How much time delay does the Omnia have? (not counting the Diversity Delay in the EXi styles)
How much time delay does the Omnia have? (not counting the Diversity Delay in the EXi styles)
The short answer is "Not enough to drive your DJ's crazy!"
We have measured the delay from the input to any output at approximately 9 ms on the Omnia-6 EX. (the Omnia-3 will be somewhat less and the Omnia-6 EXi slightly more) This is enough for a slight voice-character coloration to be audible to the person speaking, but not enough to be a problem for talent monitoring off the air.
Tip: Try both settings of the "Invert Both" setting in the Input Menu of the Omnia 5EX / 6EX or the "Input Phase" setting in the Omnia-3 Input Levels menu and ask your talent which they prefer. One of the two settings will put what they are hearing through their headphones more in phase with what they are hearing through their own bone conduction.You should find that one of the settings sounds better to them and it should be consistent with all of the talent monitoring off-air using the same feed. This parameter changes the phase of both channels at once, similar to reversing pins 2 & 3 on both channels Input XLR connectors.
After adjusting this setting, most talent gets used to the "new sound" within a few breaks.
Note: If there is additional delay added to the air chain, such as from a Digital STL (especially a codec based STL), the cumulative delay may become excessive and cause discomfort for the on-air talent. Real-world tests have determined that a slight echo may begin to be heard at about 15 ms, and anything above 25-30 ms is usually too annoying to talent monitoring off the air.
