Lowest latency: JACK, or ALSA directly?

[asbjs@stud.ntnu.no (Asbjørn Sæbø)]

As I understand it, JACK acts as a middle layer between a (jack-aware)
application and the underlying ALSA libraries.  But it is also possible
to program against the ALSA libraries directly (which I am doing now).

I am writing an application for audio transfer over network, where the
main goal is to achieve the lowest latency possible.  I would assume
that, as JACK adds an extra layer, it may also introduce extra latency.  
Is that so?  And in that case, how much may be gained by using the ALSA
libs directly, instead of going through ALSA?


Although I so far barely have gotten into ALSA programming, it does seem
to be manageable in difficulty. (Don't laugh, I am an acoustican, not a 
programmer.)  How is programming against JACK in comparison?


As far as I understand it, the main advantages of JACK are the 
possibility to connect together several applications, as well as the 
ability to keep these applications in sync.  That is however not very 
important to me now, as I will probably not need to connect to other 
programs.  Are there other important advantages?  And what are the 
disadvantages?


(As an aside, if anybody knows of any open source applications for very
low latency transfer of audio over IP, I would appreciate it if you let
me know.  Although this audio programming is some of the most fun I have 
had in years, I can hardly defend spending my time duplicating work.)


With kind regards
Asbjørn Sæbø



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