Can I delay the left or right channel by a few milliseconds?

I want to delay the only left channel by a few milliseconds.

My speaker setup requires me to put the right speaker about 1.5m further than the left speaker is. This way, the sound coming from the left speaker reaches the ear faster than sound from right one. This causes me great woes and headache.

If I delay the left signal, then the sound coming from the left speaker will arrive exactly when the sound from the right speaker reaches my ear.

How do I approach this?

Your estimation of milliseconds is correct. The speed of sound is 343 m/s, so 1.5 m would be 4 milliseconds of delay. I'm surprised your ear/brain can detect 4ms. Sometimes, when a movie I am watching has out of sync sound I alter the sync (on VLC player) in 50 ms quanta. I find I can't see any lipsync difference below 100ms, whilst > 250ms 'out' is unwatchable, for me anyway. That said, I've read that a skilled cinema lipsync expert can make adjustments of fractions one frame (about 40ms). I know this is a different scenario to what you are describing, but I find your perception of 4ms interesting.

What about wall reflections - are you listening to your hifi in an anechoic chamber ?

The subject of imperceptible audio differences usually triggers jokes about Russ Andrews, and their $1000 phono leads, mains cables etc.

audio interconnects, hdmi and Kimber speaker cable from Russ Andrews for your hifi and home cinema

Sorry for being of no help - just my $0.02

I don't think you can do that without external hardware, of which I know nothing about.

wasnotwas said:

I'm surprised your ear/brain can detect 4ms. Sometimes, when a movie I am watching has out of sync sound I alter the sync (on VLC player) in 50 ms quanta. I find I can't see any lipsync difference below 100ms, whilst > 250ms 'out' is unwatchable, for me anyway.

It's not the delay effect that I feel (i.e. a 'stutter' in the audio), it's more related to a "phasing" effect. Imaging two sine wave signals at the same frequency and amplitude. Summed up, their volume increase; but if one is a bit 'delayed' from the other then you start getting cancellations and boosts to the overall signal which distorts the sound and that's my case. This brings me to:

carwiz said:

The Realtek Audio Manager has a room correction (spacing) option. At least mine does. However, it's only available when using 5.1 or 7.1 sound systems. Check it out.

This is exactly what I need and thought about, but alas! I do not have a 5.1+ output setting.
Maybe I can at least find a media player that supports this feature. This way I can solve phasing for hearing music or watching stuff.

I found this interesting article on sound delay as used by p.a. crews to delay the signal feeding the relay speakers at the back of a large venue (eg rock gigs at a football stadium). The writer says that a typical value for a large arena of 1/6 sec makes music muddy and speech difficult to understand.

Sound Delay Explained, SXS Events

I also found this commercial DSP that is calibrated in metres, feet or ms

Behringer: SHARK DSP110

fascinating topic

Ideally you will want to balance your 2 speakers the same distance from your listening position. However, I know this is not always possible. Foobar2000 (for music only) has a component that will allow you to add delay to one or all your channels. You will need to install Foobar first (personal favorite of all music players), then install the component found here. Channel Mixer (foo_channel_mixer) - Hydrogenaudio Forums


What’s great about Foobar is that it and all of its components (and there are many) is free!