Australian manufacturer Audinate developed its Dante plug-and-play solution for transporting digital multimedia in 2006, and it has already attracted a number of well-known manufacturers to become licensees, including the likes of Yamaha, Lake and Peavey. The latest to join this discerning, but growing, crowd is XTA with 8 and 16 channel network audio breakouts.
The NXBoB8 and NXBoB16 can be inserted anywhere in a Dante digital audio stream, converting the signal to analogue for carrying to analogue amplifiers and PA systems.
The units will also act as an amp manager for the MC2 Ti amplifier range, learning the network setup and then interrogating the amps to check that they are performing normally and report on the operational status.
Prototypes of the NXBoB8 and NXBoB16 have already been intensively road-tested by Britannia Row Productions, the company’s head of digital and RF, Kieran Walsh (photo left), putting them through their paces during the company’s perennially busy summer season.
“The Dante format is great because you can use standard computer network management techniques to make it work with everything else,” says Kieran. “It’s another step towards the holy grail of fully integrated networks, rather than separate wires to do things.”
The boxes were put through a tough workout, being used on the Oasis stadium tour dates and a number of festivals, working with a wide range of mixing consoles and PA systems.
“We found that using Dante sounded significantly better than other formats and definitely sounded better than long runs of analogue cable,” says Kieran.
“The system also had that ‘XTA sound’ on it, sounding very like the 4 Series crossovers, which people like.”
Datasheets are available here:
Low Res Version (900k)
High Res Version (5M)
The DC install versions of the breakout boxes are also soon to be availble, offering all three of the most popular network audio transports – Cobranet, Ethersound, and Dante.
Find out more by downloading the preliminary datasheet here:
Low Res Version (900k)
High Res Version (5M)
