Presenting audio stimuli

Presenting audio stimuli with low latency is more difficult than you might think! PsychoPy has historically used a range of audio libraries to try and solve this issue. In PsychoPy 3.2 we added the option of using Psych

Choice of audio library

If low-latency audio is important to you then we strongly recommend you use the `ptb` library which is a Python version of the PsychoPhysics Toolbox audio engine (PsychPortAudio).

Other options:

  • pyo can be fast with the right hardware/OS, but not on such a range of hardware as the PTB option.

  • sounddevice is the next best option if pyo isn’t working for you

  • pygame we really don’t recommend

PsychoPy and the PTB audio engine

The PsychPortAudio engine from Psychophysics Toolbox is considerably faster than any of our previous audio library options. On most hardware it should result in sub-ms precision in audio latencies.

This is achieved by a number of means, including fine-grained control of audio driver settings and by pre-scheduling of sounds for playback.


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