EtherAudiois an innovative audio routing interface unit , comes with both IP and CobraNetprotocol to make audio routing and monitoring reliable and very easy.

EtherAudiotransmits and switches multi-channel high-quality audio signal over Ethernet. Up to 16 channel of audio input and output can be equipped on each EtherAudiounit. The modular audio In/Out interface can be either AES/EBU or analog XLR balanced.

EtherAudioequip with three network ports on the rear panel, two CobraNetports backup to each other, and the other one is IP port.

CobraNet™ technology is widely used in multi-channel low latency audio transmission over Ethernet. CobraNetis standard protocol developed by PeakAudio, a CirrusLogiccompany. CobraNettransfers data using link layer packets, which travel quickly through hubs, bridges and switches, and are not as susceptible to the latency and QoSproblems commonly found in streaming protocols using a higher transport layer. 64 channels of uncompressed digital audio are carried through a single, inexpensive Cat-5 cable

CobraNettransmits the same audio data to the two redundant network ports simultaneously, the audio stream will have no break in case of failure of any one of the two network paths, this high-availability design makes CobraNetan ideal solution for mission critical application such as radio station MCR system.

CobraNetprotocol is more based on hardware which means higher reliability than IP streaming with which more software get involved. And the reboot time of CobraNetis much shorter than IP based router because there is no TCP/IP stack to be launched.

CobraNetprotocol is one of the best choices for audio transmission and routing because of being synchronous, fixed and very low latency, redundant network port and Qosof network traffic, but it also has some disadvantages as following,

• CobraNetis based on IEEE802.3 but not TCP/IP, it’s impossible to hear the audio and see the meter of one audio signal through Internet.
• Metering data can only be carried with the audio traffic on the network with CobraNetprotocol, it’s not as easy as Audio-over-IP technology to build up an audio monitoring system, because with IP only the meter data of the audio signal transmitted over network when user is not playing the audio stream.
• CobraNetprotocol only supports uncompressed linear PCM audio data which is good in quality and latency, but it brings more traffic to the network than audio-over-IP which can use compressed audio.

EtherAudio brochure english REV 1.pdf