how far are the speakers from you?

sound is slow, ~760mph

in a room around 20-30 ft, one speaker close and far, the far one will be noticeably delayed

It would help to know what headphones you're using.

To elaborate, some of the problem here may be that the hardware Link is old enough that it cannot support some newer bits of Bluetooth functionality, and some headphones ONLY behave well with newer Bluetooth.

Originally posted by _I_:

how far are the speakers from you?

sound is slow, ~760mph

in a room around 20-30 ft, one speaker close and far, the far one will be noticeably delayed

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I have zero latency issues with HDMI audio.

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

It would help to know what headphones you're using.

To elaborate, some of the problem here may be that the hardware Link is old enough that it cannot support some newer bits of Bluetooth functionality, and some headphones ONLY behave well with newer Bluetooth.

I have tested the following, and all have the same very noticeable latency as far as I can tell:
- Sony WH-CH700N
- Sony WH-CH510
- JBL Tune 510BT
- Jabra Evolve 2 65

I have also tested Sony WH-1000XM4 but I get no sound out of them, not even in the Steam Link menus..

I also enabled Bluetooth audio in Moonlight by patching moonlight.sh over ssh and get the same audio delay there.

bt audio is always a bit laggy

bt 5.0 is slightly better than previous versions
steam link hardware is bt 4.0

if you can use hdm audio to the tv, and the tv bt to receiver it will be better
or just use the tv hdmi arc to the receiver for no audio delay


edit:
you are using virtualhere for the usb bt adapter?
just pair the headset to the link using its bt menu before connecting to the pc

you are adding tons of extra steps, making the audio delay even worse than what it could be

Originally posted by _I_:

bt audio is always a bit laggy

bt 5.0 is slightly better than previous versions
steam link hardware is bt 4.0

if you can use hdm audio to the tv, and the tv bt to receiver it will be better
or just use the tv hdmi arc to the receiver for no audio delay


edit:
you are using virtualhere for the usb bt adapter?
just pair the headset to the link using its bt menu before connecting to the pc

you are adding tons of extra steps, making the audio delay even worse than what it could be

- I do not have Bluetooth audio on my TV

- I have of course used Steam Link own Bluetooth first (I have been using 3 Steam Links for maybe 6 years at home..) All this time, I have been using HDMI audio exclusively, and eventually wired headphones to avoid the BT delay.

- I am sorry to say but you are wrong here, VirtualHere is a well known solution to wireless device delays like controllers and headphones. It is only a pain to setup each time. When it works, using a dedicated Bluetooth dongle, it blows the Link's own BT stack out of the water. It's in fact so good I can use it to stream GUN4IR light guns to my host PC and feel zero latency on the cursors !

I pushed my tests further and tried Vibepollo (after having tried Remote Play, NVidia GeForce Experience, Sunshine, Apollo) with my patched version of Moonlight enabling SDL audio to fix the Bluetooth Audio otherwise not working, and to my big surprise, it shaves a lot of the existing latency. Still not 100% perfect but 90% there.

I cannot explain the difference in performance but this makes it look like this can be improved on the host side.