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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: Andrew Broughton on April 19, 2019, 03:21:07 AM
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https://audiofusionsystems.com
Never thought that WiFi would allow low enough latency to work for monitors, but so far it’s pretty impressive.
Wouldn’t use it for IEMs as WiFi isn’t reliable enough IMHO, but this certainly has its applications...
Backstage feeds, remote monitoring, cueing, etc.
Anyone given it a try yet?
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iFruit only. I'll pass.
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It is hard to charge for something when it may/may not work. Onsite Dubious Timewaste = Net Negative.
I smell a no-doc pressbox and all attendant liabilities.
But that is me.
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Saw and played with it at FILO last year. I haven't used it personally. I believe it was in use at a few churches with 5+ users and is reliable.
Pretty neat, I'd suggest some serious networking/wifi knowledge to make sure it works properly. I'd like to see how it does in a crowded wifi situation. WiFi is inherently unstable as designed to not interfere with other stuff.
Id like to measure the latency because their tauted "not noticable/real time" has to be a lie... maybe they mean below the perceivable 5-10ms?
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I haven't measured the latency yet but it is pretty good. I'll try and measure it today.
I just made a video on how I'm using it with bone conducting headphones to monitor the clearcom and still be able to hear the PA.
https://youtu.be/Oke4OiEd9Ms
I like it so far. Would be great for A2 work on a corporate show. Having com and a console cue but still have your ears open.
LOU
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So I measured the latency. I got around 24ms. The interesting thing is it will drift. It went down to as low as 21 and as high as 26. This was tested with a ubiquiti bullet and an iphone 5s.
Perhaps it would be faster if I used newer devices.
LOU
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They claim 10ms if you use one of the recommended AP devices.
It’s free to try.
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I emailed them months ago asking for a spec sheet of any kind. Latency, dynamic range, frequency response, anything they had data on. I received the following reply:
Hi Michael,
We don’t have anything written I can send you.
We would strongly encourage you to download SoundCaster for free and try it for yourself in Gear Test Mode.
We simply pass through the audio from the board or audio interface and the sound quality of the iPhones are pretty well known.
I can tell you that I’ve personally used the system more than 100 times live. There have only been a handful of musicians with whom I’ve played who could even perceive the latency but all found it quite usable for live performance.
Maybe I'm prematurely an old codger but to me, an audio system with zero available specs or documentation removes itself from serious consideration in a professional application. Also, I understand there's a lot of different environments where this might be used, but to me, 10ms+ might as well be next week for IEMs. It seems a lot of folks in house of worship bands are using this thing and having success - it's probably better than whatever their monitoring system was previously in a lot of cases. But again, in my opinion, 10ms through to IEMs is just not going to cut it.
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~24ms latency is scary.
Yeah, intercom, pafl, etc that sounds fine.
Mission critical (computer dies, network dies, phone battery dies, wifi dies...) no thanks. I'll take my EW or PSM IEM's over that.
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It's simply another option. Not for everyone but certainly can be useful if you know the limitations.
I wonder if you get one of those lightning to Ethernet adapters it would work as a wired IEM system...
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It's simply another option. Not for everyone but certainly can be useful if you know the limitations.
I wonder if you get one of those lighting to Ethernet adapters it would work as a wired IEM system...
True.
Wired latency is a bit different... good idea.
I don't have any Apple hardware to do a test... but it would be free/easy to measure if someone had that available...?
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So I measured the latency. I got around 24ms. The interesting thing is it will drift. It went down to as low as 21 and as high as 26. This was tested with a ubiquiti bullet and an iphone 5s.
Perhaps it would be faster if I used newer devices.
LOU
They claim their latest update has fixed (meaning un-changing) latency now.
No measurements yet on wired connection; I'm not ready to pay for the POE -> Lightning device just yet, and really the WiFi applications are much greater, IMHO. However, if the latency on a wired connection is sub-5ms they may just have something - it'd be the lowest-cost personal mixer setup, on a Dante system, if you already have a Mac and iOS devices...
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They claim their latest update has fixed (meaning un-changing) latency now.
No measurements yet on wired connection; I'm not ready to pay for the POE -> Lightning device just yet, and really the WiFi applications are much greater, IMHO. However, if the latency on a wired connection is sub-5ms they may just have something - it'd be the lowest-cost personal mixer setup, on a Dante system, if you already have a Mac and iOS devices...
When was this update released? I updated to the April 16th release and my measurements were with that version. I didn't see fixed latency in the last release notes. Is there a version newer than what I'm using?
LOU
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So I measured the latency. I got around 24ms. The interesting thing is it will drift. It went down to as low as 21 and as high as 26. This was tested with a ubiquiti bullet and an iphone 5s.
Perhaps it would be faster if I used newer devices.
LOU
The verbage they are using in all their online references to latency is "there is no PERCEIVED latency". Given that it is in the low to mid 20ms range i believe they are using the Haas "perceived delay" reference point of 30ms-ish as their justification. Which, okay, whatever.
I will say that i've sometimes had success with performers for whom latency at their IEMs was an issue actually ADDING delay to change the comb filtering point in their head to a different, less objectionable frequency. Maybe in some cases 25ms is better than 2ms. Who knows.
I agree that calling this "pro" is stretching the definition, but that ship [misusing the word "Pro"] sailed a long long time ago. I do think they are going to sell TONS of these to churches who are currently using truly horrible solutions for IEMs and they'll probably work just fine.
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The verbage they are using in all their online references to latency is "there is no PERCEIVED latency". Given that it is in the low to mid 20ms range i believe they are using the Haas "perceived delay" reference point of 30ms-ish as their justification. Which, okay, whatever.
I will say that i've sometimes had success with performers for whom latency at their IEMs was an issue actually ADDING delay to change the comb filtering point in their head to a different, less objectionable frequency. Maybe in some cases 25ms is better than 2ms. Who knows.
I agree that calling this "pro" is stretching the definition, but that ship [misusing the word "Pro"] sailed a long long time ago. I do think they are going to sell TONS of these to churches who are currently using truly horrible solutions for IEMs and they'll probably work just fine.
Churches would be the target market for this. You can get 4 channels of iem for the price of one. Everyone gets to mix themselves on their own phone. The latency would be a trade off but as previously mentioned it would be a step up from most setups.
A big advantage I see is the lack of RF coordination needed when using these. Churches especially have tons of wireless that they don't understand how to use. However they will spend money on an IT professional to make sure the networks function. This puts those iems in their wheelhouse.
I see it being useful for techs like myself that already have an interface for recording/smaart setup. Or for the tablet mixing crowd (myself included here too.)
If you have already spent the time and money to get a solid wireless network for show control adding a cue iem on your phone is super easy.
I agree that I would not use this in a mission critical application but it has potential.
LOU
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Horses for Courses.
I see a lot of potential not in replacing wireless IEMs, but for alternate mixes - A2 wireless techs, back line techs, stage managers, backstage feeds, etc.
The wired system needs to be tested for latency to see if it would be usable on stage.
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Horses for Courses.
I see a lot of potential not in replacing wireless IEMs, but for alternate mixes - A2 wireless techs, back line techs, stage managers, backstage feeds, etc.
The wired system needs to be tested for latency to see if it would be usable on stage.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
agreed and agreed.
it's an interesting concept. kinda an aviom over WiFi. It could be useful for IFB feeds or Paging or all kinds of other stuff. The fact that the user can combine channels however they see fit could have all kinds of interesting applications.
i'm gonna download it and fiddle 'cause i like playing with free stuff...
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When was this update released? I updated to the April 16th release and my measurements were with that version. I didn't see fixed latency in the last release notes. Is there a version newer than what I'm using?
LOU
Maybe I misunderstood what they told me, but it seems the latency should be "fixed".
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I will say that i've sometimes had success with performers for whom latency at their IEMs was an issue actually ADDING delay to change the comb filtering point in their head to a different, less objectionable frequency. Maybe in some cases 25ms is better than 2ms.
Tail wagging dog ? Are we now delaying real-time speed-of-light transmissions to match latency-encumbered sliced/diced/delayed digital?
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Tail wagging dog ? Are we now delaying real-time speed-of-light transmissions to match latency-encumbered sliced/diced/delayed digital?
yes.
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Off topic.
I don't understand. Why would we delay an IEM signal to match a digital latency?
[say analog path besides mixer; mic > digital mixer (.7ms latency) > analog IEM)]
I could see adding delay to make it sound better in the head, but adding more delay wouldn't make it any better than all analog path?
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Off topic.
I don't understand. Why would we delay an IEM signal to match a digital latency?
[say analog path besides mixer; mic > digital mixer (.7ms latency) > analog IEM)]
I could see adding delay to make it sound better in the head, but adding more delay wouldn't make it any better than all analog path?
I think in our joking around [or at least mine] something got lost in translation.
If we have an all analog path, mic to IEMs, we certainly would not add delay. If, however, we have something digital in the path that is adding latency, you can sometimes get better results with singers [and others who can hear their sound "in their head" as well as in their IEMs] by INCREASING that latency so that the interference between the "in the head" sound and the IEM sound interferes in a different and less objectionable way. This varies WILDLY between different performers, so it's totally a "try it and see" kinda thing. I first discovered this trick by using it on myself [i'm also a "singer"]. i found that getting my latency up closer to 7-8 ms sounded better to me than the native 1-2 ms that the digital mixer was introducing.
YMMV of course...