Digital audio was invented in 1938 for use on the telephone network but it wasn’t until the 1960s that it was fully realized in this application. Standard digital interconnect for professional applications emerged in the 1980s. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that real-time network distribution as we currently know it was born. This tutorial will follow the evolution of real-time digital audio networking, examining design decisions and changes in the underlying network technology that has enabled advancement to the current state of the art. Some of the specific networking technologies to be covered include: VoIP, CobraNet, MaGIC, Ethersound, A-Net, AES47, Livewire, AES50, ACIP, Dante, AVB, Q-LAN, RAVENNA and AES67.

Kevin Gross conceived and developed the CobraNet system for transport of real-time, high-quality audio over Ethernet networks. He is an active contributor to the AVB standards efforts and has helped QSC deploy the audio networking component of their , Q-LAN. He has had a hand in the systems and network design in many projects utilizing CobraNet such as, Wembly stadium, The U.S. Senate, the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and theme parks such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Tokyo DisneySea.

Kevin holds several patents, has written papers and articles and presented on numerous AV networking topics. In 2006 he was awarded an AES fellowship for his contributions to digital audio networking.

Before audio networking, Kevin worked at WaveFrame Corp. and helped develop an Oscar award-winning digital audio recording and editing system and at Peak Audio, Inc. developing and managing early deployments of Peavey’s MediaMatrix digital signal processing system.

Kevin is now an independent engineering consultant to AV and network equipment manufacturers and systems designers.