You may have heard us talk about latency, but what does that mean? What does it have to do with your next karaoke party? And what can you do to fix it? By the end of this post, you’ll have answers to these questions and more.
What is latency?
In the audio world, latency is the time it takes sound to move through a system. For karaoke, it’s the delay between your voice leaving your mouth and returning to your ears.
Why is latency a problem?
Our ears are sensitive to timing. Even small delays are noticeable. To sound natural, latency needs to be below 10–15ms. Professional musicians can detect latency under 10ms, and it can ruin their performance. For the rest of us, latency can still ruin the karaoke experience.
What can you do about it?
Let’s be clear: 0ms latency is impossible. Think of a thunderstorm: lightning reaches you before the sound of thunder. That’s latency. Sound travels much slower than light. There’s always latency between you and your speakers. The goal is to reduce it until it’s no longer noticeable.
Let’s look at the sources of latency. Sound travels from a source to a microphone. The microphone converts it to an electrical signal. That signal becomes a digital signal. The digital signal moves through a system where it’s processed and mixed. Then it converts back to an electrical signal, pushes a speaker, and finally reaches your ears. That’s a long journey.
Many points in that chain can push you past 10ms. Fortunately, most processes happen quickly. Once sound becomes an electrical signal, it moves through cables at nearly the speed of light. Unless your speakers are unusually far away, distance won’t add meaningful latency.
Focus on these areas: converting between electrical and digital signals, processing, and wireless connections.
Converters
Modern converters can switch between electrical and digital signals very quickly, but not all converters are equal. Some add noticeable latency. Seratone uses only the highest-quality converters to reduce latency and preserve audio quality. When you connect Seratone via HDMI, your system receives a digital signal, so you need quality converters that don’t add latency. Most modern systems handle this fine. If yours doesn’t, we’ve included an RCA output that sends an electrical (analog) signal for zero-latency playback.
Processing
Like converters, modern processors can work very quickly if you use the right ones. Not all audio devices prioritize latency, making them unsuitable for karaoke. Seratone uses the best DSP chips available to ensure processing happens with no noticeable delay. But Seratone isn’t the last link in the chain. If your system has built-in processing, it could add significant latency that you wouldn’t notice when watching TV or movies. If you’re experiencing latency, check your TV or home theater settings first. There may be processing you’re unaware of. Also check if your TV or speakers have a “game port”. These HDMI ports minimize latency for gamers, and we can use them for karaoke.
Wireless
The last major cause of audio latency is wireless transmission. There’s a saying in the audio world: “A $15,000 wireless system is almost as good as a $15 cable.” It’s an exaggeration, but there’s truth to it. Wireless adds complexity that’s hard to overcome. Affordable solutions often add latency while reducing audio quality. That’s why Seratone doesn’t include a wireless solution. During development, we tested many options and couldn’t find one that met our quality standards at an affordable price. We’re now developing a proprietary solution for modern karaoke singers. Stay tuned for updates.
Now that you know all about latency, you can have the best karaoke experience possible.