A master element for a distributed playback architecture for media data, comprising: a payload data source for providing payload data packets, the payload data packets representing the media data; a beacon packet creator for creating beacon packets useable for synchronizing a playback process of the payload data packets at at least one slave element in the distributed playback architecture, wherein the beacon packets comprise a respective reference clock time being the respective time on a clock of the master element when the respective beacon packet is transmitted by the master element; a network interface for transmitting an interleaved packet stream to the at least one slave element, the interleaved packet stream comprising the payload data packets provided by the payload data source and the beacon packets created by the beacon packet creator; a response packet evaluator for evaluating response packets issued by the at least one slave element in response to the beacon packets, wherein a particular response packet issued in response to a particular beacon packet as an acknowledgement comprises the reference clock time of the particular beacon packet and a unique identifier identifying the at least one slave element having issued the particular response packet, wherein the response packet evaluator is adapted to measure a total roundtrip time for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier between a first time instant being the reference clock time included in the particular response packet and a third time instant at which the particular response packet was received at the master element, and wherein the response packet evaluator is further adapted to determine a network latency for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier between the first time instant and a second time instant at which the particular beacon packet was received by the slave element on the basis of the measured total roundtrip time; and wherein the beacon packet creator is adapted to include the determined network latency for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier in a subsequent beacon packet. a payload data source for providing payload data packets, the payload data packets representing the media data; a beacon packet creator for creating beacon packets useable for synchronizing a playback process of the payload data packets at at least one slave element in the distributed playback architecture, wherein the beacon packets comprise a respective reference clock time being the respective time on a clock of the master element when the respective beacon packet is transmitted by the master element; a network interface for transmitting an interleaved packet stream to the at least one slave element, the interleaved packet stream comprising the payload data packets provided by the payload data source and the beacon packets created by the beacon packet creator; a response packet evaluator for evaluating response packets issued by the at least one slave element in response to the beacon packets, wherein a particular response packet issued in response to a particular beacon packet as an acknowledgement comprises the reference clock time of the particular beacon packet and a unique identifier identifying the at least one slave element having issued the particular response packet, wherein the response packet evaluator is adapted to measure a total roundtrip time for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier between a first time instant being the reference clock time included in the particular response packet and a third time instant at which the particular response packet was received at the master element, and wherein the response packet evaluator is further adapted to determine a network latency for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier between the first time instant and a second time instant at which the particular beacon packet was received by the slave element on the basis of the measured total roundtrip time; and wherein the beacon packet creator is adapted to include the determined network latency for the at least one slave element identified by the unique identifier in a subsequent beacon packet.