Asgeir Hustad had asked about Dante audio units in another thread. As not to hijack the ongoing discussion about OB units for just an audio rant...well here we go.
We have many different Dante units. Let me start by saying as cool as Dante is, it adds a substantial cost to the rig. In our case, the benefits are worth it. Less weight to ship in both gear and cables, better quality over long distance, and the fast recall of previous show setups are all benefits we believe are worth the extra monies.
We use many units from Radio Design Labs. The RU-MLB4P, and RU-LB4P are in a lot of our field cases. They cost around $600-$700 and give us 4in and 4 out. They are also POE powered by our managed switches-one cat5 cable and done. Also using the Atterotech uNDIO2x2+, a similar unit with 2x2 IO for about $500. They are also very small, and just double stick taped to the inside of the rack somewhere-zero RU required!
The switcher rack pictured in the other thread has a Focusrite RedNet2 which is 16x16 line level. It has been discontinued and was replaced by the A16r, retails for $3600. As you found these are some of the higher priced units available. I don't hear any difference in the audio, nor can I measure any difference between this and just about any of the other Dante units we have. We also bought a RedNet6 (Dante to madi, got it used for cheap) but have found its latency is too high for our tastes. It's safe to say we are done with this brand...
Our favorite unit for high channel counts is currently the Ferrofish A32 Dante. It has 32x32 analog, 32x32 ADAT, 64x64 MADI, and of course 64x64 Dante-all in 1RU of space! Price is around $3000. We have 2 of these and plan on at least 2 more in the next year. We are having a minor issue with the unit not recalling its internal patch presets correctly, but at least the routing sticks thru a power cycle. We are just routing externally for now.
The other good bang-for-buck unit we have looked at is the Yamaha Tio1608-D. Retails for $999 (around 850 street) and has 16 mic/line in, 8 line out, all XLR connections in 2RU. You can remote control the mic pres with a laptop/software. We have not purchased this, mostly due to its size alone-2RU and very deep, just doesn't fit our size plans for field boxes.
The good thing about all of our Dante upgrades, is that we now only have audio interfaces in the field. Our old engines required a box at both ends, and cabling to the mixer et all as well. With Dante natively in our audio consoles now, the control room end of gear is GONE. Just plug a cat5 into audio board, intercom, etc and done. All of our XLR connection cables between racks are gone as well. Only short audio jumpers in the field boxes to the Dante units remain.
We have many different Dante units. Let me start by saying as cool as Dante is, it adds a substantial cost to the rig. In our case, the benefits are worth it. Less weight to ship in both gear and cables, better quality over long distance, and the fast recall of previous show setups are all benefits we believe are worth the extra monies.
We use many units from Radio Design Labs. The RU-MLB4P, and RU-LB4P are in a lot of our field cases. They cost around $600-$700 and give us 4in and 4 out. They are also POE powered by our managed switches-one cat5 cable and done. Also using the Atterotech uNDIO2x2+, a similar unit with 2x2 IO for about $500. They are also very small, and just double stick taped to the inside of the rack somewhere-zero RU required!
The switcher rack pictured in the other thread has a Focusrite RedNet2 which is 16x16 line level. It has been discontinued and was replaced by the A16r, retails for $3600. As you found these are some of the higher priced units available. I don't hear any difference in the audio, nor can I measure any difference between this and just about any of the other Dante units we have. We also bought a RedNet6 (Dante to madi, got it used for cheap) but have found its latency is too high for our tastes. It's safe to say we are done with this brand...
Our favorite unit for high channel counts is currently the Ferrofish A32 Dante. It has 32x32 analog, 32x32 ADAT, 64x64 MADI, and of course 64x64 Dante-all in 1RU of space! Price is around $3000. We have 2 of these and plan on at least 2 more in the next year. We are having a minor issue with the unit not recalling its internal patch presets correctly, but at least the routing sticks thru a power cycle. We are just routing externally for now.
The other good bang-for-buck unit we have looked at is the Yamaha Tio1608-D. Retails for $999 (around 850 street) and has 16 mic/line in, 8 line out, all XLR connections in 2RU. You can remote control the mic pres with a laptop/software. We have not purchased this, mostly due to its size alone-2RU and very deep, just doesn't fit our size plans for field boxes.
The good thing about all of our Dante upgrades, is that we now only have audio interfaces in the field. Our old engines required a box at both ends, and cabling to the mixer et all as well. With Dante natively in our audio consoles now, the control room end of gear is GONE. Just plug a cat5 into audio board, intercom, etc and done. All of our XLR connection cables between racks are gone as well. Only short audio jumpers in the field boxes to the Dante units remain.
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