Which is faster to hear live performance or radio broadcast of the same event?

Answer 1

Live will be faster of course. The reason is the signal has to be sent to a radio station and then transmitted over the airwaves. This delay can be up to many seconds long. Although your question is very awkwardly worded, I think I know what you're asking. The answer depends upon where you are seated at the live concert. If you are watching a concert and are seated very near the microphones used for the radio broadcast, then you will hear the music a fraction of a second sooner than anyone listening on the radio. That is because the sound waves will reach your ears at the same time as it reaches the diaphragms in the microphones, which convert the sound waves -- differences in pressure -- to electrical signals. Those signals must then travel along wires at speeds ranging from 50 to 70 percent the speed of light. They must then be amplified and then broadcast, which takes, perhaps, a few nanoseconds. The radio waves then propagate at the speed of light through the atmosphere, where they are picked up by the antenna of the radio and converted from electrical signals to sound waves that must then travel to the ears of listeners, who may not be situated near the radio. However, what if you are seated in the farthest seat in a stadium, hundreds of feet from the sound stage? That is a different story altogether, because the time it takes for the sound waves to travel from the sound stage to your ears will be much greater than the time it takes to broadcast and receive the signal on a radio, especially for those people who are near their radios.