Five Minutes at NSCA Expo with... Jimmy Kawalek Peak Audio/CobraNet Interviewed by Keith Clark Editorial Director ProSoundWeb

Q: How many CobraNet licensees are now officially on board?

Jimmy: A year ago to the day, we had 14; as of today, we have 31 licensees.

Q: And we're talking some of the major players in the industry, correct?

Jimmy Kawalek

Jimmy: That's right - for example, Harman is dedicated to the product, and we're seeing all of their applicable brands, including BSS, Crown, dbx, all coming onboard with CobraNet products currently in development. Mackie is ready to go - there will be EAW and Mackie products for the contractor on the market rapidly. Yamaha has introduced two products to accompany their M-Lan product. So yes, we're seeing tremendous worldwide momentum. Companies from Hong Kong, Japan and mainland China have come on board or have significant interest, and at this show alone, I've been approached by companies from Taiwan and Korea.

Q: Why the worldwide interest?

Jimmy: I think the industry has been desperate for a standard that they can all say "yes" to…

Q: And why are they signing on with CobraNet?

Jimmy: Number one, it's a proven technology. It's real, it's existing and working very well in the field for over five years. Peak Audio also now has the backing of Cirrus Logic, which puts it at another level due to Cirrus' great reputation in silicon manufacturing. This has helped kick up the momentum significantly.

I also think - believe it or not -that September 11 has had positive impact on our progress. A lot of companies said, "what's the next technology we need to look at -not just a new range of products -but what is going to be the new generation?"

At that point, a lot of them stepped back from just doing another "me too" or flavor of something already existing and decided to push to the next level. And they came on board with us.

Q: Is Peak still refining CobraNet?

Jimmy: Absolutely. We came out with the CM-1 module, which is a reference design, if you will. It allows manufacturers to embed CobraNet technology a lot faster.

There are constant improvements. As Ethernet improves, so does CobraNet. We're based on the Ethernet platform, and you use off-the-shelf Ethernet switches, CAT-5 cabling, and etc. So as the computer industry and Ethernet evolve, so do we. In fact, we now have installations that use Gigabit backbones, and then the 100 Megabit "legs" come off of that.

Q: When do you see CobraNet at the "more typical" project level as opposed to the larger-scale ones?

Jimmy: I think it already is. The equation is that we're seeing so many CobraNet compatible products introduced at this show alone, which is facilitating a fast move forward into more proliferation.

Before, it was a product here and there, but now with all of these new introductions, you can come out of a digital console, AES/EBU, into a CobraNet-equipped digital signal processor to do all of your system processing and configuration, and stay in CobraNet all the way to the amplifier or even the powered loudspeaker.

So now that the contractor and consultant have the ability to stay in CobraNet through the entire chain, and with ever-increasing options of CobraNet-equipped devices, more can be done than ever before. This translates to the smaller, more day-to-day system projects.

We're going to have more licensees, which we're thrilled about, but the most significant thing is that we're now seeing current licensees releasing a wide range of products that the market can take advantage of.

For contractors doing house of worship, when they can put in the infrastructure once and have it be expandable at any time because it's just an Ethernet backbone, then you're talking about something that makes a lot of sense. Say the church only has a budget to do "X" and they really want "Y" and "Z". The contractor can say "fine, OK, when you're ready, the infrastructure will already be in place, and we can simply tap into it to add anything you might want."

By doing this central backbone of Ethernet as opposed to copper and conduit and other cabling, there's a lot of savings now and in the future. That digital console, or wireless microphones, or whatever, that the church wants is now affordable because of significant reduction in infrastructure costs. It makes for an exciting and fairly immediate future for our market.