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It’s time for some hard truth - Aqvox SE "Audiophile" Network Switch

jakkuh_t
1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Actually no, the placebo effect happens even if you're aware of it only being a placebo.

I wrote avoidable. I don't care if it "happens".

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

And "placebo" isn't just related to diseases, I have no idea why you keep trying to tie it down to the medical field.

Cause you treat it like a disease.

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Not gonna work, though.

Yeah of course it's not going to work, because you're hung up on something that does not matter and doesn't fit the conversation. It's incredibly hard to concentrate on one topic when you're constantly trying to dodge any argument I make with something that is entirely irrelevant.

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Haven't you noticed how I've been making fun of them this entire time?

I don't care if you've started doing it now or 10 years ago. It's simply childish and doesn't help this conversation. You're acrively avoiding confrontation with nonsense like that instead of actually reading and thinking. This is exactly what I meant with the lack of common sense nowdays. You clearly have it, but you chose to not use it.

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

In that case I assume you have little experience in talking to victims of any sort of thing. As it happens I have quite a few years of experience in dealing with victims of a much more serious nature and the first step to foster understanding and open dialogue is to not barge in and look for ways to put blame at the victim's feet. That only ensures that the victim shuts down and refuses to engage with you and your arguments.

Right now I'm writing to you and not a victim. You're making baseless assumptions about my behavior towards a victim.

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You don't convince people by marching into their space and claiming everything they believe to be true is nonsense and that they're idiots for believing it.

No one did that.
I did not do that. (Edited it, cause who knows, maybe someone in this thread likes to do that lol)

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

No, you cushion the blow by appealing to their ego, which primes them to be open to what you have to present to them.

Appealing to their ego by being of the mindset that they're "irrational people"? Don't act again like you're just joking again.

 

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

So no, Linus isn't making it worse, he is employing actually real methods used successfully to engage with victims as well as ambassadorial rhetoric that seeks to convince and not to antagonize. This is a good thing. So stop pretending you have insight into how this stuff works. You clearly don't.

What has one to do with the other? You're not even capable of using this knowledge that you have within this conversation and continue to think I'd listen to you. When I read sentences that start with "So stop ..." and "You clearly" my bullshit detector immediately jumps up.

 

 

 

 

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You know, @Senzelian, if you'd stop replying to each of my sentences individually and read them as one coherent argument, you might gleam the meaning encoded within that seems to continuously elude you. I'm done playing this game of entertaining any of your random thoughts just because you seem incapable of understanding what I'm telling you. I suggest you read my previous comment again, this time focusing on the actual argument I'm making, not to try and find a retort for each of my sentences and maybe take into consideration the entire rest of the conversation that has led up to it. Because I honestly believe at this point I'd be wasting my time to reply to your individual quips. 

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Well, I feel dumb. I just spent $300 on a new network switch...

 

Oh.

 

Wait.

 

It's a 10GBE switch... Here's hoping it's actually faster than my old 1GBE switch. 😄

 

Fo real. I use a $100 set of DJ headphones. And a Shiit DAC. It's not the pinnacle of audio technology, but it sounds good enough to me.

"Don't fall down the hole!" ~James, 2022

 

"If you have a monitor, look at that monitor with your eyeballs." ~ Jake, 2022

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On 10/30/2022 at 2:48 PM, power666 said:

The sad thing is that there are legitimate audiophile network switches.  They are expensive and specialized as they extend the actual Ethernet specification to support features like real bandwidth reservation in the switch, queuing alterations, time clock and determinism.  These are several suites of standards like 802.1Qav (AVB), 802.1Qbv (TSN), 802.1Qcv (TSN), and IEEE 1588/802.1AS (time clock).  These features are distinctly marked on the switches.  Since the AQ-SWITCH doesn't have any of these features, it is indeed snake oil.

 

Now for some errors in the video.  

 

Absolutely true that as a digitial signal you either get it or not, the CAT cables that connect between the audio device and the switch does carry one other thing: ground.  Benign in the digital world, if the audio end point has analog components (ADC, amplifier etc.) there is the potential for ground hum to go from the switch to the analog end point. (Ground hum like this does not matter for a digital to digital end point as noted in the video.)  This can be avoided by using unshielded CAT cables which don't carry the ground lines used for shielding.  I have actually encountered this in the field with a microphone with the manufacturer's solution simply being don't use shielded cables.

 

Layer 2 connections can be aware of the connection because technologies like AVB/TSN are layer 2 based.  All the streams are broadcast and subscribed on the layer 2 level using the MSRP protocol as part of the greater AVB/TSN spec.  VXLAN is necessary to tunnel this layer 2 traffic over a layer 3 connection that would not normally be bridged and hope that the switch is fast enough to keep traffic within the proper latency bounds for AVB/TSN.

I can appreciate that qav does indeed better protect the signal compared to UDP, which would just drop the packet, or even probably better than fcs having to re request information, which is why TCP is not used for audio/video. But all that would do is guarantee the information fidelity from source to destination, not actually improve it. Layer 2 devices can be aware or what endpoint is on the other side, yes, but they do not discern what the information they are carrying is, it's all encapsulated. If every L2 device had to completely unpack and repack the information passing through it.....that would increase latency at every hop. Let me ask you this, are you setting up home theaters? Or critical services like 911, military, or utility dispatches that cannot afford to have UDP drop any packets while communication(video or audio) is taking place?

 

Please feel free to give me some material to read up if I am way off base here, it's very possible I am.

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23 hours ago, kirashi said:

Ethernet cables carrying a digital signal either transmit 100% of the signal correctly, or fail to transmit the signal at all. Yes, it's true that packets do get re-sent from time to time, however, as far as the end-user / software applications are concerned, the data either reaches its destination uncorrupted or it doesn't.

Not 100% accurate. It depends on what the context is. If the video and audio are like the segment that we all watched, a precorded hosted media file being transferred over the internet, then it's likely going over TCP and the fcs will make sure that all packets are in fact free from imperfections ( the receiving end will request resend of any packets that don't show up with all the parts that they were sent with or that just don't show up) and we have smooth and clear audio and video. If it's a real time video chat or conference call, or voip call, then it's most likely over UDP, and there is no fcs. You get what you get. You can transmit both TCP and UDP and things can be dropped. Doesn't mean it didn't send.

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On 10/30/2022 at 4:55 PM, Senzelian said:

Use Google and learn how sound is transmitted over a network

I would be curious to know how that works?

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20 hours ago, Sarra said:

Fo real. I use a $100 set of DJ headphones. And a Shiit DAC. It's not the pinnacle of audio technology, but it sounds good enough to me.

My living room speaker setup is currently an 80s Mitsubishi hi-fi pair with 12" woofers connected to a slightly flaky Pioneer 5.1 system. I'm considering finally getting a modern sound bar with remote sub, though.

 

Before that it was a boom box with a cassette to line in adapter. (That's since become the workshop speakers, at least until I get around to recapping a Bose Wave Radio.)

 

2 hours ago, Jenos_Idanian said:

I would be curious to know how that works?

Human cognition will compensate for a dropped packet. There's a reason TCP is used for the handshake while the media stream is UDP.

 

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from a VoIP call, there's Dante.

 

https://www.audinate.com/meet-dante/what-is-dante

I sold my soul for ProSupport.

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On 10/31/2022 at 6:10 AM, Just that Mario said:

You cannot blame the person trying to sell you bs. You can only blame yourself for buying that bs. When you start blaming the con-artist, it's a clear sign you are too ignorant to face your own failure. It is actually admirable how people manage to sell absolute nonsense for large sums of money.

WOW! You must be a true polymath. It's nice to meet someone who know's everything about everything and never has to rely on reviewers, specification sheets, manufacturers claims, marketing, sales staff, any 2nd or 3rd parties at all. You must know enough quantum physics and electrical engineering to read all integrated device schematics and understand how it all works, what every gate does individually and in combination, what the field and quantum tunneling effects are at that scale, so you can decide whether the integrated circuit does what you want it to do. Not to mention knowing everything there is to know about materials science, so you know that the materials making up the circuit are all suitable for the job. This means you can evaluate everything from the plastic in the dash of your car, to the quality of the metals making up the chassis, to being able to look at a jet trurbine's compressor blades and understand and judge whether the material can accomplish the task without having to refer to the engine manufacturer's documentation or rely on the aviation certificates. Oh, and the aerospace engineering you must have at your beck and call to be able to look at an aircraft you are about to board and evaluate the lift forces, drag, propulsion power levels, fuel capacity, all at a glance, to know whether the plane will be able to take you to your destination. And obviously you have no need of medical diagnosticians or pathologists, as you know all the chemistry and biology, and medical science to diagnose your own illnesses, so you don't need to rely on the opinions of doctors.

 

Your knowlege must extend to carpentry, electrical work, architecture and civil engineering so you can evaluate every structure you need to enter, use or cross. Just at a glance you can tell whether a bridge meets the load bearing requirements without having to consult anyone or any documentation or certifications. It must be nice to be able to glance at a house and know it's in a flood zone, or the structure is up to earthquake standards, or that it's got wood rot or terminates without having to engage any specialists who's word you'd otherwise need to take. Same is true for the chainsaw, lawn-mower, boat you may buy, that you don't have to trust that any certification it has is genuine, as you know all the related sciences to inspect it and make your own decision.

 

You are truely awesome to nevery have to take anyone's word for anything.

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1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

Before that it was a boom box with a cassette to line in adapter. (That's since become the workshop speakers, at least until I get around to recapping a Bose Wave Radio.)

Oh man, I remember using one of those to give my car a CD player. 😄

"Don't fall down the hole!" ~James, 2022

 

"If you have a monitor, look at that monitor with your eyeballs." ~ Jake, 2022

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1 hour ago, eldakka said:

You are truely awesome to nevery have to take anyone's word for anything.

Please, stop feeding the troll.

"Don't fall down the hole!" ~James, 2022

 

"If you have a monitor, look at that monitor with your eyeballs." ~ Jake, 2022

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23 hours ago, Rex Hite said:

My cynical side thinks 'luxury brand' buyers should be fleeced. There's a kind of weird justice. BMW seat heaters should be an ongoing expense. Video cards should be a thousand dollars because there needs to be a price for gormlessness. But only a price the gormless are willing to pay. I'm cynical not cruel. It's the willingness and willfulness of that market which ethically sets it apart. Luxury brand items aren't marketed to the poor and downtrodden.


Seat heating existed for couple decades, even cooling can be had with various other luxury bits such as 360 cam on an EX37. You can actually buy that crossover used at 70-80k miles for like $7k, it's a lot of vehicle for the cash. Something a relatively poor individual can make up and buy. BMW is just marketing like heated heats is something special, lol screw them.

On topic of audiophiles, audiophiles have mostly been audiofools, that is the issue with them. People who actually deal with what is good or affordable, and what is overpriced or how many unnecessary headphones one needs are bit different.

But I agree with the video and topic, most audiophiles I see are idiots. I'd classify myself as an audiophile (I mean who else sings on $500 vocal mic at home), but I wouldn't say I'm stupid for buying that mic. I knew what I was buying when I bought into it, and it's been amazing with proper compression. I'd still say I may be an idiot, but not for some of the audio purchases I've done. That's something entirely else, I'd like to say I know about.

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5 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

My living room speaker setup is currently an 80s Mitsubishi hi-fi pair with 12" woofers connected to a slightly flaky Pioneer 5.1 system. I'm considering finally getting a modern sound bar with remote sub, though.

 

Before that it was a boom box with a cassette to line in adapter. (That's since become the workshop speakers, at least until I get around to recapping a Bose Wave Radio.)

 

Human cognition will compensate for a dropped packet. There's a reason TCP is used for the handshake while the media stream is UDP.

 

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from a VoIP call, there's Dante.

 

https://www.audinate.com/meet-dante/what-is-dante

Hmmmm, I  read the site page and watched the video, but outside of maybe a couple convenient gui things I didn't really see anything that seemed really special. Maybe I am missing something? Seemed like the presenter was espousing the benefits of a network, but in a way that kinda made it seem like Dante brought these benefits, not that they they were just part of modern networking.

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On 10/30/2022 at 6:18 PM, Senzelian said:

It's like you walk blindly over the street and expect every single car to stop for you. Pointing fingers at the driver after you've been hit won't safe your butt. 

This is so true. When growing up, I was always taught that pedestrians have the right of way, but that right does you no good when you're dead.

Even though as a pedestrian I should be safe, I must still my perform my due diligence and make sure I'm not about to get hit by a bus.

 

Likewise, what you (and a few others) are trying to say is that the customer has not done their due diligence. And to be clear, we're not excusing the seller of these scams. But we must also include the gullible twits that believe everything they hear and read without a second thought.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jenos_Idanian said:

Hmmmm, I  read the site page and watched the video, but outside of maybe a couple convenient gui things I didn't really see anything that seemed really special. Maybe I am missing something? Seemed like the presenter was espousing the benefits of a network, but in a way that kinda made it seem like Dante brought these benefits, not that they they were just part of modern networking.

Dante's more designed as an audio router for TV stations, recording studios, venues, etc. The whole ecosystem is geared toward audio professionals who are used to point-to-point analog home runs and crosspoint routers.

I sold my soul for ProSupport.

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If you check on their website you can see they have plenty of scam devices, cables and accessories. One of them is the “Lan detoxer cap Network decontaminator”. A simple plastic cap (which you can buy on Amazon for 10$ for 50 pieces ) used to avoid annoying dust inside unused ports. It is sold with a brand yellow sticker and a so called “quartz” embedded to make sure  that cit.“electromagnetic frequencies are harmonized and electromagnetic pollution (electro smog) is minimized”. 
For a price of just 99,90$ for 6 of them. 

 

I would tell you also about the 199,00$ ethernet CAT 7 cable (shielded of course) and x2 shielded plugs (looks like 10Gb/40Gb male plugs) anyway to be used on a simple Gb switch they sell, but then I prefer you get your own conclusions…

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It's not a scam, it's interactive performance art where the buyer unwittingly creates half the finished work. A router with a chunk of glass hot-glued to it deserves pride-of-place next to a Warhol in any gallery.

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Aqvox isn't even close to the worst in their field. Just check out "highend-electronics". Page after page of blatantly fake and ridiculously expensive audio nonsense, most with an even shakier grip on reality than an audio network switch. I found it years ago and scroll through it occasionally for laughs, the "Accessories" are usually the most fake and therefore funniest.

 

For instance, audio rock:

https://highend-electronics.com/products/shakti-the-stone

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

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4 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

The entire AVB stack does a lot more, like sample-synchronous play-out across 7 hops (if I recall correctly) with minimal latency (and even more hops with more network latency). And it does need specialized hardware with the AVB stack implemented (Macbooks had native AVB support for a while, but Apple dropped it).

But AVB is an AoIP (and Video over IP) solution like Dante for realtime use.

Streaming audio from Spotify, Tidal or your home server is something completely different. You can easily fill buffers with seconds or minutes of audio. Even calling AVB "audiophile" is just plainly wrong. It's for professional users, mainly broadcasting agencies, hence the name "audio video broadcasting". It's a real pain in the b*** to wire up a large building with recording and production studios or event centres. That's where you would get an AVB capable network running and everything can be routed everywhere. It has no place in a household.

 

Right, but a quick search will show that most entry level enterprise gear can run these protocols. So "specialized" audio routers and switches is a bit misleading. Companies that make them specially for the audio community are kinda yanking a chain it seems like.

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On 10/30/2022 at 9:42 PM, HenrySalayne said:

You have manufacturers telling you it's an amazing product. You have reviewers telling you it's an amazing product. You have costumers telling you it's an amazing product. How should they know?

They trust whatever they want, make an educated decision on whether they need the product. If they decide to get it, they can evaluate if it suits them or not. You guys are absolutely mental in protecting stupidity.

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11 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Actually, no. AVB capable switches are quite rare. Manufacturers are not willing to implement AVB for a small number of user so most manufacturers have only one or two model ranges, if any.

Take a look at this list: https://support.biamp.com/Tesira/AVB/List_of_AVB-capable_Ethernet_switches

That's certainly not "most entry level enterprise gear". 😉

I would argue that you proved my point. It's not rare. You can get it across multiple vendors across multiple product lines. I'm not talking about small business or soho grade stuff. Real enterprise level stuff. Cisco catalyst couldn't fit that bill any more, and those are some of the most common units out there. Sure, no juniper or brocade, but this isn't exactly hard to find. Or rare.

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12 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Actually, no. AVB capable switches are quite rare. Manufacturers are not willing to implement AVB for a small number of user so most manufacturers have only one or two model ranges, if any.

Take a look at this list: https://support.biamp.com/Tesira/AVB/List_of_AVB-capable_Ethernet_switches

That's certainly not "most entry level enterprise gear". 😉

At the same time with Dante, just use whatever you want. 1Gbit or better is heavily recommended but if you are recording just one instrument at time and it isn't fully rigged drums, you might get by with just 100Mbit network. Cisco stuff needs some extra care because it's Cisco stuff and there's step-by-step guide to follow after which you can get CCNA1 certificate without problems.

 

Dante may seem the more expensive one if you just go and look at the gear without understanding what you are looking at and what things do. But a lot of things with Dante are aimed for studios and other places where having Dante certified speakers that costed couple kidneys aren't in because they are good but because they costed a lot and they hope the customers are as out of the information as general population that they think those speakers mean that they ain't paying a lot of money to just fuck around. IF you are about to just record single instrument at time you can equip your soundproof box with Dante by just getting Dante AVIO input box for the about 200 whatever-currency and vóla, you have just turned your mini studio to this day with AoIP and all because that's all you need, that little plug-thing, 1Gbit LAN network and computer (and of course the preamp mics and whatever music gear you need anyway). You do need the software for your computer and you can get expensive and fast with them but if you ain't going big the DVS is all you need (with the free Controller software) and you have 64 bidirectional channels straight from your computers RJ45-port without any extra shit.

 

Even the "Dante certified Engineer" is pretty much just that if you have money to burn and no one wants to read few pages of technical jargon and you want shiny "Dante certified" sticker to your window. Otherwise just connect the devices open the Controller software, do the connection and back to the work you go.

 

Pretty much the biggest difference between AVB and Dante is that AVB is that Dante is older and made for studios and so it has the pros of not needing anything too much special, you can get Focusrite 32-channel interface, put in the studio, attach network cable and that's pretty much it. Dante is licensed so not many like that just like they do not like that you don't need anything too special to use it, which is why "open" IEEE AVB was done and you won't be surprised to find Harman and Apple supporting it. AVB is bti easier to setup as a network but it is significantly more expensive to build and it's pretty much specs wise worse (Dante is at max. 512 channels in and out so 1028 channels total per network with maximum latency of 1ms while AVB manages even with the more expensive network gear just 384 channels per network with 2ms max latency). Pretty much only reason to go AVB is brand loyalty or you want to be "OpEn-sOUrCe FoR lYfE!".

And if you are doing something critical like live broadcasting or something that must work, always go Dante because AVB does not support failsafe connections, as in a lot of Dante gear has 2 connections for the failsafe while none of the AVB stuff has any kind of failsafe unless you do a whole failsafe network and double everything.

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On 11/1/2022 at 1:57 AM, Jenos_Idanian said:

I can appreciate that qav does indeed better protect the signal compared to UDP, which would just drop the packet, or even probably better than fcs having to re request information, which is why TCP is not used for audio/video. But all that would do is guarantee the information fidelity from source to destination, not actually improve it. Layer 2 devices can be aware or what endpoint is on the other side, yes, but they do not discern what the information they are carrying is, it's all encapsulated. If every L2 device had to completely unpack and repack the information passing through it.....that would increase latency at every hop. Let me ask you this, are you setting up home theaters? Or critical services like 911, military, or utility dispatches that cannot afford to have UDP drop any packets while communication(video or audio) is taking place?

 

Please feel free to give me some material to read up if I am way off base here, it's very possible I am.

The digital data itself is not altered, as you point out, but rather the data flow.  AVB/TSN reduces the concept of jitter by bounding latencies.  Real time devices generically just playback a buffer which is interesting when data arrives out-of-order or at an inconsistent rate due to highly variable latencies or when clocks are not properly sync'd.  By changing how data arrives in that buffer, the playback is then changed.  The closer to real-time the work is, the more likely playing back data that arrives out-of-order or simply skipping missing data becomes.  That where the chaos is introduced in the digital world:  the data itself isn't corrupted but rather how it gets to the destination can be over a switched network.

 

No need to pack/unpack the data stream when you can properly register what it is with a header.  This registration process of what the data stream is defined as part of the MSRP (Multi-stream reservation protocol) inside the switch.  The presence of these streams are broadcast out so that devices across different switches can exchange data.  What the data type is part of the header so video streams are distinct from audio streams.  Other data types are also permitted as AVB/TSN is leveraged in the automotive industry for sensors as well as industrial applications like manufacturing.  One of the more interesting applications I've heard of is encapsulating USB as a data stream since that too is latency sensitive for extending a USB signal over a network.

 

As for what I do, my typical day-to-day is part of an in-house AV integration team for a Fortune 100 company.  The audio work is mainly for conferencing/class room applications though I have done theaters/auditoriums as part of the job (they're just far more rare).  My biggest project was an campus wide audio network encompassing six buildings where only the network based microphones and amplifiers/speakers were in the rooms with the DSP processing all being centralized in a single networking closet.  This permitted things like paging to be incorporated 'for free' as the infrastructure was already in place for it.  Just had to add PoE capable AVB/TSN switch to every floor and then leveraged some fiber rooms that the networking team were abandoning in favor of some new OM5 fiber they were having laid for normal data traffic.  Outside of my day-to-day job I've done a bit of consulting and helped a friend of mine design the industrial manufacturing network for a chemical plant.  That consulting gig did involve some mission critical devices though not quiet like you were describing. 

 

 

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On 11/1/2022 at 3:21 PM, HenrySalayne said:

The entire AVB stack does a lot more, like sample-synchronous play-out across 7 hops (if I recall correctly) with minimal latency (and even more hops with more network latency). And it does need specialized hardware with the AVB stack implemented (Macbooks had native AVB support for a while, but Apple dropped it).

But AVB is an AoIP (and Video over IP) solution like Dante for realtime use.

Streaming audio from Spotify, Tidal or your home server is something completely different. You can easily fill buffers with seconds or minutes of audio. Even calling AVB "audiophile" is just plainly wrong. It's for professional users, mainly broadcasting agencies, hence the name "audio video broadcasting". It's a real pain in the b*** to wire up a large building with recording and production studios or event centres. That's where you would get an AVB capable network running and everything can be routed everywhere. It has no place in a household.

 

 

AVB is audio video bridging.

 

I haven't checked the latest MacOS release but AVB has still been supported on capable hardware.  The gotcha is that few Apple devices currently have hardwared networking so it is becoming increasingly rare unless a Thunderbolt dongle is acquired.

 

It is a pain to wire up a large building but the great thing is that the cabling doesn't need to change to add AVB/TSN features.  CAT5E is good for 2.5 Gbit and PoE.  There is also the factor that new buildings will have some form of wired infrastructure regardless if only to support wireless access points for end users.

 

TSN becoming part of the Wifi 7 standard.  That is where things are rapidly changing as AVB/TSN capable switches are going to become mainstream to support these additional features. 

 

I personally have five AVB capable switches at home, but I'm also not a typical end user.  I'm bringing my work home a bit. 🙂

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On 11/1/2022 at 11:43 PM, HenrySalayne said:

Actually, no. AVB capable switches are quite rare. Manufacturers are not willing to implement AVB for a small number of user so most manufacturers have only one or two model ranges, if any.

Take a look at this list: https://support.biamp.com/Tesira/AVB/List_of_AVB-capable_Ethernet_switches

That's certainly not "most entry level enterprise gear". 😉

 

You do know that that is a link to audio manufacturer's page that isn't comprehensive right?  For example, that page doesn't list any Arista gear which does support AVB.  Ditto for some of the Mellanox/nVidia switches.  

 

The key thing is that AVB/TSN is being added to modern switch ASICs.  They're pretty much going to have to as Wi-fi 7 is set to introduce TSN to the mases.  It is still up to the switch manufacturer to expose that capability.

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