Re: Does this product exist?
In regards to Dante v. Cobranet - and I ask this having not either one - Is there any way that Dante is not superior to Cobranet?
It depends on what you define as "superior"... as with most things in the audio world, it depends on what you are trying to do.
From what I saw on Wiki that Cobranet's latency can be a minimum of 1.3 milliseconds and a maximum of over 5 milliseconds. Dante's Q&A seemed to indicated that all systems should get <1ms and quoted a number of simple connections being able to get considerably less than that. Dante can run way more channels, and Dante seems to describe it as mostly plug and play... but I admittedly read that on their website. Dante runs on standard switches, even along side other network data. Dante has Virtual Soundcard.
Honestly, CobraNet is mostly plug and play too. CobraNet does NOT require the use of IP addressing as it is a layer two protocol. All that is required is for you to apply a bundle number to a stream of 8 channels and that is it. It is very simple to set up.
Sure, the latency for CobraNet is longer than that of Dante, and that is the greatest upside to using Dante.
However, both CobraNet and Dante are capable of running hundreds of channels of audio across the network. Just because a single end point device can only support 32 inputs by 32 outputs does not mean that is the capacity of the network. That was originally the case when CobraNet first came out because networking was accomplished using Ethernet HUBS, not SWITCHES. Therefore all traffic on each port was reflected to all other ports. With the advent of network SWITCHES, the number of audio channels on a CobraNet network is limited only by the backplane speed of the network switch and backbone speed of the network, much like it is with Dante. Also, using Gigabit links between network switches means you have the opportunity to move hundreds and hundreds of audio channels of across the network with no problem.
To get CobraNet into or out of a computer, you do need to use a dedicated hardware platform like the Audio Science CobraNet interface cards.
CobraNet has traditionally been used in installations rather than live environments, and the products that are available with CobraNet versus the products that are available with Dante reflect that tradition.
With the exception of currently having some more products, is there a Cobranet upside over Dante?
The only real upside to CobraNet over Dante is that it works extremely well with 100Mbit network hardware whereas Dante REQUIRES Gigabit.
I also consider it an upside the CobraNet uses bundles to package the audio, so routing 8 channels of audio is simply applying one bundle number to a transmitting device and receiving device to get all 8 channels through. With Dante I have to hunt and peck 8 check boxes in the Dante Controller Software. However that is a personal opinion, and other people would consider it a downside. The thing that most people don't realize is that you don't have to use all 8 channels in a bundle. You can short load bundles with as few as 1 channel per bundle and send them all over the place. However, not all hardware supports this functionality. I think of it like using virtual uni-directional sub-snakes.
So, in conclusion, yes, there are benefits to using Dante, but there are also benefits to using CobraNet. It really depends on what you are doing and where you want to go with it. Certainly there are a lot of new products coming out with Dante in them that makes a lot of sense to use. However, CobraNet has been around for a long time and it will continue to be around for a long time just because it has been installed in so many places.
~:-D~:grin:
