I need a powered monitor without dsp (no latency)

So, I wonder what the latency total is for an Axe III through a pair of Adam A7Xs, or CLRs? Anybody know? Just curious.
 
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overture1922 said:
I think this info (latency) should be specified on every gear description since it is a measurable thing.
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I think a hell of a lot more gear should come with digital I/O too in order to reduce it. This day and age any digital guitar anything should have it.

Because of this thread as a test, at my last gig on Friday with my FM9 and G50 wireless I walked and approximated distances from my speaker. I’m using an older QSC I’m not sure if it has any processing. There’s no little screen on it or anything.
10’ away no discernible latency.
20’ away a hair but nothing obvious. More feel than audible.
30’ away definitely an audible amount of latency but the other sounds leaving the stage were getting to my ears at the same time too so it didn’t screw me up or anything. At 50’ away, I could still play with no problem and that’s the longest guitar cable I’ve ever seen.

I guess everyone’s mileage varies on this but anyone who intends on playing even medium sized rooms and wants to walk away from their speakers will have to find a way to manage this. Can’t send sound at light speed.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
Because of this thread as a test, at my last gig on Friday with my FM9 and G50 wireless I walked and approximated distances from my speaker. I’m using an older QSC I’m not sure if it has any processing. There’s no little screen on it or anything.
10’ away no discernible latency.
20’ away a hair but nothing obvious. More feel than audible.
30’ away definitely an audible amount of latency but the other sounds leaving the stage were getting to my ears at the same time too so it didn’t screw me up or anything. At 50’ away, I could still play with no problem and that’s the longest guitar cable I’ve ever seen.

I guess everyone’s mileage varies on this but anyone who intends on playing even medium sized rooms and wants to walk away from their speakers will have to find a way to manage this. Can’t send sound at light speed.
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Distance from the speaker is a different thing. Yes, you can measure it the same way. And, yes, at least in an academic context being farther away from the speaker means that sound takes longer to hit your ears.

But...you can see the speaker. You can also hear where it is in the room. You're very used to hearing sounds coming from things in rooms...you've done it ~16 hours a day every day for your whole life.

Processing latency, OTOH, isn't a natural thing, and you have a lot less experience with it, even if you "live in the studio"....because you're also hearing the distance to the speaker on top of processing latency.

I really don't think they're comparable things. Sadly, IME, you kind of just have to try things and see what works. Very few companies actually publish round trip latency numbers.

FWIW, the only time I've actually experienced it was when I was experimenting with using a reverb pedal in the loop of my FM3. I've used that reverb pedal before in other setups, and it was fine. But, the whole thing went from an overall latency of "totally fine" to "this is ridiculous; I can't play like this"...and I never really expected that.
 
marsonic said:
Distance from the speaker is a different thing. Yes, you can measure it the same way. And, yes, at least in an academic context being farther away from the speaker means that sound takes longer to hit your ears.

But...you can see the speaker. You can also hear where it is in the room. You're very used to hearing sounds coming from things in rooms...you've done it ~16 hours a day every day for your whole life.

Processing latency, OTOH, isn't a natural thing, and you have a lot less experience with it, even if you "live in the studio"....because you're also hearing the distance to the speaker on top of processing latency.

I really don't think they're comparable things. Sadly, IME, you kind of just have to try things and see what works. Very few companies actually publish round trip latency numbers.

FWIW, the only time I've actually experienced it was when I was experimenting with using a reverb pedal in the loop of my FM3. I've used that reverb pedal before in other setups, and it was fine. But, the whole thing went from an overall latency of "totally fine" to "this is ridiculous; I can't play like this"...and I never really expected that.
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I’d imagine if you’re fixated on your speakers, this may be the case. I think if you close your eyes, 10ms is 10ms no matter if distance or processing is causing the audio latency.
I really think as digital gear in general gets more and more prevalent, digital I/O really needs to become more available in most any digital audio gear. There’s no reason you should have to guitar cable 5 pedals together hitting 5 sets of ADDA conversion and adding all that latency as well as signal degradation.
 
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Keybi said:
Analog crossover.
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Yep. This in part is what attracted to me to the MF-10's - they just do flat amplification and any and all signal processing stays with the AxeFx.
The idea of multiple AD / DA conversions does not appeal. When I vaguely considered a PowerCab the Plus version in particular was a major disincentive though the non-plus version will I understand do a direct "raw" amplification job? Might be wrong - never heard one and the MF-10 a better fit for me.
 
marsonic said:
FWIW, the only time I've actually experienced it was when I was experimenting with using a reverb pedal in the loop of my FM3. I've used that reverb pedal before in other setups, and it was fine. But, the whole thing went from an overall latency of "totally fine" to "this is ridiculous
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For me there's two categories, one being the latency that's audible and strongly felt as the sound from my speaker is clearly arriving separately from the accoustic sound of my guitar (playing at home at low volume) - I can't play like that. But, the other category is far more subtle, and is the dofference between a patch feeling lifeless vs lively - I can experience this with plugins where I can easily adjust latency - playing at 20ms, it feels dead / no joy to play, but the latency is still not enough to hear any late arriving sound from the speaker compared to what's coming from my guitar accoustically. The same plugin @ 10ms or less feels lively and fluid. I hated all my plugins till I upgraded my computer - suddenly, on the new computer, with latency down to 8-10ms vs twice that on my old system, plugins became fun to use.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
I’d imagine if you’re fixated on your speakers, this may be the case. I think if you close your eyes, 10ms is 10ms no matter if distance or processing is causing the audio latency.
I really think as digital gear in general gets more and more prevalent, digital I/O really needs to become more available in most any digital audio gear. There’s no reason you should have to guitar cable 5 pedals together hitting 5 sets of ADDA conversion and adding all that latency as well as signal degradation.
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Agreed about the last thing, though I don't think there's actually much of an impact to latency from conversion outside of computers. That latency comes from the necessity to have a relatively large buffer to account for processing delays in a general purpose computer. I don't think that dedicated DSP has the same problems....if nothing else, the processing time should be known ahead of time, so the buffer size should be fixed and could be a lot smaller.

But, yes, even if the difference is largely academic, more digital IO would be better.

As for the first thing....you might be right, but I don't think so. You should still basically be able to locate the speaker with your eyes closed. You're getting audio-only cues to where it is based on the reverb sound of the room that your brain kind of filters out but still uses sub-consciously. Artificial latency will at least mess with that, and I honestly think that's where some of the disconnect comes from.

Maybe I'm wrong....but it feels totally different to me.

sprint said:
For me there's two categories, one being the latency that's audible and strongly felt as the sound from my speaker is clearly arriving separately from the accoustic sound of my guitar (playing at home at low volume) - I can't play like that. But, the other category is far more subtle, and is the dofference between a patch feeling lifeless vs lively - I can experience this with plugins where I can easily adjust latency - playing at 20ms, it feels dead / no joy to play, but the latency is still not enough to hear any late arriving sound from the speaker compared to what's coming from my guitar accoustically. The same plugin @ 10ms or less feels lively and fluid. I hated all my plugins till I upgraded my computer - suddenly, on the new computer, with latency down to 8-10ms vs twice that on my old system, plugins became fun to use.
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Yeah....I get that. My computer is no slouch, but it's not set up for low latency because it doesn't actually matter for anything I really care about....and with a nice AIO water cooler, it's also practically silent. That's worth more to me...but I flat-out can't play with plugins or running my fractal through my mains. They wind up with about 100ms of latency due to a combination of room correction, crossovers, and time-aligning my subs.

But, the sound is enough better than without the DSP that I just use a second pair of speakers for my Fractal.

That's actually why I keep posting in these FRFR experience threads....I do understand speakers in general pretty well, but I'm also on the lookout for something that might be better than just running into my old KRKs that I honestly think are absolute crap speakers for every other application. But....it also seems like almost everything that's both "good" and guitar focused is made for stage volumes....and I basically never play that loud.
 
Just as a note on latency. I have a D&B Epac amplifier powering my D&B Max12 wedge.
The Epac manual gives a latency of 1ms including AD/DA conversion.
Needless to say that I don’t hear it.
But the point I want to make is that the OPs experience is based on a consumer speaker, not a pro level system.
I’m pretty sure most pro level speakers do not have a latency greater than 1 or 1.5 ms.
My system is pretty old and things should only have improved since in the professional field.
It’s also a good indicator that D&B lists the latency of the system.
Moral of the story: you don’t have to go all Analog, just go pro.
 
Don’t get me wrong, Steve’s a hell of a player, but hearing him talk about how modeling is just not that good, but those two holes in his guitar are “just right”?…….oh brother! lol :)
 
The Laney LFR1-12 was mentioned in this thread. When researching I also re-discovered the Friedman ASC-10. Friedman seems to agree with MF on the 10" speaker decision. This after I just played yet another show where the singer's 30W tube amp dominated the whole stage, while I was relying on my FM9 through the house monitor and could only hear myself when I didn't move away from one spot.

I like the slightly lower weight of the Friedman.

Anywhoo, is someone here who had compared those two? Thanks!
 
Henry said:
The Laney LFR1-12 was mentioned in this thread. When researching I also re-discovered the Friedman ASC-10. Friedman seems to agree with MF on the 10" speaker decision. This after I just played yet another show where the singer's 30W tube amp dominated the whole stage, while I was relying on my FM9 through the house monitor and could only hear myself when I didn't move away from one spot.

I like the slightly lower weight of the Friedman.

Anywhoo, is someone here who had compared those two? Thanks!
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I bring out a little QSC and throw it in the backline. There is a VERY small range in volume from being barely audible to dominating and too loud (and I’m the only guitar player in the band). You should definitely be able to keep up with a 30w amp (or any amp) on stage. Maybe he needed to turn down a little?
 
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