[David Liao]

The local latency (shown when you’re in a session just by yourself) estimates how much time it takes for audio to get from your mic, through your computer, and back out to your headphones.

The remote latency (shown when you are connected to another user) estimates how much time it takes for audio to get from their mic all the way to your headphones. The 23 ms of remote latency in the example below means that the delay between sound going into your remote partner’s mic and coming out of your headphones is around the same as you would experience if you and your partner were in the same room playing 23 feet apart.

Sometimes people call remote latency total latency (it includes delays related to processing inside computers plus also delay resulting from data traveling across the internet).