop of vinyl. This is targeted at musicians.

rasz_pl 12y ago

TLDR: Press a button, wait 200-300ms for a sound to play. This is android.