A/V Receivers and Lag

bobrocks95 · Post by **bobrocks95** » Mon Oct 10, 2016 10:35 pm

I've asked about it before in passing, but I wanted to start a thread to see if anything more official could be said on the topic, especially since I would think it's of interest to people- if you're seeking video perfection, you should also invest in a decent audio system too!

Do A/V Receivers add notable lag to the processing chain?

This is of course talking about pure passthrough without any sort of upscaling applied (receiver upscaling is likely tailored for movies and horrible for games), so generally it's in the realm of 720p/1080i/p HDMI inputs.
Anything sub 480p I would leave up to an external processor, I'm sure people could agree there.
Analog-to-digital conversion info through component inputs would be informative too, but that's adding another variable on top.

Has anyone ever brought a Leo-Bodnar tester to a showroom and tested A/V Receivers, or maybe tested one they own? Are they lagless by design, like they should be, or are results all over the place?

I feel like asking on AVSforum wouldn't get me very far, they don't seem very gaming-centric at all. Curious to hear from anyone with something to add!

Guspaz · Post by **Guspaz** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:20 am

I've read that some do, and often will have a setting to delay the audio to match the delay in the video. I can't give any specifics as I don't have any first-hand experience with that, and mine doesn't add any delay.

It's worth noting that not all setups require that the HDMI pass through the receiver: you can connect the TV's S/PDIF output to the receiver's coax or optical input.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 7:08 am

Mine has no lag. I consider this a non-issue anyway, since there's not exactly a shortage of cheap HDMI splitters and switchers from China available to solve this problem. You can also go with Guspaz's solution or use HDMI ARC.

A much worse issue is the AVRs that have video processing lag and force the same lag to be added on all their audio processing. I forgot which company was famous for this (it's one of the big ones).

BuckoA51 · Post by **BuckoA51** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 1:00 pm

I tested a handful with Leo's tester (Cambridge Audio, Onkyo, Sony) and found no lag when image processing (if there was any) was turned off.

austin532 · Post by **austin532** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 7:13 pm

I can confirm that there is no lag with the Sony AVR's. At least over HDMI. I believe Component is upscaled which would obviously cause lag.

Ji-L87 · Post by **Ji-L87** » Wed Oct 12, 2016 6:44 am

I've got two Yamaha AVRs (one low-range and one low mid-range) of pretty recent vintage on which I haven't noticed any lag to speak of. Now, I haven't been playing shmups or rhythm games but mouse movement feels good and Wii U games feels snappy enough.

gray117 · Post by **gray117** » Wed Oct 12, 2016 11:08 am

It varies and is largely undocumented. But most should have a decent passthrough option.

I think onkyo about 5 years ago got a pretty bad rap for a line that seemed to universally add a delay to everything, and that criticism put a focus on all brands to minimise / eliminating receiver being blamed where avoidable and having a proper passthrough options if even if just to allow comparison/troubleshooting... Typically movie buffs will be adding a slight delay to audio on receiver settings to sync to their TV...

For gaming I simply prefer to breakout audio/optical cable and connect video straight to TV and/or upscaler/processor of choice and avoid receiver.

zakruowrath · Post by **zakruowrath** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 4:12 am

Ji-L87 wrote:I've got two Yamaha AVRs (one low-range and one low mid-range) of pretty recent vintage on which I haven't noticed any lag to speak of. Now, I haven't been playing shmups or rhythm games but mouse movement feels good and Wii U games feels snappy enough.

Same here, my PS3, Xbox 360, N64 & XRGB Mini are connected to my Yamaha RX-S600 AVR and there's no noticeable lag what so ever.

Ji-L87 · Post by **Ji-L87** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 7:21 am

zakruowrath wrote:Same here, my PS3, Xbox 360, N64 & XRGB Mini are connected to my Yamaha RX-S600 AVR and there's no noticeable lag what so ever.

Yeah, that one looks like the slimline version of the ones I have (an HTR-3066 and RX-V679).
Always liked the form factor of those slim lines models.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 7:53 am

AVRs biggest crime would be if they added audio lag and as I said one manufacturer had a reputation for doing that.

That's not necessarily something you would notice outside of playing games heavily reliant on audio cues.

Unseen · Post by **Unseen** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 8:50 am

ZellSF wrote:AVRs biggest crime would be if they added audio lag

Oh, but they do. They even let you choose how much they add, the option is usually called "speaker distance".

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 9:02 am

Unseen wrote:
ZellSF wrote:AVRs biggest crime would be if they added audio lag
Oh, but they do. They even let you choose how much they add, the option is usually called "speaker distance".

Good point

But I'm obviously talking outside of that lag.

shmups.system11.org

A/V Receivers and Lag

A/V Receivers and Lag

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