Good question! Yes it is. When I mute all parts and just play the Electribes along with Digitakt’s metronome then the delay becomes very apparent.
It’s also worth noting that the delay sounds to be the same regardless of whether the DT is triggering the Electribes’ parts, or just providing clock and the Electribes are sequencing their sounds.
Just to confirm that the Korgs are receiving clock from the Digitakt and not just transport, if you change the tempo on the Digitakt when they are running, do the Korgs tempos follow? If they do, do they show the same latency problems at different tempos?
Great question! Yes the Electribes are receiving both clock and transport midi messages. When changing the tempo on the DT, the latency doesn’t get any longer or shorter, no matter how fast slow the tempo is. The Electribes are just either getting triggered too late, or the audio is coming out too late.
Could it be some kind of RAM issue with DT? Could a reset potentially the fix the lag? I’m at my wit’s end, I can’t understand where the latency comes from
The reason everyone is scratching their head is because this is not common behavior for the digitakt. Before a factor reset I would start a new project and see if the behavior transfers.
Really though, this isn’t really an issue that has come up so it’s hard to say how to solve it without pinpointing the cause though some troubleshooting
Have you tried to set the ER-1 as the Master?
Have you tried other cables?
Just for troubleshooting
Do you have a DAW and interface? If so, I would try setting up the daw to receive clock and transport from the Digitakt over DIN, and record to a MIDI track and check the latency. That would potentially tell us if your Digitakt is behaving slowly. Or, if you have any other external synths to play, maybe even just a VST.
Also, make sure the Digitakt firmware is up to date, Elektron has added a number of improvements and fixes over the years.
This is perplexing!
Thanks again everyone for your help! Just to provide some kind of closure in case anyone comes across this thread with a similar issue: this appears to be a first-generation Electribe (tested ER1, ES1 and EM1) problem and NOT a Digitakt problem.
With the Electribes as master clock, the audio is more in sync, but the Electribes still lag slightly behind the Digitakt.
When the Digitakt sends clock to a third-party synthesizer (Behringer TD-3 in this case), the Digitakt and the TD-3 are perfectly in sync (no surprise there).
When the Electribes send clock to the TD-3, they are almost in sync but the Electribes still lag slightly behind.
Thanks again everyone for your efforts!
Looks like I’ll head to an Electribe forum to try to find some answers 
Please reply to this thread or message me if you have successfully synced your Digitakt with a first-generation Korg Electribe without significant latency!
My Er-1 is in perfect time with the Digitakt. Have you checked the pattern scale/swing on the electribe?
Yes, it’s not either of those. Thank you for your suggestion! How perfect is the ‘perfect time’ you mention? There is no audible latency at all when you ER1 is receiving clock from the DT?
No noticeable latency here! Metronomes are synced up, pattern changes work in time etc.
I could record them working in time.
That would be very interesting/valuable for me if you could briefly record the metronomes of the DT and ER1 and sync, and maybe some audio in sync as well! No pressure if that’s too much effort. Thank you for your replies 
Are you using Kicks and/or Metronomes for testing the latency?
Not sure I’m doing something wrong too when plugging to iPad and beatmaker 3 but I can notice a delay when recording, I have to quantise everything otherwise it just sounds very off. It was the first time I did this though and can’t tell if it’s the DT or beatmaker 3 engine who’s creating the delay.
For context I can tell that the metronome in each start at different times in the preroll bar, and the actual beat where the record starts is off slightly too.
That’s just the Digitakt sending clock to the Er-1, audio out to a zoom interface to the iPhone CCK.
That’s in sync.
That’s in sync too.
Thank you that’s very helpful! The synchronisation of the metronomes on my ER1 and DT is not dissimilar to this, but there is audible latency when the two are actually sequencing percussion. I may try to record an example tomorrow.
Thanks again sinkingfeeling I really appreciate it
Both! The latency is only very slight when comparing the metronomes. When comparing drums however it is very audible. Everything sounds like a flam (to use a drumming term). Thanks for your help