THE NEXT GENERATION
The key to optimizing digital audio networks and making them the choice of engineers and other audio professionals in the future rests in designing this networking technology specifically for the unique challenges of audio.
In other words, the obstacles – jitter, wander, latency, and ease of setup and use – must be tackled on the most basic technology level. And when a technology is designed with these criteria in mind, it can result in a digital audio network that overcomes the limitations of analog while maintaining its simplicity.
Like all new technologies, audio networking still has challenges to overcome. Right now the reality is that every digital audio network is a compromise, and all network developers must live within the limits of basic physics.
Managing jitter, wander, and latency while providing systemic flexibility are inherently at odds with one another. Systemic flexibility can affect clocking scheme, node connection topology (serial versus parallel versus combined), timing (as many applications are in real time), and audio fidelity (sample rate conversion, bit depth, and sample rate).
Next generation digital audio networking systems promise to bring us closer to the ideal: the best of analog, digital, and networks. New technology designed specifically for streaming audio in real time is the bold next step for digital audio networks.
Built-for-audio protocols will replace the typical TCP/IP stack, New systems will work and feel like audio gear and require no computer or IT skills. Newer network technology built from the ground up specifically for streaming audio will make use of sophisticated algorithms to limit jitter, wander, and latency at the system level.
In fact, these next generation systems promise to meet the AES11 specifications for timing accuracy even when multiple devices are daisy chained in extended serial runs. At the same time, next generation digital audio networks will support a range of sample rates, without requiring sample rate converters.
They will offer flexibility in system topology architectures, allow longer cable runs, and have no signal flow directional constraints.
What else do we want? Fatter pipes with more channels, sophisticated redundancy schemes, flexible embedded control, plug-and-play use, ubiquitous inter-manufacturer adoption, low system cost, and a proven successful track record. In time all of this will come.
The next step, though, is to achieve clean audio transmission without any audio artifacts or signal degradation in large, flexible, easy-to-use networks.
Carl Bader is the president and CEO of Aviom. He has spent the last two decades of his career thinking about the challenges of digitizing an analog audio world.
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