Calibrating Two AirPlay Speakers: Pan Law (-3 dB) and Latency Compensation
How to phase-align asymmetric speaker placements or mixed speaker models down to the millisecond with Consort's delay calibration.
In a real living room or studio, you rarely sit at the exact geometric center between your two speakers. Even more common, many listeners pair speakers of two different models—or use their MacBook Pro speakers on one side paired with an AirPlay speaker on the other.
Human hearing is acutely sensitive to arrival-time differences (the Haas / precedence effect): even a 5 to 15 millisecond offset pulls the entire stereo phantom center toward the earlier speaker.
Millisecond Time Alignment
In Consort’s Speakers & Sync settings pane, you have complete control over inter-speaker timing:
- Precision Slider (
-150 msto+150 ms): Nudge Left or Right delay live without dropouts or audible clicks. - Direct Numeric Entry (
±2500 ms) & Acoustic Auto-Sync: Measure true acoustic room delay via your Mac’s microphone or type an exact value in milliseconds for speakers with deep internal DSP buffers.
Quick Acoustic Distance Rule of Thumb
Sound travels through air at roughly 34.3 cm (1.13 ft) per millisecond:
- If your left speaker sits 1 meter closer to your ears than your right speaker, apply
-3 msto bring lead vocals dead center again.