There are many different Audio Over IP (AoIP) protocols and unlike the familiar wired Ethernet standard we use to network our computers together, AoIP connections can be confusingly different and mutually incompatible. In this article we look at two important AoIP alternatives and examine how they differ.
When sending multichannel audio into or out of a computer, either to external hardware or to other computers, the convenience of a network is hard to beat. Old fashioned point-to-point connections like analogue looms, ADAT and MADI are reliable but lack the flexibility and convenience of a network. Being able to route anything to anywhere using a single cable by clicking in software rather than contorting yourself to locate and change cable connections, or commit to the considerable work involved in an analogue patchbay, is very appealing. And being able to split and combine signals freely in a software environment is very liberating. But it has to be said that old-school cables are easy to understand. Networks can be intangible and difficult to get started with. But with just a little knowledge of networks and AoIP complex or frequently changing audio routing in the studio can be much easier.
But which of the available solutions for routing audio over a network should you choose? They appear similar but they are not, and they are incompatible with each other, which can be confusing. If an audio connection uses the same physical connector and cables it’s understandable if a user assumes they are the same. A hazard which newcomers to audio production have to navigate is the fact that audio cables with the same connector can carry incompatible signals, a fact I learned at a young age by plugging a keyboard into the phono input of a hi-fi amplifier (don’t do this..!). AoIP systems can also differ a great deal, but luckily the worst that can happen when incompatible AoIP systems meet is silence.
The cables and connectors are just the physical equipment used to create the network connections. Unlike a conventional point-to-point audio cable which connects a single source to a single destination, a network distributes information from any point to any other points on the network and because of this there are other tasks involved in AoIP beyond sending an audio signal down a cable. Device discovery, traffic management and addressing schemes to make sure data gets to its required location all have to be completed effectively.
Most people are familiar with the RJ45 connector-based Ethernet wired network. It’s been the standard way computers have communicated across networks for years. It is possible to use a network to route audio but it’s not designed, or really very suitable, for real time audio. The latency it introduces is too long and too unpredictable for real time studio applications. Dante and RAVENNA are products which use clever methods to address these issues successfully and can be deployed on any typical gigabit Ethernet network. AVB on the other hand fixes the issues for audio use which are part of Ethernet itself, but has some specific requirements of the network infrastructure which other solutions don’t necessitate.
Something which confuses many people is to what extent the different network audio protocols which exist are different from a regular wired network. It’s possible that a network port on the back of a digital mixer might use a format like AES50, which is designed to make a point-to-point connection from a mixing console to a remote device like a stage box, whereas another digital mixer might feature Dante connections. It’s even possible to use Ethernet cables to carry analogue audio. The only thing these different connections have in common is that they all use the same cables. Confusing? Potentially. And to really get to grips with the differences it’s necessary to get a basic understanding of networking fundamentals and particularly something called the OSI 7 layer model. However it isn’t necessary to go that far to know enough to understand the important differences between the two AoIP formats we’re looking at in this article – Dante and AVB. And of course to use them.
There are protocols you’ll find principally in live sound, for example AES 50 as mentioned above, some are popular in particular branches of audio production, for example Livewire is principally used in radio broadcast. Other protocols are specific to particular hardware manufacturers such as Waves Audio’s SoundGrid. But in this article we’re concentrating on AVB and Dante because they are both very common in music studios and both do the same thing, but do it in slightly different ways.
Both have advantages and disadvantages: As it works with any standard Gigabit Ethernet Switch Dante is compatible with virtually all network infrastructure and there is a large ecosystem of Dante compatible products from many manufacturers. However it lacks the guaranteed performance of AVB. AVB on the other hand needs to work with AVB compatible switches and is better suited to use with Macs than PCs. Here’s what you need to know.
Technology and Compatibility
AVB: AVB stands for Audio Video Bridging. It is an open standard in the same way as Ethernet itself is open. It is non-proprietary. It’s specifically designed for high-quality, low-latency transport of both audio and video with a guaranteed latency of 2 milliseconds. Dante has been very successful over the last decade or so, but AVB is very common, whether people realise it or not, because AVB has been integrated directly into macOS since version 10.10, allowing Macs to connect over AVB. This is possible without extra software but is made very much easier by OMNIBUS 3, which makes what used to require some specific know-how trivially simple.
Dante: Dante has been around since 2006. Developed by Australian company Audinate, Dante is a proprietary protocol that supports audio and has additional video capabilities under its Dante AV line. Dante has been extremely successful, particularly in live sound and commercial audio. A lot of the reason for this is that it is perceived as simple and for relatively small scale use such as that found in typical music studios it is straightforward. Dante-equipped hardware features Audinate hardware adapters which standardise the network, giving excellent compatibility. Its compatibility with standard Ethernet Switches (something AVB doesn’t have) makes it compatible with existing network infrastructures, though if used alongside regular network traffic it competes with that traffic for bandwidth, something AVB does not suffer from as it reserves bandwidth for AV use. It is common for dedicated, audio-only Dante networks to be set up to minimise the chances of this. This flexibility has helped Dante become popular across mixed-use AV environments like universities and commercial premises as well as being easy to install in hardware products like mixers and interfaces, leading to a very varied choice of Dante products, though these may come at a higher price point than non-proprietary AVB peripherals.
Latency and Delivery Consistency
AVB: The most significant operational difference between AVB and Dante is a result of AVB existing at a lower level of the layers of technology which make up an Ethernet network. AVB can reserve bandwidth on the network and use it exclusively. Dante has to transport its audio data along with all the other data on a network and while it can use a system called Quality of Service (QoS) to prioritise the data, Dante’s delivery of its data is always ‘as fast as possible’ but is affected by overall network traffic. AVB can reserve the route from source to destination and because of this guarantee the time delivery will take. This is why AVB is often described as ‘deterministic’ – a system’s ability to guarantee audio delivery within a predictable timeframe, critical for work involving live audio sources. Reserved bandwidth allows it to guarantee low-latency delivery across a network, minimising timing variations, known as jitter, and ensuring consistency for both audio and video streams. This makes AVB a strong choice for real-time applications where timing precision is crucial, such as live sound and broadcast environments.
Dante: As referred to earlier, Dante’s ‘best-effort’ model uses a feature of networking called Quality of Service (QoS). This prioritises time-critical data such as audio and video data but doesn’t provide the same timing guarantees as AVB. In busy networks, Dante’s delivery can be affected by other high-priority data. Although under ideal conditions Dante’s latency can be as low as 1ms, which typically meets production needs. AVB’s reserved bandwidth provides more consistency in timing-sensitive situations. How much difference this makes does depend on the application. On a large institutional network with lots of competing traffic AVB’s performance advantages are very valuable but on a home network the situation is different and Dante does work extremely well in these more controlled environments.
Infrastructure Requirements
AVB: AVB has some disadvantages which users have to be aware of. The most significant is probably that it requires AVB-compliant switches, which are typically more expensive. Even if you only have a small setup, unless you’re only connecting two devices together you’ll need a switch so it’s important to know this fact about AVB before you buy a switch.
AVB compatibility is built into many enterprise grade switches from companies like Cisco but inexpensive consumer-oriented switches usually don’t support AVB. If you have a modern Mac you might not have a network port but adding a Thunderbolt 2 Ethernet adapter with a Thunderbolt 3/4 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter offers a way around this, even if it is a little inelegant. The same restriction applies to Dante as neither of these technologies support WiFi. For that you’ll need NDI, which is also supported in OMNIBUS 3.
There are some small switches produced specifically for use with AVB interfaces from companies like MOTU and PreSonus which are big enough to accommodate typical project studio users’ needs but be aware that the switches in an existing install are likely not to be AVB compliant.
Dante: Dante works with standard Ethernet switches, which allows greater flexibility and scalability, especially in networks shared with other types of data, though note the comments above about the possibility of non-audio network traffic adversely affecting Dante performance. This is really useful for institutional use where Dante, and the closely related RedNet variant from Focusrite have been widely adopted. Dante is an AoIP solution which is designed to work with networks as they currently are. AVB requires hardware to be installed which accommodates a nd computers need Dante Virtual Soundcard, or Dante Via to be on a Dante network whereas AVB is built in to macOS. By contrast Dante is equally convenient for both Mac and PC users.
Using AVB and Dante with or Without Audio Hardware
You might be familiar with Dante or AVB compatible hardware. For example I have a Focusrite Red4Pre which features 32 channels of Dante I/O. I also have an Avid Carbon which connects to the host computer via AVB. These two examples illustrate a key difference between Dante and AVB clearly. Pro Tools Carbon is a DSP-accelerated system and—like Pro Tools HDX—allows near zero latency operation with deterministic performance. AVB is an appropriate connection for Carbon because it also is deterministic and offers guaranteed latency performance. The Focusrite Red4Pre offers similar levels of IO and audio quality but the system uses the native processing of the host computer’s CPU and has the option of using Dante. This system is also capable of low latency performance but the specific latency performance of both the interface and the Dante connection is not guaranteed.
However the Dante interface in the Focusrite Red4 Pre, like all Dante hardware, is guaranteed to be compatible with any other piece of Dante equipment. The same is not true of AVB. AVB is a set of standards but cross compatibility between AVB equipment is not guaranteed. For example you can connect a Carbon to a Carbon Pre, a compatible peripheral from Avid, but compatibility with an AVB peripheral from, for example, MOTU, PreSonus or RME is not guaranteed.
It is possibly this more simple compatibility between Dante products and the less easy to understand situation with AVB which deters some people from AVB. The Avnu Alliance [https://avnu.org/] seeks to clarify the situation on compatibility between products and brands and is a helpful resource if you want to investigate further.
But for a studio user much of the usefulness of AoIP comes from routing audio directly from computer to computer. This is somewhere where, if you’re a Mac user, AVB has some advantages. You can use Dante Virtual Soundcard software to connect a Mac to a Dante network. A typical use for Dante Virtual Soundcard would be with a Dante equipped mixing console to capture and replay audio for live recording and virtual soundchecks. It’s inexpensive, though not free, but be aware that it is not intended for use in a software-only Dante system created by connecting multiple counters together using Dante Virtual Soundcard. A Dante system needs a master clock and without any hardware to provide that master clock such a system would be vulnerable to glitches. A complementary product, Dante Via can be used in this ‘no hardware’ application, but that is a rather different product.
AVB offers straightforward software-only configuration on macOS, making it an accessible choice for users aiming to set up simple Mac-based AV networks without additional hardware. No additional software is required, making it ideal for passing multichannel audio between Macs over a local area network. This is made much more flexible, convenient and powerful using OMNIBUS 3 which can use AVB sources and destinations in exactly the same way as any other hardware, IO or virtual busses.
AVB is overlooked by many Mac users who don’t realise they already have access to such a powerful feature, ready to go in their Macs. To make it accessible and useful you just need some software like OMNIBUS 3 to put it under your fingertips. For wired connections it’s all you need. If you need wireless connections check out NDI, also incorporated into OMNIBUS 3, but that’s probably another article.
| Aspect | Dante | AVB |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol Type | Proprietary, developed by Audinate. | Open standard (IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging). |
| Compatibility | Compatible with standard Gigabit Ethernet switches. | Requires AVB-compliant Ethernet switches, often more expensive. |
| Ease of Use | Simple setup with Dante Virtual Soundcard/Dante Via software (PC and Mac). | Built in to macOS (from version 10.10); no extra software needed but enhanced by OMNIBUS 3. |
| Latency | As low as 1ms under ideal conditions but affected by network traffic (non-deterministic). | Guaranteed low latency (2ms) with deterministic delivery by reserving network bandwidth. |
| Network Integration | Uses Quality of Service (QoS) to prioritize data but shares bandwidth with other traffic. | Reserves bandwidth and creates exclusive routes for audio/video traffic. |
| Hardware Ecosystem | Large ecosystem of products from many manufacturers; high compatibility between devices. | Smaller ecosystem; cross-brand compatibility is not always guaranteed. |
| Infrastructure Cost | Works with existing Ethernet switches and infrastructure; no additional cost for switches. | Requires AVB-specific switches and/or Lightning ports for Macs, increasing cost of setup. |
| Cross-Platform Support | Equally functional on Mac and PC. | More suited for Macs due to native integration; PC support is less straightforward. |
| Software-Only Operation | Requires Dante Virtual Soundcard or Dante Via; needs a master clock for stability – non-hardware clocking not recommended | Fully functional between Macs without additional software, enhanced by OMNIBUS 3. |
| Bandwidth Management | Competes with other network traffic; risks delays in busy networks. | Reserves bandwidth for consistent, uninterrupted performance. |
| Integration in macOS | Requires third-party software (e.g., Dante Virtual Soundcard). | Native support built into macOS. |
| Video Support | Supports video through the Dante AV protocol. | Designed for both audio and video transport. |
| Key Advantage | Works with standard Ethernet hardware and offers wide compatibility. | Deterministic performance with guaranteed latency for timing-critical applications. |
