RHC BLOG

Networked Audio Products in 2021 We’ve been counting licensees and products since 2013 and, after a huge amount of work, we are proud to release the latest list of all networked audio products. This report will be in two parts; today we release the headline totals, in a few weeks we will have even more comprehensive detail on protocols, compatibility and rate of adoption. The Big Total 3306 networked products currently shipping from 420 manufacturers There are a total of 3,306 networked products currently shipping from 420 manufacturers; and that number is going up all the time. That’s nearly two new products every day inRead More →

We’ve been counting licensees and products since 2013, after a huge amount of work, we are proud to release have the most comprehensive list of networked audio products ever created. Bye bye Cobranet! For 2020 we’ve made an important decision: we have stopped counting Cobranet products. Whilst there are Cobranet projects still around and a small number of manufacturers selling some equipment, it is impossible to get any reliable data on available products. Furthermore, Cobranet is not a consideration at all in any forward looking statement about the the audio industry. Goodbye and thank you Cobranet, you were a trailblazer. The big total 2619 networkedRead More →

With InfoComm 2018 over we’ve a major update on our networked audio products research. We’ve been counting licensees and products since 2013, but sometimes it’s difficult to keep up. For this year we felt that our previous data was out of date so we started from scratch. After a huge amount of work, we now have the most comprehensive list of networked audio products ever created. There are a total of 2163 networked products currently shipping from 256 manufacturers, although that number is continuously changing. It was at InfoComm2018 that we passed the 2000 barrier.   We continued to count AVB separately because it hasRead More →

The Italian connection Why does Italy dominate audio networking? Dante and RAVENNA are both acronyms and names. The first was an Italian poet and the second was the Italian city where he died. I haven’t asked why the name Milan was chosen nor have I worked out what the acronym is. Multimedia Intelligent Local Area Network, Media Integration links And Networking? Avnu help us out here! The Avnu team filled a room at the 2018 InfoComm show to explain their new initiative. I have commented on digital audio networking for several years and have issued statistics on the adoption of each of the major protocols.Read More →

A new chip technology could usher in major change for the audio industry, says Roland Hemming. For as long as anyone can remember loudspeakers haven’t changed. They have been packaged into many shapes and sizes, coupled together and had endless degrees of engineering refinement. Despite some use of titanium and plastics, the loudspeaker is still essentially a piece of paper that flaps. Ongoing effort goes into improving audio systems, making audio quality as good as possible. Yet when it gets to the last link in the chain we still rely on a moving coil of copper wire slung around a magnet. The high quality signalRead More →

The End of Conference Audio – AirPods for AV CUE: Dreamy music… I remember back in late 2016 when a small package arrived, it was a pair of Apple AirPods. These were the latest headphones, designed to compensate for the lack of audio jack on the new iPhone 7. All my friends laughed at me for buying such an expensive gimmick. But they turned out to be the future and had the same impact on corporate AV as the iPhone had on Nokia and Ericsson. Just two small pods in a tiny charging case. Headphones with built in beamforming microphones and a nifty means ofRead More →

It’s that time again for our survey of Audio Networking products. Announced yesterday at InfoComm Las Vegas 2016 are the results, based on what we believe is every current networked audio product. We have had even more support this time from protocol alliances who have had the opportunity to input and amend the data. You can find the products using our app too, and by using the in-app purchase you can download the entire dataset into a spreadsheet. So, here are the results for June 2016, how many manufacturers have licensed each protocol:       Remember, being a licensee does not mean a manufacturerRead More →

Following on from our earlier success in passing audio streams between devices on the network we felt that tripping over headphone leads or just looking at meters on screen was a little limiting. The next step therefore was to send some audio to a pair of Genelec 4420A loudspeakers. You may have seen a case study in the press and on the RAVENNA website about some special Genelec loudspeakers that were used in a restaurant project in Finland (https://www.ravenna-network.com/using-ravenna/case-studies/nallikari-restaurant). Hooking the loudspeakers up to the network and firing up the Genelec software we then set the loudspeakers to listen to a stream from one ofRead More →

Last time we connected RAVENNA Virtual Sound Card to theMerging Horusand monitored the output out of the Horus headphone output. Once the Horus was receiving audio we accessed its set up webpage. We connected another audio input into the AES connection on the Horus and created that as a standard RAVENNA stereo stream output. We then routed the audio stream out and back into the PC with the RAVENNA virtual sound card. So we had two devices with two different streams. The basics of this is that with RAVENNA, you set up an audio stream on the source device of however many channels you wantRead More →

We’ve turned our count of networked audio products into a biannual event with results in time for ISE and InfoComm.We’ve counted what we think is every networked audio on the market. What’s more this time we had some help. Behind the scenes representatives from each of the protocol alliances have had access to input and check the data. You can find products here using our app and by using an in-app purchase you can download the entire dataset into a spreadsheet. So here are the scores for January 2016: First, lets look at how many manufacturers have licensed each protocol. Note that just because someoneRead More →

After rushing into our plug fest and then with Christmas getting in the way, our plug fest has been a little delayed. On our voyage into AES67 we decided to start with RAVENNA as it’s the only fully fledged protocol that is AES67 compatible out of the box. We got hold of a Lawo Crystal and a Merging HAPI and Pyramix. Merging to Merging worked fine but we struggled to put them together with the Crystal. We crashed the network. We didn’t pay sufficient attention to our switch set up. In the world of audio networking switch set up is really important. Getting the switchRead More →

We’ve heard so much in the industry press about AES67. It seems to be the next big thing. There is even a trade association dedicated to it – the Media Networking Alliance. RAVENNA already offers AES67 compliance and Audinate has released AES67 firmware to manufacturers leaving it up to them whether to implement the capability into their products. Recently at the AES show in New York there was a world-premiere, demonstrating AES67 interoperability among devices from different manufacturers, including RAVENNA and Dante equipment. (However, this was a manufacturer only affair.) What we want to know is what is AES67 like in the real world? HowRead More →

We had some fun at ISE 2015 but for a serious reason. Automixing has been around for a while and most speech is mixed that way. For music it is a different story. Some people say that music can never be mixed by a machine. However we know that a number of manufacturers are working on this technology. The problem is that they are all focussing on the considerable engineering challenges and not on the economic and social consequences of introducing such a product. We live in a world where computers drive trains and land planes, robots perform surgery, automatic translation is getting better andRead More →

Last year we counted what we thought was every networked audio on the market. We knew some people would find this information useful but we were overwhelmed by the response. This year we repeated the count and buoyed by the interest we spent a lot more time on it. Frankly last year’s count wasn’t good enough and we found many many more products across all protocols and categories… So here are the scores for 2014: There are a total of 796 networked products, though that figure is changing all the time. Many product have the option to support more than one protocol. 377 products supportRead More →

   No one can predict the future but we’ve often helped things on their way. Thousands of people plug microphones in on stage every day. Watch our 2015 concept video to see our what we think the future might hold.Members of our team invented the first networked loudspeaker, the first networked intercom and were there at the very early stages of audio show control. Thousands of people plug microphones in on stage every day. Its probably the most common task in our industry. We need to think about how such common tasks will change in the future. When you break down what is goingRead More →

Take a look at the different industry outcomes… IT Industry Audio Industry IT Industry I bought a new printer yesterday, I eagerly brought it back and wanted to see how well it would work with the rest of my equipment. I plugged it in and connected it to my network. My Mac instantly recognised the new device and asked if I wanted to set it up so it would work with my system. I didn’t need to set an IP address and indeed it would have worked just as well had I connected using USB or Wi-Fi. The process would have been the same. MyRead More →

Which products are available using what audio network? We’ve been trying to do a reality check on what networked audio devices there are on the market. Previously we have looked at the number of licencees of each protocol. This time we decided to research every audio product that has a ‘standard’ audio network connection. The purpose of this was to see what choices we have when we want to buy networked audio equipment. There appear to be 428 networked audio products currently available on the market that use one of the ‘industry standard’ protocols. 230 products support CobraNet 162 products support Dante 51 products supportRead More →

We were doing some training on audio networks with a client a few days ago and the subject of security and encryption came up. I was reminded of something I wrote in 2005, which starts on the subject of security but becomes a much wider discussion. I have decided to let it loose again as the points made then are just as relevant today. I’ve changed a couple of things for comedy value or just to make it understandable to a 2013 audience, but its almost exactly as written eight years ago… Hail the Uzbek Ambassador The Judge entered the courtroom, ready to give hisRead More →

The following is a work of fiction. I repeat, a work of fiction: AVB is coming soon I swear The year was 2008. I was at an event focused on professional audio, sitting in on a roundtable discussion with several folks from key companies in the industry. One gentleman was from The AVnu Alliance. The Lake Processor had launched the previous year, famously without any support for AVB. A lot of folks were up in arms about this — including several at this table. The guy from the AVnu Alliance assured everyone: AVB would be coming soon. And it was going to be wonderful. TheRead More →

I have just written an article for Lighting and Sound International, setting out why I think AVB may not work out in the pro-audio industry. I have made it clear that I might be wrong and would be happy to be stand corrected. The point is to have an open debate which Lee Minich responds to in subsequent pages. One person within the AVnu alliance said that my view goes against the perspective of 50 companies. Having spoken to Lee and read his response, I agree with many of the points he makes, but they don’t address most of the problems I raised. Open standardsRead More →