At this year’s Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt, SALZBRENNER media presents its brand-new NIO xcel series of Dante based audio interfaces.
With their sturdy housing and professional connectors, these interfaces are perfect for any live scenario. The four models in this series are flexible and robust solutions for decentralized distribution of the required inputs and outputs exactly where they are needed.
While users in professional sound reinforcement, installation and studio settings rely increasingly on a network infrastructure, most existing solutions are both expensive and rather time-consuming to configure. SALZBRENNER counters this with a “plug & play” solution called NIO xcel (NIO = Networked Input/Output), a series of compact devices based on the Dante protocol for an inexpensive and reliable “Audio-over-IP” network.
With the NIO xcel series, SALZBRENNER media expands its product portfolio with four devices for both mobile and installed pro audio applications on stage. Two of the new devices (NIO xcel 1101 and 1102) provide inputs and outputs in the AES 3 format, another (NIO xcel 1201) offers 8 microphone inputs with 4 splits, phantom power and 4 line outputs, and the fourth (NIO xcel 1202) is equipped with 8 line inputs and 4 line outputs.
With these interfaces, pro audio users have all the relevant applications covered: feeding digital power amplifiers, inserting side-rack effects processors, providing microphone and line inputs for musicians and artists, and line outputs for monitoring purposes, and feeding analog power amps, press distribution systems, etc. The big advantage of these devices is that they can be positioned close to the sources and destinations and do away with need for separate DI boxes.
To ensure reliability and signal quality in rough and tumble environments, these format converters are fitted with professional connectors throughout. Dante and power supply redundancy are a given, and the interfaces can be stacked almost anywhere or mounted into 19-inch racks. Using conventional Cat 5 or Cat 6 Ethernet cables, they connect to an IP-based Dante audio network (100Mbps, 1Gbps, 10Gbps) that covers the entire stage, production studio, venue or installation.
While the underlying concept corresponds with that of proprietary network solutions from other manufacturers, thanks to adopting the Dante protocol this series is significantly more cost-effective, flexible, scalable, user friendly and future proof. Each device has its own web server for speedy configuration of many parameters and has 4-band EQs on all input and output channels and a freely configurable 16×16 mixer.
All NIO xcel interfaces that handle digital signals are equipped with sample rate converters that will accommodate all sample rates from 44.1 to 192kHz on every input. NIO xcel 1201’s microphone preamps provide 4-way splits, each with individual level adjustment, and a dynamic range of more than 152dB.
Other NIO xcel highlights include frame-accurate synchronization across several switches, negligible deterministic latency of the overall network, the flexible and scalable network topology with massive I/O counts, simple installation and intuitive operation, AVB support (TSN) and AES67 compatibility.
The new series will be on display at the SALZBRENNER media booth (E21/Hall 4.1) from 5th to 8th of April, 2016, where visitors of the Prolight+Sound exhibition will be able to get to know them hands-on.