Since the focus has migrated to perception, let me muddy this up a bit...
(a little late in the discussion, pun hardly avoided)
In my understanding, one only refers to latency when it involves a time
interval during which there is uncertainty.
In case of the Repeater's audio path, I'm quite sure it's simply delay, not
latency. A fixed time (however small) during which an audio event at the input
propagates to the output.
As acknowledged by the translation, made in an earlier post, into
distance (by way of sound wavelength).
Delay can be compensated for (e.g. start earlier, mentally perceive as
something a bit farther away) - latency cannot. For example, the Repeater's
latency for the Start button may result in delayed action, between zero and
something, depending on how often its operating system polls the state of its
buttons. True?
But carry on, anyway 
Nic
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 12:25
PM
Subject: The doors of perception (was Re:
Repeater latency)
On Wednesday, July 23, 2003, at 07:35 AM, S V G
wrote:
> So how far away is 12.5 ms? I know that it's
really simple math,
> though
> I'm unsure as to how much of a
second is a ms. Is it .001?
Yup. I measure the Repeater's
latency to be .0011 ms. Kim got a
little higher, but maybe with the
first OS things were a bit worse
(they sure were!) I'm pretty sure
my method was accurate and I tried
it several times.
> If so,
then the perceived distance is a little over 14 feet away, or
> 4.3
meters (assuming 68 degrees F or 20 degrees C). Huh, I guess this
> puts things in a perspective of sorts. I try to keep my onstage
> monitors about 4 feet away from my head, and on the same plane (3.5
ms
> latency through the air).
Great way to look at it.
Makes me realize I'm not crazy to not be
effected by the 11 ms latency I'm
getting. When I play shows my
speakers are often at least 14 ft away
from where I'm playing and it
doesn't trip up my sense of timing.
(Hey drummer, can you move a bit
closer, I'm getting lag between the light
I'm seeing and what I'm
hearing, thanks!) Maybe my brain just compensates
for everything as
brains are good at sometimes. Apple brags a
possible < 4 ms latency in
MIDI with OSX which I'm assuming is better
than most. Man, I'm so used
to MIDI and MIDI guitar and computers my
idea of "real time" has become
very lax.
> There is also latency
on a grand piano, and great latency
> on a pipe organ. And I'm
always late to work...
Interesting point. When I started my job
here, I was told "Oh, the
design staff gets here at 10:00 because content
usually comes in later
in the day and you'll be expected to stay until 7
or 8. I did this for
2.5 years. Some jerk complained when he
couldn't find files I had
worked on the night before. (I hid them on
the company's server in the
proper folder figuring no one would look where
they were supposed to
be) Anyway, even though I was called on my
cell and got them the
files, I was asked to start coming in at 9, so I
did.
What a difference. I got several "Wow, you're work has been
great the
last few weeks." type comments to myself and my boss.
*Nothing*
changed other than the fact that I started coming in an hour
earlier.
Because they don't often know what I should be doing, that
hour is
usually wasted, but they don't perceive it that way at all.
So in the
end it's all about perception.
If took the blue dye out
of my hair and wore Dockers to work every day,
who knows? I might
run this place one day.
Mark
Sottilaro
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