[lwilliam]

I would bet that the majority of the people who hear the "phasey" sound associated with latency are listening to both the source and the post A/D signal at the same time.

Yeah, you'd be getting into the flanger/comb filter stage of delays at 6ms, but most of the time, you don't need to listen to both signals at the same time, and 6ms won't really be felt or heard if you're just listening to the post-A/D sound. Certainly on midi instruments or D/I instruments, where you don't here the direct sound at all, it shouldn't be a problem.

If you use good isolation-type headphones, you mostly won't hear the source. The only thing I've noticed when recording my own vocals is that instead of the sound coming from the "center" of my head (no latency), it seems to come from both ears (in the phones). To me, it's not significant enough to be a problem. Some people (such as voice-over specialists) are super-sensitive about it, however.

At least there is a work-around, if you need it.

I don't think there is any host-based system providing significantly LESS latency than the PTLE/001 combo.

Here is a direct quote from the MOTU site:

"When monitoring a record enabled track, there may be some amount of latency. Latency occurs with any Audio system that utilizes the computer's CPU for it's signal processing. This is the small amount of time it takes the card to carry an input, process the information and get it back out to the outputs. This latency can be reduced to a level that is unnoticeable.

In the configure hardware driver you can change the Samples Per Buffer setting allowing you to reduce the latency to where it isn't even noticeable. Approximately 4ms will be the smallest latency. This makes the processor work a little harder. So the number of tracks you are playing back, amount of effects you are running, and what machine you are using, will determine the minimum amount of samples per buffer you can afford to get away with while monitoring a record enabled track.

We also offer Direct Hardware Playthrough. This means we take your input and route it directly to it's corresponding output while allowing you to record. You will not be able to monitor the input through your effects in Direct Hardware Playthrough."

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LW

[This message has been edited by lwilliam (edited May 05, 2000).]