When One Audio Network Just Isn’t Enough…
DirectOut’s latest expansion to the PRODIGY and MAVEN lines comprises ten dual-network interfaces that offer every pairing of Dante, Ravenna/AES67, MILAN AVB and Soundgrid networked-audio formats.
These additions enable a single network-slot stagebox PRODIGY.MC or a MAVEN.A PA Drive Rack processor to connect to two separate networks. The resulting Stage and Distribution networks are, without compromise to audio quality or routing transparency, independently configurable for sample rate and sync reference. A happy consequence of this separation is higher levels of resilience and security against inadvertent network disturbances or unwanted events, especially in the show-critical Distribution network.
Similarly, a FoH PRODIGY.MP can now service connections to both the Stage network and the Distribution network via one of its two network slots; the other, equipped with a dual MADI interface, is then free to connect to a recording system, broadcast truck or local performance processing. Courtesy of the HD-SRCs that are standard on the dual-network interfaces, each of these four connected systems may operate at, or switch between, different sample-rates with independent master clocks.
Alternatively, with HD-SRCs disabled, the host PRODIGY or MAVEN.A becomes the ideal Master Clock for all connected networks or systems.
The dual-network range includes versions equipped with two of the same network interface cards. These interfaces deliver, for example, 128-channel connections to one or two Dante networks, or 64-stream capacity for Ravenna/AES67 and MILAN AVB networks, in both cases with network redundancy via the two Ethernet ports assigned to each networked-audio card.
System designers, already regular specifiers of PRODIGY and MAVEN, can deploy the dual-networking capability to reduce hardware requirements, simplify multi-network integration or provide de-packetised “firewalls” between internal networks and external connections such as long-distance tielines.
