One could declare that no single smart home category has benefited from Internet Protocol (IP) standards as much as multiroom audio. Today’s IP standards offer robust and reliable solutions that scale dynamically, are straightforward and efficient to deploy while delivering uncompromised performance.
In 2016, Savant took a calculated step to move away from the antiquated audio matrix and committed to distributing multiroom audio over IP from source to speaker.
“Our adoption of the IEEE Audio Video Bridging (AVB) standard provides Savant with a strong group of partners committed to AVB’s long-term success and adoption. Companies such as Harman, Texas Instruments, Netgear, Apple, Cisco, NXP, and MOTU (to name a few) have thrown their weight behind AVB for timesensitive applications,” says Tim Locascio, VP of Engineering at Savant.
For CI channel integrators, the appeal of multiroom audio over AVB holds numerous advantages, beginning with the simplicity of setup and configuration. With a dedicated AVB network switch, zero network configuration is required. The AVB architecture also ensures a high Quality of Service (QoS), including traffic reservation and priority, precise time synchronization, and extremely low latency across zones.
“We are not compatible with Dante. We chose to go with AVB,” says Steve Silberman, Head of Business Development, Audio, at Savant. “We like AVB because it is an IEEE standard, just like 802.11 is. When we look at the amount of inertia and support behind AVB, it seems to us like a no brainer.”
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He cited companies like Apple, Cisco, Texas Instruments, NXP and Microchip supporting AVB.
“You also see the entire automotive industry supporting it for both audio and autonomous driving. It’s a really powerful solution and standard. We want to be part of a standard that has a lot of future potential,” adds Silberman.
A Savant multiroom audio solution over AVB is also powerful, allowing 40 different high-resolution 24-bit music streams to more than 240 zones. Best of all, sources and zones can be added to the system quickly and painlessly.
The company offers AVB-enable speakers, network amplifiers — both multizone and single-channel.
“We have components solutions and tools that allow you to connect legacy systems into our IP system and vice-versa,” says Silberman. “So I can bring audio that is being distributed outside of AVB and bring it into AVB, or I can take AVB audio and distribute it to a legacy system. There is a lot of interoperability.”
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