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[drew gandy]

I'm rather surprised one of the network engineer types on the list hasn't visited this thread to set us straight...

DANTE operates at layer 3.  This means it's at the "IP address level" which means it has the sometimes huge advantage that it can pass through 'regular' network switches and can be routed through most network configurations (wifi not included).  This kind of data transfer system was not intended to carry time sensitive payloads and has some inherent issues.  DANTE is a combination of various "solutions" to those issues. 

TSN/AVB/MILAN operates at layer 2.  This means it's at the "MAC address level".  Even layer 2 was not designed for time sensitive data.  BUT, because it avoids the IP level, it avoids several issues.  When AVB compliant switches are used, there is a framework for prioritizing packets and defining the timing of streams between talkers and listeners at a fairly low level.  But TSN/AVB is also changing, in particular to meet the needs of various industries.  And eventually it may be that every manufacturer implements it somewhat differently such that they're all somewhat proprietary.  That said, in any form, it is also a combination of various "solutions" to inherent issues involved with packetizing time sensitive data and sending those packets over a network.  But those solutions happen at layer 2.     

I'm sure there are lots of people in this food chain that don't understand many technical nuances of this (myself included) and there are probably some people taking advantage of the chaos.  But assuming that it's just Pepsi vs Coke is missing part of the story here. 

So:
A)  Yes, for a lot of customers, both of these do the same thing.  They allow you to send your audio over a Cat5/6 cable.  In this respect, this topic is probably Coke vs Pepsi.  But there's also Fanta, 7-UP, Green River, RC and quite a few others that also send audio over a Cat5/6 cable. 

B)  Yes, there is a fundamental difference here between a proprietary system that is driven by an independent company that has all the advantages of an independent company like moving quickly, unified marketing, private R&D, scales of economy, etc etc AND the completely separate situation of a protocol that is trying to be an open standard for industry and inclusive of as many independent companies that it can entice including all of the issues that this involves. 

C)  But, there is also a fundamental technical difference between these two systems.  As Audio and IT converge, we as audio dudes must learn some of this weird IT stuff.  When we understand these things better we'll perhaps know when to use which tool for which purpose.   
 
 

[Scott.Sugden]

Hello all, Scott Sugden from L-Acoustics, I wanted to comment on some of the questions that have come up in the post.

Why has L-Acoustics specifically chosen AVB as the infrastructure for networked audio?

• Unified network infrastructure: same network cables are used to pass traffic of all types (TCP/IP and digital audio samples). TCP/IP traffic will be automatically rate-limited before it can ever disturb the digital audio traffic.
• Plug-and-play: no network management ever needed, no matter the size of your network.
• Multicast transmissions: any number of devices can listen to the same digital audio stream.
• Low latency: the playback latency is optimized automatically according to the network topology. By “playback latency”, we mean the provision for the maximum time an AVB packet takes to go through the network from the talker to the farthest listening device. In the simple case where all your devices are connected to one single switch, your playback latency can be reduced down to 250 microseconds. If 6 cascaded switches separate the talker from the farthest listener, the playback latency can be set to 1ms.
• Automatic overload prevention: whenever a segment of the network is approaching its physical bandwidth capacity, AVB will automatically prevent any new stream to be added on this segment.
• Determinism: performances of AVB are guaranteed, they are not the result of statistical phenomenon; either it always works, or it never works. “It works” means that your digital audio samples are going through the network and reaching their destination on time. “It doesn’t work” means that you have no audio passing at all.
• Sound quality: AVB relies on state-of-the-art time synchronization protocol that results in very low jitter on the audio clocks. Such an amazing performance is achieved by AVB precisely because it requires all switches to support AVB.
• Playback synchronization: all devices listening to the same talker are able to play the received digital audio samples at the exact same time within +/-1us.

The MILAN solution, which is based on the AVB technology, brings additional benefits:

• Common format for the digital audio traffic.
• Plug-and-play synchronization of audio clocks through the network itself.
• Inter-operable seamless redundancy.
• Unified control of AVB devices from a central controller software.

Scott Sugden
Product and Technology Outreach Manager
L-Acoustics

[Justice C. Bigler]

Hi Scott, thanks for the info. Would you care to talk about what specifically L-Acoustics doesn't like about Dante?

[tboot]

Hi All,

These are great questions. I encourage you to make this post at the Milan Proboards forum hosted by Avnu. http://milanavcommunity.proboards.com
From there you can get responses directly from the engineers who have created the standard.

Tim Boot
Meyer Sound

I'm rather surprised one of the network engineer types on the list hasn't visited this thread to set us straight...

DANTE operates at layer 3.  This means it's at the "IP address level" which means it has the sometimes huge advantage that it can pass through 'regular' network switches and can be routed through most network configurations (wifi not included).  This kind of data transfer system was not intended to carry time sensitive payloads and has some inherent issues.  DANTE is a combination of various "solutions" to those issues. 

TSN/AVB/MILAN operates at layer 2.  This means it's at the "MAC address level".  Even layer 2 was not designed for time sensitive data.  BUT, because it avoids the IP level, it avoids several issues.  When AVB compliant switches are used, there is a framework for prioritizing packets and defining the timing of streams between talkers and listeners at a fairly low level.  But TSN/AVB is also changing, in particular to meet the needs of various industries.  And eventually it may be that every manufacturer implements it somewhat differently such that they're all somewhat proprietary.  That said, in any form, it is also a combination of various "solutions" to inherent issues involved with packetizing time sensitive data and sending those packets over a network.  But those solutions happen at layer 2.     

I'm sure there are lots of people in this food chain that don't understand many technical nuances of this (myself included) and there are probably some people taking advantage of the chaos.  But assuming that it's just Pepsi vs Coke is missing part of the story here. 

So:
A)  Yes, for a lot of customers, both of these do the same thing.  They allow you to send your audio over a Cat5/6 cable.  In this respect, this topic is probably Coke vs Pepsi.  But there's also Fanta, 7-UP, Green River, RC and quite a few others that also send audio over a Cat5/6 cable. 

B)  Yes, there is a fundamental difference here between a proprietary system that is driven by an independent company that has all the advantages of an independent company like moving quickly, unified marketing, private R&D, scales of economy, etc etc AND the completely separate situation of a protocol that is trying to be an open standard for industry and inclusive of as many independent companies that it can entice including all of the issues that this involves. 

C)  But, there is also a fundamental technical difference between these two systems.  As Audio and IT converge, we as audio dudes must learn some of this weird IT stuff.  When we understand these things better we'll perhaps know when to use which tool for which purpose.   
 

[Andrew Broughton]

Hi All,

These are great questions. I encourage you to make this post at the Milan Proboards forum hosted by Avnu. http://milanavcommunity.proboards.com
From there you can get responses directly from the engineers who have created the standard.

Tim Boot
Meyer Sound

Welcome, Tim. Don't forget to go back and change your username to your real name, as required in these forums!

[Andrew Broughton]

Hi Scott, thanks for the info. Would you care to talk about what specifically L-Acoustics doesn't like about Dante?

From the sounds of, it, Dante does not do any of these things "out of the box", and they feel AVB/Milan is more idiot-proof...
Certainly Dante is somewhat plug-and-play, until things get complex and you want higher performance.
I'm starting to get it.

[David Sturzenbecher]

From the sounds of, it, Dante does not do any of these things "out of the box", and they feel AVB/Milan is more idiot-proof...
Certainly Dante is somewhat plug-and-play, until things get complex and you want higher performance.
I'm starting to get it.

Easy there partner.  Buy the right switches... cough... Yamaha... cough... like you have to with AVB. It will sure do a whole heck of a lot of that list “out of the box”.  Or use a ton of other switches with a little setup... the choice is yours.

[Mac Kerr]

Hi All,

These are great questions. I encourage you to make this post at the Milan Proboards forum hosted by Avnu. http://milanavcommunity.proboards.com
From there you can get responses directly from the engineers who have created the standard.

Tim Boot
Meyer Sound

Please go to your profile and change the "Name" field to your real first and last name as required by the posting rules displayed in the header at the top of the section, and in the Site Rules and Suggestions in the Forum Announcements section, and on the registration page when you registered.

Mac
admin

[John P. Farrell]

Hi All,

These are great questions. I encourage you to make this post at the Milan Proboards forum hosted by Avnu. http://milanavcommunity.proboards.com
From there you can get responses directly from the engineers who have created the standard.

Tim Boot
Meyer Sound

Let's continue the conversation here!  I'm not interested in joining that forum.  It does seem from some of the responses that the interest is more in idiot proofing with AVB than having and end user make a mistake in DANTE rather than an actual issue with the protocol. 

JF

[Kent Clasen]

What’s the deal with L’Acoustics, Meyer and Avid choosing AVB?
What was it that Dante couldn’t do that AVB can?

Sorry to derail your post, Andrew...but I am working on a sound system design that will be using Dante console and stage boxes. How do I interface Dante to the AVB speaker DSP? Seems I saw a Meyer Sound write up for a project not too long ago that did such. I know there are some boxes that do this [with lots of other formats included]. This is a pretty simple though, just need Dante [probably 8 streams -not multicast] to AVB DSP.

Anyone have an experience with this?

Thanks.

[ProSoundWeb Community]