To Keep or not to Keep .... * RESOLVED *

    Quote from MuddySludge

    Keep your friends close and your monitors closer. Damn, I was hanging back with my particle accelerator idea just before the reverb.
    But most of you dogs stayed on the chain. Solid Effort Gentlemen.
    Last time I checked Keith Richards still plays so far behind the beat he's actually ahead of the one coming up. Play nice. Muddy :thumbup:

    Not only far behind but also out of tune and he still sounds damn cool. I still want to be reborn as him if there is a second life :) Keith Richards is my guitar hero. Right there with Paul Gilbert, Dave Gilmour and Tosin Abasi.

    Quote from NorthShaun

    If the Kemper is good enough for Paul Gilbert, then its more than good enough for me! (seen a pic of Billy Sheehan's live rig showing a Kemper too!)


    Exactly. If the OP is more sensitive to timing than these amazing guitarists, he must have some sense of timing!


    Can we hear some of your work, just so we can put it into perspective and hear why this would be an issue?

    I detect a noticeable lack of activity / feedback, here. What is up, OP? Don't keep us in suspense. Is your KPA at the bottom of the Hudson River...or is your current status more along the lines of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Toaster".

    Quote from Tritium

    I detect a noticeable lack of activity / feedback, here. What is up, OP? Don't keep us in suspense. Is your KPA at the bottom of the Hudson River...or is your current status more along the lines of "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Toaster".

    Still here, been investigating this issue further, it's rather time consuming with the many variables involved. It may be a combination of the KPA, the profile/settings, and something else in my system possibly contributing. If I get this latency annoyance figured out or worked around there is still one final outstanding question I've been seeking an explanation for. Otherwise I can't keep the device.

    Could the "something else" be the A/D and D/A conversion delay required for your interface's so-called "zero-latency monitoring", Sonic?


    Didn't hear back from you on this. I mentioned it twice, the last time specifying that "my guess is that this'd usually be between 2 and 3ms due to the two sets of conversion involved."


    Couple that with the Kemper and you're up around 5ms. Stand 5ft from your monitor/s and you're at 10ms.

    Quote from Monkey_Man

    Could the "something else" be the A/D and D/A conversion delay required for your interface's so-called "zero-latency monitoring", Sonic?


    Didn't hear back from you on this. I mentioned it twice, the last time specifying that "my guess is that this'd usually be between 2 and 3ms due to the two sets of conversion involved."


    Couple that with the Kemper and you're up around 5ms. Stand 5ft from your monitor/s and you're at 10ms.

    The conversion trip would be about 1ms or less I believe. 0.3 to 0.6 on average depending on the circuit. As far as I'm aware that is, I don't proclaim to be a digital expert.


    I think part of what was contributing is the extension to my phones I recently dragged out the closet for all this testing when I got the KPA. It's a quality extension but kind of old and abused, a coiled type of wiring, quite long. When I bypassed the extension the responsiveness seemed to improve. Really weird. Like I said I'm looking into a number of things, it's just going to take time. I'm really starting to think there are a number of things at play. I discovered the headphone extension issue because I sat in front of my near field monitors and the latency issue was significantly reduced - to the point where I may not have even noticed anything if I hadn't already been aware I was chasing a potential latency issue. Then I next discovered a strange behavior inside the FF400 interface - but keep in mind that's NOT related directly to the issue I was hearing in the phones originally because I first noticed it when plugging straight into the Kemper. Anyway, a number of things I need to keep parceling off, just takes time....

    Great to hear you haven't given up, man.


    OK, "older" interfaces, that is, up until the last time I checked, which was a few years ago, imposed a .75->1.3+ ms delay for both A/D and D/A conversions. Maybe it's less now, but you might want to check the spec on your particular ones and multiply the figure by two to account for the two-way, in-and-out thing.


    Guitar lead - has this been mentioned? AFAIK, the varying capacitance across leads does mean that some feel more "spongey" or "vintage" than others, especially beyond, say, 12 or 15ft. This would affect attack perception, and therefore the feel of latency.


    Some sort of processing on your interface that you weren't aware of or assumed / believed wasn't at play (compression, EQ or whatever), would account for a few more milliseconds.


    As you said, it all adds up. Obviously we here all believe the Kemper isn't to blame, so I believe you're taking the logical approach in examining each and every stage in the signal chain. Keep at it, mate!

    Quote from SonicExporer

    I think part of what was contributing is the extension to my phones I recently dragged out the closet for all this testing when I got the KPA. It's a quality extension but kind of old and abused, a coiled type of wiring, quite long. When I bypassed the extension the responsiveness seemed to improve. Really weird. Like I said I'm looking into a number of things, it's just going to take time. I'm really starting to think there are a number of things at play. I discovered the headphone extension issue because I sat in front of my near field monitors and the latency issue was significantly reduced - to the point where I may not have even noticed anything if I hadn't already been aware I was chasing a potential latency issue. Then I next discovered a strange behavior inside the FF400 interface - but keep in mind that's NOT related directly to the issue I was hearing in the phones originally because I first noticed it when plugging straight into the Kemper. Anyway, a number of things I need to keep parceling off, just takes time....

    There is NO latency in copper. Really.


    If I understand you correctly, you said that you felt LESS latency when playing over the monitors than with the headphones?
    And you noticed the latency with the headphones plugged directly into the kemper as well?



    This is definitely an audio "issue", not latency. As in, there's something about the SOUND, not delay that's messing with your perception of the timing while you're wearing headphones.

    Quote from Michael_dk

    This is definitely an audio "issue", not latency. As in, there's something about the SOUND, not delay that's messing with your perception of the timing while you're wearing headphones.

    ... which is why I mentioned the reported "vintage" or "spongey" feel through some guitar cables brought about by differences in capacitance, Michael. You're all over that electrical stuff, so you'd know what I'm talking about far more so than I; electricity's gobbledygook to me, bro'.


    Obviously I too felt it strange that sound moving through several feet of air could be perceived to be arriving earlier than that though a copper wire and then an inch or less of air.


    Sonic, it seems to me that you're being affected by this latency-cause chase to the extent that it's got you chasing your tail, mate. You can probably already feel what I'm about to suggest:


    Take a break from this for a few days! Come back to it with fresh ears, and maybe try to convince yourself in the interim that there isn't a problem, and that something mighty-bad's gonna have to jump out at you in order for you to even be tempted to scurry down any more rabbit holes next time. Once bitten...


    Besides, it'll give Awesome Elvis and Peter time to normalise their sugar levels and hit the can. :D

    Are you seriously saying that using a longer wire with your headphones gives you latency issues than a short wire?


    Trust me, you are not playing and listening quicker than electrons move in a piece of copper.


    Trying to look beyond the ridiculous, this could be helpful. One of the guys mentioned earlier in the thread the way that treble response on the leading edge of the note is the first thing you hear. If the treble response is dulled, it can potentially make it harder to detect where the leading edge of the note starts.


    If you're getting this issue with a headphone extension, there's no way it could be timing. What it could be is a crap quality lead that loses some of the top end frequency response so again you lose the clarity on pick attack. No latency, just filtering. That's what was got at earlier.


    Don't take this the wrong way because it's not meant to be but...... have you had your hearing tested for top end response? That's what goes first. You'll notice it less with valves (tube amps) because you inevitably end up cranking the bloody thing to window shaking levels because that's where it sounds best. Damage is caused. When you listen to things at lower volumes (like you do with KPA because it sounds good at lower levels) then the top end gets swamped by the low and you lose the first bit of the note.


    Just a theory - might be off the mark but the thing you can 100% take away is that a little bit more wire on an analogue set of headphones will make zero latency difference - that's being silly.

    Quote from P3t3rB

    <returns from toilet after too many sour patch kids induced vomiting....... Opens a packet of popcorn>

    <starts to wonder if it was because he ate all the red ones. Then remembers, it's just what happens when you eat a lot of them all at once. Concludes that it would most likely happen to anyone and then shares the story of when it happened to himself (me)>