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[thorsten]

Hi there,

I'd like to introduce you to an additional way to get multichannel signals out of a PC for surround sound.

DANTE -what is this?
Wikipedia says: "Dante is a combination of software, hardware, and network protocols that delivers uncompressed, multi-channel, low-latency digital audio over a standard Ethernet network using Layer 3 IP packets"
See more on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_(networking)
It is similar to AES67 (and also compatible), another network protocol.

DANTE is nowadays often use at public concerts, because you don't need hundreds of XLR-cables running from the stage to the mixer: these signals are all digitized on stage and sent via a single ethernet cable to the mixing console!

It is more a pro-tool, but there are ways to use it in "our" consumer world. One of the ways I want you to show.

DANTE in home application

Here in germany, there is a small but active community, using DANTE as a highend alternative to USB.
(For those who are interested, here's the german forum and the dedicated thread: https://www.aktives-hoeren.de/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7306. But be aware: the forum is focussed on highest music listening quality, including cable tests et. al  )

Anyway: because of this thread, I switched from my dual rme Fireface UC-USB setup to in total 14 ch out with DANTE. And I don't regret it.

What is needed - Hardware
As this is a network based system, you need network equipment.
- dedicated network card in your pc. Best practise is a Intel i210 chipset based card
- managed switch, as the bus isn't a daisy chain system. I use a Cisco SG-300-10. Why? Because there is a very comprehensive guide for correct setup, available from Yamaha: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/proaudio/docs/dante_network_design_guide/index.html
- clients: this is the biggest field to chose from. A well known lineup is the Focusrite RedNEt series https://pro.focusrite.com/category/audiooverip. They were one of the first who supported DANTE.
Oh, and JBL just showed up with the SDP-55 Preamp, also with DANTE! Might not be a bargain...https://www.jblsynthesis.com/products/electronics/surround-processor-preamplifiers/SDP-55-.html

And here comes the "cheap" solution: they're compact units available from a swiss company http://www.micromedia.ch. These units only support 96kHz, but a 2ch RCA module costs only slightly more than 120€! There are also XLR and digital I/O modules available: https://www.micromedia.ch/?portfolio=aes67-dante-aoip-stereo-interfaces

Beside being so competitively priced, all modules also have an i2s-output integrated! I use these outputs to directly connect various diy twisted pear audio DACs and for the mains a diy DDDAC with fancy voltage regulators and even modified refence clock...
But, you can also use the integrated DACs of the micromedia modules, they're not bad!

To get an overview of the companies, that support DANTE and what lieup they have, take a look on http://www.audinate.com: they are the developer of DANTE

What is needed - Software
There are 2 programms needed:
- DANTE virtual sondcard from Audinate: https://www.audinate.com/products/software/dante-virtual-soundcard
This software acts as an ASIO or WDM driver on your PC and connects MC to the DANTE network. The price is reasonable with 30$

This is how the main page looks like.

Pay attention, that I use my dedicated i210 network card with its own network address area for DANTE!

You can set up to 32 ch in/out for even big solutions!


Also, there're some tweaks with latency and buffer possible. These are my values in a 16ch-setup, no glitches, no problems. I know other guys with highly optimated Windows and only 2ch, that go down with latency to 1ms.


The second program is the freware DANTE Controller https://www.audinate.com/products/software/dante-controller

It is pretty straightforward. You can give every unit an individual name, see the network latency and any errors of the DANTE-network.

But the main function is the routing: if the DANTE virtuals soundcard DVS runs, you will see the 16ch in/out of the PC up top. Then, all the available modules are listed.
The only thing you have to do now is to map the outputs of the pc with the related modules, done! This can even be done while everything is running.


And, if you have a DIO-module with digital in, you can even connect an ADC and use a mic for measurement (far to the right in the screenshot).

Pros and Cons
+ very stable
+ minimal latency
+ the ASIO driver works flawlessly
+ easy routing (perhaps even to a second room, latency free!)
- a little bit of network knowledge is needed, even when the manuals are pretty forward
- no level adjustemnts: I came from rme with TotalFX, so I knew the routing, but the playback level must now be set by MediaCenter!
+/- the price: if you go with the pro stuff, it will cost you a fortune. But with the Micromedia modules, my complet setup including switch and cables was below 1.000€...

Conclution
Was it all worth it? For me yes! I got a good starting point with 7 Micromedia modules that was cheaper tham my 2 rme Fireface UC and was able to level up the (stereo-)components one by one. I am very satisfied with the sound! Itn't that the most important?

And, I think I am one of the very first who has a DANTE enabled amateur home cinema worldwide 

If you have any questions: that's what the forum is for!

Greetings,

Thorsten

[JimH]

Thanks for taking time to write this up.

[madbrain]

What is needed - Hardware
As this is a network based system, you need network equipment.
- dedicated network card in your pc. Best practise is a Intel i210 chipset based card

Just curious - why this particular NIC ? I prefer to use my Aquantia 10 Gbps NIC (have 4 of them in different PCs and NAS).

- managed switch, as the bus isn't a daisy chain system. I use a Cisco SG-300-10. Why? Because there is a very comprehensive guide for correct setup, available from Yamaha: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/proaudio/docs/dante_network_design_guide/index.html

Thanks. Interesting document. This really seems more suitable to professional use rather than home use. I have over 60 speakers in my home between 16 pairs of ceiling speakers, an 11.4 home theater, and 5.1 systems in 3 different rooms. Unfortunately, DANTE seems unlikely to work with most existing network switches. Most off the shelf Ethernet switches use Energy Efficient Ethernet nowadays, and have no way to turn it off, and apparently, that's incompatible with DANTE. I have a lot of network equipment at home, some of which is managed, others not, and have not noticed latency problems with audio applications. My network is really complicated and heterogenous, going from a 10 Gig ethernet managed switch, to wifi ethernet bridges that perform at 100 - 400 Mbps, and powerline ethernet "AV1200" that really only provides about 10 - 20 Mbps of usable bandwidth (and doesn't even work at all in some rooms :-(). I have over 10 switches total and over 60 network devices looking at the DHCP reservation table in my Unifi controller. I have found that Chromecast audios work well across all these different networks, and can be synchronized. Unfortunately, the software support for them is fairly limited - it works best with Android apps, and not much else. It's 96 kHz, but stereo only, with no possibility of doing more than that, except playing 2 channel content synchronized across all 15 Chromecast.

Pros and Cons
+ very stable
+ minimal latency
+ the ASIO driver works flawlessly
+ easy routing (perhaps even to a second room, latency free!)
- a little bit of network knowledge is needed, even when the manuals are pretty forward
- no level adjustemnts: I came from rme with TotalFX, so I knew the routing, but the playback level must now be set by MediaCenter!
+/- the price: if you go with the pro stuff, it will cost you a fortune. But with the Micromedia modules, my complet setup including switch and cables was below 1.000€...

Are you actually using it with multiple rooms ? This would seem to be one the main benefit of using ethernet cabling. If you only have one room, using the network is more questionable. I have a daisychained Firewire Audiofire 12 and Audiofire 8 that provide 20 in / 20 out at 96 kHz in my home office.  That combo was much less than 1000 euros. I bought them used, though. I think I spent $500 - $600 total. The ASIO driver is outdated and no longer maintained. It works with MC32 bit but not 64 somehow.  Firewire is hard to get to work in many modern PCs, though, even with a PCIe Firewire card. Hyperthreading and some CPU power management features have to be disabled in order for it to stay realtime without clicks. At some point, I will migrate to something else, but I haven't seen anything practical so far. Thunderbolt is not built into any of my many computers, and is not possible to add. Also, the Thunderbolt audio interfaces cost way too much $$$ anyway. Network DAC/ADC would seem like the way to go, but not if it requires replacing all the network switches unfortunately.

Conclution
Was it all worth it? For me yes! I got a good starting point with 7 Micromedia modules that was cheaper tham my 2 rme Fireface UC and was able to level up the (stereo-)components one by one. I am very satisfied with the sound! Itn't that the most important?

And, I think I am one of the very first who has a DANTE enabled amateur home cinema worldwide 

If you have any questions: that's what the forum is for!

Greetings,

Thorsten

I'm curious how you use your system for home theater besides Media Center.
Do you ever stream content ? There are things you can't stream from a PC. Like Amazon 4K streams. In my 11.4 home theater, my Marantz SR7011 AVR remains the center piece, with the HTPC running MC attached, but only Chromecast Ultra, Amazon Firestick 4K, a satellite DVR, SACD players that pass DSD over HDMI, etc. An HTPC is great, but it would be severely limiting IMO if that's the only thing you can use with all your speakers.
Have you bridged your system with those consumer A/V devices, and if so, how ?

[MazingerZ]

I have the same question as madbrain,  what are the applications/use for the home/consumer ?

If we're talking about more that 8 channels of audio,  that would mean  Dolby Atmos / DTS-X / Auro-3D,   which means HDMI to a receiver - the PC/JRiver cannot decode Atmos/DTS-X/Auro3D and send directly to a USB DAC or Dante, so you need to send to a receiver/HDMI.
If you're a professional mixer who creates music for Atmos,  then yes I can see how this can apply if you use studio monitors (like the Genelecs mentioned in the German thread) that accept digital input. But those monitors accept digital input through regular AES/XLR, not Dante, so you first need to convert Dante (which requires additional hardware) to regular AES/XLR,  and you still need to route an AES/XLR cable to each studio monitor, plus the power cable.
You might as well just send AES/XLR directly from the PC ( using PCI audio interface with AES out) instead of going through Dante.
If you're sending to another room, as mentioned in the previous post,  then yes it would make sense to use the network/Dante.

You mentioned tne JBL SDP-55 processor with Dante --  but that's on the output (for example to amps that accept Dante).
The connection from the PC/JRiver to the JBL procesor is still regular HDMI.
If you want to send the JBL's output back to the PC,  then yes you can use Dante/digital (i.e. you don't need to convert from an analog to digital to feed the PC).
But how many users need that ?  Maybe if you want to record/save the Atmos music coming from the JBL receiver to regular (non-Atmos) files on the PC, so that you can play that song (which was originally in Atmos) directly on the PC/JRiver without going through a receiver.
I believe FLAC supports only 8 channels -- which format supports more than 8 ?
Or maybe you want to apply some processing (example Ozone) to the music coming from the JBL receiver in real-time on the PC,  or use your PC as your 'Audio/video center',  before sending the audio to the speakers (connected to the PC).

[JBondoux]

Hi Thorsten,

You have clearly been able to get Dante network to work with JRiver.

Whenever I use it to playback multiple playlists simultaneously over separate channels I get this error:

Something went wrong with playback.
Details:
Playback could not be started on the output 'ASIO' using '48KHz 2ch'.
This output format may not be supported by your hardware.  You can use DSP Studio to change the output to a compatible format.
Also, make sure that your system has a valid sound playback device and that it is properly configured in playback options.

My Dante network is running on 48k and the Controller is patched correctly - and sees the various channels.

Interestingly JRiver only seems to see

Dante Virtual Soundcard (x64) [ASIO]

as an option even when I choose WDM in the DVS.

Any pointers are welcome.

[dizzydevil]

Hello everyone!

This post from thorsten piqued my interest.
Dear experts including the topicstarter!!
Can you tell me please, in the professional sound industry there are a lot of different chipboard processors with Dante support.
Tell me, using a PC and a dante of a virtual sound card, I can send an audio multichannel audio signal (for example) to a symetrix prism 8x8 sound processor with 8pcs analog outputs (not necessarily symetrix prism 8x8, maybe another similar one) and get 7.1 sound for home theater?

Thank you very much in advance for your reply!

[m@Xist]

Hi thorsten et al

I'm very happy to have found s.o. dealing with this technology for the prosumer market. For years now I have watched the market and have been contemplating about using Dante supported products by RME. I have been using RME for a decade now, but for my main systems I'm using direct attached D-Ds, DACs, or network renderers supporting DLNA (Chord 2go+2yu). These network renderers do have a plethora of problems, besides the ridiculously price point, and I'm not planing to switching to Roon.

Thorsten, you started this thread two y ago, a time when the RME Digiface Dante was available afaik. Since you mention that you had been using RME previously, is there a particular reason why you do not use Digiface Dante with some RME endpoints?

I understand that you can hook up the Digiface Dante via USB 3.0 to your host (Mac or Windoof) and then have the Dante ports connected to your network. Then on the other side you'll need equipment you mentioned by Micromedia AG, or when staying with RME, eventually another Digiface Dante and MADI compatible converter (my assumption).

Ahh, and with Digiface Dante you would have your TotalMix FX back.


Any thoughts about RME Digiface Dante?

[eve]

I was *just* coming to start a thread about JRiver and Dante / AES67alike systems and AVB.

Interesting to see that other people are curious about this too. These audio over IP systems are extremely compelling from the standpoint of flexibility, high channel count routing and interestingly, jitter reduction (they allow packet retransmission + timestamping, USB does not).

[eve]

Hello everyone!

This post from thorsten piqued my interest.
Dear experts including the topicstarter!!
Can you tell me please, in the professional sound industry there are a lot of different chipboard processors with Dante support.
Tell me, using a PC and a dante of a virtual sound card, I can send an audio multichannel audio signal (for example) to a symetrix prism 8x8 sound processor with 8pcs analog outputs (not necessarily symetrix prism 8x8, maybe another similar one) and get 7.1 sound for home theater?

Thank you very much in advance for your reply!

Yes..... sort of. The devil is in the details with these things but yeah, going the Pro interface route is fantastic for HT if your source is primarily a computer.
I've been waiting on my MOTU AVB to come in for MONTHS (chip shortage means the backorders are ridiculous) to play around with it under Linux (AVB virtual soundcards for windows are iffy at best). Dante will most likely be my go-to when I find an interface with analog outs that I like and fits my budget.

AVB under windows is weird, the way I've seen a virtual soundcard built (from Hono which sort of doesn't sell it anymore) is that it runs an RTX (I didn't even know there was a way to do this with Windows) in addition to your Windows OS. So i guess it's own virtualized operating system that runs in real time and talks to the intel i210 ethernet card for AVB directly?? Another reason I'm far more interested in Dante.

[eve]

Hi there,
.......
Greetings,

Thorsten

Are you using RedNET or another interface? I'm very curious about your setup as we're thinking alike here.

[eve]

I've made huge strides in this area and it's honestly shocking how versatile AES67 / AES67 alike systems are.

Linux was actually quite easy once I figured out the whole 'time appliance' situation. Windows has been a bit more difficult to implement on my own terms but some major changes in a library I use for this has made it a reality. Currently, on Windows for transmission of audio data, I'm *mostly* using Dante Virtual Soundcard.
It's incredibly reliable and much less hassle than some of the other commercial / proprietary AES67 drivers.
In the last couple weeks I've been able to get transmission from Windows working on my own terms, and thus I'm currently evaluating my own VSC implementation which would be ideal as DVS is licensed per node, and having applications 'directly' interact streams without going through a sink is always preferable.
In the mean time, here's a tiny example of how a small portion of my network is laid out.

This example displays a single Windows workstation / media PC, streaming it's audio over network to 2 physical endpoints, one that handles my multichannel monitoring system and the other, a unit I built for headphone monitoring. This unit, dubbed Heresy, takes a multichannel AES67 stream, downmixes it, runs a b2sb crossfeed inspired by the RME ADI-2, and then applies EQ targeted to different headphone models that I use. There's also another system in this example which provides metering (with the meters / graphs handled server side and accessed via a web ui) and visualizations.
You can see that I pass "Dante" streams over to my AES67 network, while still sharing the same 'clock' between all participants. This is relatively simple, once all devices share the same clock (Dante uses PTPv1, AES67 uses PTPv2 so that's on you to figure out), you can forward the packets from a Dante multicast flow, over to another multicast address for your AES67 devices.


Anyone else playing with this stuff?

The possibilities are endless. I've setup small devices that take input from analog sources, and shove it on the network. Real time metering / analysis, long term logging, fancy visualizations, complex DSP / mixing, really anything you can think of can happen. One of the biggest benefits is that, none of this stuff needs to happen on your source (or even your final endpoint). A single multichannel stream can and does get picked up by multiple devices at once, with no real extra load on the network or complexity.