What is latency?
Latency is the time it takes a signal to travel from the input to the output of a system. Every digital audio system has some latency. In signal-flow order, the main contributors are:
- Analogue-to-digital (A/D) conversion
- Digital-to-digital conversion
- Digital transport, such as over a Dante network
- Digital-to-digital conversion
- Digital-to-analogue (D/A) conversion
How much latency does Dante add?
Very little. Dante network transport typically adds around 150 μs, and can be set as low as 83.3 μs. That’s small compared with other parts of the signal path, such as digital audio workstation (DAW) software.
Is latency the same for every device in the system?
Not necessarily. You can set different latencies for different devices on the same network. This lets you use:
- Low latency for critical paths, such as stage monitoring
- Higher latency for less time-sensitive feeds, such as broadcast or recording
To get consistent latency across the whole system, you also need to allow for the latency of other processors on the network. Dante has no control over the latency of devices such as mixing consoles or loudspeaker processors, which need a certain amount of latency to do their job.
Does adding devices or channels increase latency?
No.
- Adding devices to a network doesn’t change the latency of devices already on it.
- The latency of a hardware device doesn’t depend on how many audio channels are routed through it.
- Routing more channels doesn’t change the latency of audio already passing through the network.