Hi everyone,
sorry if this topic has already been discussed. If so, please point me to the right thread.
I’m trying to find real measured round trip latency (RTL) data for the Allen & Heath QU-16 when used as a USB audio interface with a DAW.
If anyone has tested it (for example with RTL Utility or loopback), could you share the numbers? A typical setup is ok (for example 48 kHz sample rate and 128 buffer size), but any sample rate and buffer size are fine.
For context, I’m looking for the full input → DAW → output latency, not just internal mixer or monitoring delay. No further processing on the QU-16 nor in the DAW, just in and out.
Thanks in advance for any measurements or reliable sources.
I hope someone can provide you with some real world results.
That being said, it would be relatively easy to measure this yourself using something like the free software OpenSoundMeter.
You really only need to compare two measurements: 1) the time it takes to measure the audio traveling just through the console (ie no audio being sent to the DAW) and your measurement system and 2) the time it takes to measure the audio traveling through the console, out to the DAW, and back out of the console and through your measurement system. The difference in these two measurements is the total time the audio path to/from the DAW adds.
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Two points: This is just my 2nd post here and my QU-6 is coming in a week or so but…
Internal routing of the Qu line (at least these new most recent ones) is incredibly fast at 0.7ms, but I assume that is just internal latency speeds, it does not take into consideration the pathway out the mixer, through the USB path, the app *and* what you are doing to the signal and what VSTs you are passing it through and of course the speed of your computer and back into the mixer for it to complete it’s path, ultimately to your desired destination.
Past experience in Reaper (which shows approximate in/out latencies) tells me that the biggest times are caused duing the path out of the mixer, the processing and return trip.
If you are not going nuts on the VSTs (using both few and effecient ones!), and not doing too much and have a reasonably fast computer, you can expect times somewhere between 2ms to 15ms times round-trip, again depending on all the factors above. I know that is a very broad number, but once I get my QU-6 and play with it a month or so, I’ll have more info based on my setup (which is a Windows 11 setup, though I do have a Mac Mini M1 with 16gb RAM and 2TB hard drive, which I may test and play with at a later time).
A big thing to consider is WHAT you are wanting to do. Playing with already captured music/data, latency is not that important, but if you are wanting to use your DAW computer as a replacement for external hardware to process the signal in a live show, you really want to keep complete latency under 6ms. Even then some effects like delay, above 5ms I can feel the lag, so less is better.
Working entirely in 96kHz lowers latency, thats also a huge thing. One could write a book about this stuff… lol. I look forward to playing with my mixer soon!
FWIW when I used Studio One 7 Pro as an effect processor with my last mixer, for Livestream, those effects added about 250 ms to the delay.
Now, with only the Qu-5 effects in my AV setup sending direct to the Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro switcher, I use the mix delay time of 204 ms to sync audio to video. I could probably do similar with OBS to sync.
So my total delay used to be closer to 450 ms.
For disclosure, my cameras and ATEM are set to 1080p and 25 fps.