What are you particularly interested in?

Many planners and installers exclude Dante®technology right from the start when it comes to expanding older PA systems. Either because they find Dante® technology to be a pure IT solution or because they do not know that digital and analogue can also work together. Michael Krebbing from MONACOR's Technical Project Management says that it does not only works, it is also easy to use. Therefore, we want to show you an example of how to combine the strengths of Dante® with analogue PA technology.
What are you particularly interested in?
Many companies have a permanently installed PA solution in their own company building. This building then accommodates departments such as administration, production and warehouse. In most cases, the existing solution consists of 100 V speakers and a zone mixing amplifier. Now, the company wants to accommodate production and warehouse in separate buildings. Nevertheless, production and warehouse still need a PA solution. Background music and voice announcements are to be transmitted from the main building to the adjoining buildings.
The question: how do we implement a PA solution for several buildings most efficiently?
How you can benefit from the strength of both technologies:
So use Dante® to deliver audio signals over a greater distance into multiple buildings and 100 V technology for distribution at the place of application.
This could look something like this:
The signal pathway in our example:
The assignment in the Dante® network, i.e. who is transmitting to whom, is called routing. You usually perform this routing once using Dante Controller. This software from Audinate provides clearly arranged key management functions for Dante® networks. As a Dante® user you can download Dante Controller here free of charge.
The assignment in the Dante® network, i.e. who is transmitting to whom, is called routing. You usually perform this routing once using Dante Controller. This software from Audinate provides clearly arranged key management functions for Dante® networks. As a Dante® user you can download Dante Controller here free of charge.
User-friendly Dante® networks:
For your orientation in the network: please note that our Dante® network does not start at the sound source and end at the speaker. For this scenario, we use 100 V components. Our Dante® network only includes the path between the Dante® transmitter (in the main building) and Dante® receivers (in production and warehouse).
The screenshot shows the example with main building, production and warehouse. Dante® equipment is immediately visible by default when connected to the right network IP circuit.
For our example, the respective transmitters and receivers have been given names of the corresponding buildings. The Dante® transmitters are shown vertically. The Dante® receivers are shown horizontally. The transmitters are all located in the main building (out 1 and out 2), the receivers are both in production (out 2 to 01/02) and the storage building (out 1 to in 1/in 2). If a connection is set incorrectly, Dante® Controller indicates where the error is.
Once you have set up a Dante® network, it will work permanently.
1. Use Multicast Flow for larger Dante® networks
For the Dante® network, the default setting is Unicast Flow. This means that Dante® only sends the audio signal to devices which have requested it. This works well if you have as many output channels as target devices. Dante® devices only have a certain number of channels available for transmission, depending on the Dante® processor installed. The number of channels determines how many devices can be addressed in unicast mode. With multicast flow, Dante® sends the audio signal into the network and each Dante®-enabled device in the network can use the signal for itself without limiting the number of receivers. It is the same principle as with water pipes. The water goes to all of the outputs but only flows if the tap is turned on. For each multicast channel transmitted, a permanent bandwidth of approx. 2 to 3 Mbps is available.
Unicast is for very small networks: two channels in, two channels out. Larger networks are more efficient with multicast.
2. Network components for a more stable Dante® network
More stability in a Dante® network can be achieved with managed switches. Enable IGMP Snooping (Internet Group Management Protocol) to create a multicast group. Thus, you are able to send traffic only to users who need it. This allows data packets to be sent directly between source and destination without additional traffic affecting the network. Many unmanaged switches may overload if traffic is high. This may result in interrupted music or failure of the merchandise management system.
3. Settings that make a Dante® network more stable: latency and sampling rate
If you use Dante® components only for background music or voice transmission, you can increase the latency for your Dante® network to 5 milliseconds. This ensures a higher stability under heavy use. To further reduce the bandwidth in the network, you can reduce the sampling rate. The loss of sound quality is very limited.
Attention: the sampling rate must be the same for both transmitter and receiver.
4. General rule for Dante® IP addresses: the first 2 blocks should be the same
The 4 numeric blocks of an IP address are called IP circles. In the Dante® range, the first 2 IP address circles of the respective devices should be the same. The 4th numerical block of the IP address, however, must be different. In most cases, we recommend that the IP addresses be automatically assigned by DHCP. You can assign a manual IP address for each device. This is, however, not required most of the times.
4. General rule for Dante® IP addresses: the first 2 blocks should be the same
The 4 numeric blocks of an IP address are called IP circles. In the Dante® range, the first 2 IP address circles of the respective devices should be the same. The 4th numerical block of the IP address, however, must be different. In most cases, we recommend that the IP addresses be automatically assigned by DHCP. You can assign a manual IP address for each device. This is, however, not required most of the times.
Conclusion: Dante® solutions only require basic IT know-how and hugely increase the range of options for installers.
Dante® is a technology which installers should be engaged with. Due to the virtual setup of a Dante® PA system, you cannot damage the hardware. In the worst case, a wrong click can result in an error message. After a short training period, Dante Controller is easy to use and opens up a whole new world of possibilities. We hope that installers are not discouraged by a few IT terms. Dante® cannot replace 100 V technology, but it can often be a useful addition.
source image header: © MONACOR INTERNATIONAL