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[Andrew Broughton]

Looks like there is an AVB VSC, but not sure of the price...

http://www.audioscience.com/internet/products/avb/hono_avb_vsc.htm

Apple was SUPPOSED to support it natively, but I guess there's been issues with every MacOS after El Capitan, i.e. 2012?



https://motu.com/avb/using-your-motu-avb-device-as-a-mac-audio-interface-over-avb-ethernet/

[Kent Clasen]

We're talking about some of the most expensive products in the business. The cost of a Dante License wouldn't even show up as a rounding error on their products.

What I'm getting at, is what is it about AVB TECHNICALLY which made them decide to use it over anything else?

I've not seen anything on the 'net about it except them touting how great it is, but not listing anything that couldn't be done just as easily with Dante.
A big downside seems to be Redundancy. I'm not sure if there's a way to have a Primary and Secondary cabling system with AVB.

Hi Andrew-

I use Dante so I inquired one of these mfgs. About the possibility of adding Dante compatibility in the future for a project I am working on for one of their DSP products. This was the response I received from a higher up support person:

We’ve put our eggs in the Milan AVB basket. I’ve seen some major clock and phase drift in Dante systems that starts to sound like wind.

He said it was confirmed with measurements.

[Andrew Broughton]

Thanks, Kent.

I've never heard of any of these Clocking issues he speaks of. Would love to see the measurements!

Also, surprising that Dante couldn't rectify this issue?

[drew gandy]

What I'm getting at, is what is it about AVB TECHNICALLY which made them decide to use it over anything else?

Layer 2 vs layer 3. 

What they've done with DANTE is extremely impressive but, when it comes to timing, it can't compare to AVB/TSN operating on layer 2 with it's deterministic capabilities. 

One thing that confuses the situation is that a lot of AVB information on the net right now is from several years ago and often refers to 100btx implementations.  The latest specs, including calling it TSN, is largely pushing into automotive and industrial control applications.  The latency and synchronization specs in the newer gigabit networking protocols are really tight.   

That said, using layer 3 means that DANTE can work in a lot of pre-existing infrastructure and with cheaper networking gear.  That and it's strong in terms of history, support and market penetration.  I'm curious what's going to happen in the next few years wrt to this. 

[Roland Clarke]

Motu and Presonus make the cheapest switches I know of.  The Netgear and Cisco and others require a licence to unlock the AVB features, which I feel is a shame.

[Helge A Bentsen]

In terms of clock drift/timing issues, I have a colleague who swears that his active linearray sounds better with analog input compared to AES input, supposedly because the AES inputs has sample rate converters so the timing is off between boxes.

I have no idea if this is possible, but he's very adamant about this being "A Big Issue".

[Taylor Hall]

If these clock issues are as bad as they're saying, why haven't more users or OEMs spoken up about them?

Googling around, the only issues related to clock drift/desync I was able to dig up were attributed 1) improperly setup networks, 2) improperly configured network equipment, 3) multiple devices set as master wordclock or 4) the master wordclock device itself being faulty.

I have personally never experienced the issues described above with our EAW rig which we have been using for well over 2 years now. It's entirely possible that the scale of our system has something to do with that (we only have around 20 devices at most), but the events we do has it operating for 20+ hours a day, which seems ample time for any gremlins to crop up.

[John P. Farrell]

Funny how the companies with the most proprietary infrastructure systems all want the open standard.

It does seem funny.  At least I'll get to buy and replace a bunch of stuff when Dante isn't compatible anymore 

I've never experienced any of the drift issues that have been mentioned, and run large Dante networks regularly. I also tour with a Dante based system.  Sure there are issues when people don't know how to set things up properly, but isn't that the case with any gear?  Perhaps Ive been lucky, and most of the people I know and work with have too. 

Having a new standard is going to be a step back for many people and honestly cause more issues than it fixes IMO. 

JF

[drew gandy]

It does seem funny.  At least I'll get to buy and replace a bunch of stuff when Dante isn't compatible anymore 

I've never experienced any of the drift issues that have been mentioned, and run large Dante networks regularly. I also tour with a Dante based system.  Sure there are issues when people don't know how to set things up properly, but isn't that the case with any gear?  Perhaps Ive been lucky, and most of the people I know and work with have too. 

Having a new standard is going to be a step back for many people and honestly cause more issues than it fixes IMO. 

JF

As far as I'm concerned, these are both "new standards". 

If you are using DANTE on a dedicated network with no other traffic then you are far less likely to encounter an issue.  One of the biggest concerns that is addressed with AVB/TSN is that it guarantees the timely delivery of the signal by giving it priority at a fairly low level in the networking protocol.  When functioning at Layer 3, it is far more difficult to guarantee the timing of the data.  Of course, it could be argued that if you are using a dedicated network you may as well operate at layer 2 but, the finer details of that are swamped by all sorts of other issues.   Suffice to say, engineering is usually about balancing priorities.  DANTE is great in a number of areas but has drawbacks in others.  I hope that both protocols will exist into the future.  Rather than looking at them as competing, we should probably see them as useful options to solve our 'problems'.  You can find info about AVB at the AVNU alliance as well as at some of the manufacturer's websites.  Biamp in particular seems to have a lot of info. 

   

[Ivan Beaver]

I remember when the audio industry was talking about going digital, it went something like this:

"Currently the analog world has all kinds of differences, dBu, dBV, 600 ohm, balanced, unbalanced etc.  But don't worry, when we go digital, everything will be the same and everything will work with everything else, you just plug it in and go".

YEAH RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is FAR worse than it was-as far as components and compatibility.

[ProSoundWeb Community]