ClearOne IP Speaker - Manual (Page 4)

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StreamNet
™
Connected IP Speakers W H I T E P A P E R
back to the market need – Internet connectivity is for 2 purposes – getting content and
monitoring down to the end points (speakers). Analog systems fail to meet these
requirements; any content must be put on a separate unit on the premise or a tuner that
receives content, forcing the user to create a system with a multitude of components
just to get the content.
Processing intelligence doesn’t exist in analog systems. Any processing is done in
source devices like tuners and media servers, and even most of those devices are fixed
function devices. Analog systems cannot adapt to new DRM schemes or codecs easily
– for digital audio content they completely miss the mark.
Sound customization can be done with very expensive speakers, but generally these
speakers are active speakers and don’t connect to traditional analog systems.
However, even this sound customization is typically done once, whether its room
optimization or paging groupings the passive speaker connected to a large centralized
multi-room amp misses the mark for sound customization requirements.
Overall, it’s clear that analog systems are no longer where the custom audio market
should be focused, the technology is proven but is struggling to keep up with the
requirements of monitoring, Internet content distribution, environmental friendliness, and
customization. Seeing this reality, many manufacturers and integrators turned to digital
distribution over proprietary networks.
Digital Distribution systems with passive and active speakers
Digital distribution technologies like CobraNet
®
, EtherSound
®
and others are a great
leap forward from analog distribution. By distributing digitally you avoid the typical
issues with noise and signal degradation that occurs in an analog system. At the same
time you simplify wiring down to CAT-5 or 6 cables. That said, these digital distribution
technologies fall short when we consider the future requirements for audio distribution
and rendering.
Scale and extensibility is much improved on digital systems, however many are still
limited to 256 or fewer audio channels, many of these have to be unicast or point to
point distribution instead of point to multi-point or multicast. Some of the technologies
are limited to only 8 multicast streams, severely hampering them for certain
applications.
From an environmental perspective digital distribution has moved much of the materials
problem closer to the speaker which allows for smaller amplifiers and processors,
however, unless an implementer chooses to use active speakers with digital amplifiers
built in there is still significant environmental impact.