Skip to content

Typical Dante Network Design and Recommendations

Cognio Smart Processors cannot be daisy-chained. The C10 and C20 each have a Control port and a Dante port, and each port must connect directly to an Ethernet switch. There are two typical topologies.

Your computer must reach both networks. Cognio uses the control network to find, pair, and sync devices, and the Dante network to program Dante channel names and subscriptions when you push a Site. Choose each network in the Select Network(s) dialog.

NOTE: Cognio does not configure Dante Redundancy, and no released Cognio Smart Device has a Dante Secondary port. If another Dante device in your system supports redundancy, set it to Redundant mode in Dante Controller before you connect its Secondary Dante port. Connecting the Secondary port while the device is in Switched mode can cause loss of audio. See Dante Modes.

  1. Connect the Control port of every Smart Processor, and a network adapter on your computer, to one Ethernet switch. This is the control network.
  2. Connect the Dante port of every Smart Processor, your other Dante devices, and a second network adapter on your computer to another Ethernet switch. This is the Dante network.

Keeping the control and Dante networks separate avoids potential network issues. See Firewalls, Anti-Virus, and Other Network Management Recommendations.

One Switch with Separate VLANs

If you use a single managed switch, create one VLAN (or subnet) for the control network and another for the Dante network.

  1. Connect the Control port of every Smart Processor to a switch port on the control VLAN.
  2. Connect the Dante port of every Smart Processor, and your other Dante devices, to switch ports on the Dante VLAN.
  3. Connect your computer so that it can reach both VLANs, for example with one network adapter on each.

T10C Touchscreens

The T10C has a single Ethernet port, which carries both its control and its Dante traffic, so it must connect to a network where control and Dante are shared. You can do this in either of two ways:

  • Share control and Dante across the entire network. Connect every device's Control port, Dante port, and T10C to the same network.
  • Share them only on the run to the T10C. Keep separate control and Dante VLANs as described above, and use your managed switch's capabilities to combine both VLANs on the switch port that the T10C connects to. See your switch's documentation for how to configure this.

Latency

Cognio does not set Dante latency. Set each receiving device's latency in Audinate's Dante Controller.

Network latency increases with the number of switch hops. Use fewer than 2 hops for the best latency. Up to 10 hops total are allowed but with increased latency. Always use the largest practical value for the latency. In many installations latency isn't critical, like for example when sending audio to an acoustically isolated room. In these cases, choose the highest latency to reduce overall network traffic and minimize the chance audio drop-outputs on overburdened networks. If low latency is critical, select the value that corresponds to the number of switch hops in your entire network. If all devices connect to a single gigabit switch, 0.25 mS is typically safe. Otherwise, choose 0.5 or 1.0 mS depending on your network topology.

In Dante, variation in latency in the network is compensated for at the receiver. Each receiver has an Rx latency setting (set in Dante Controller). This setting defines the latency between the timestamps on the incoming audio samples and when those samples are played out.

A typical default latency for most Dante devices is 1 mS. This is sufficient for a very large network, consisting of a Gigabit network core (with up to 10 hops between switches) and 100 megabit links to Dante devices. Smaller, Gigabit-only networks can use lower values of latency (down to below 200 µS).

Note: The Dante Latency is a "system-wide network latency setting". This means, there is no additional latency or skew each subsequent switch hop, i.e., the latency is not additive. As long as the (system-wide network) latency set is long enough to traverse the entire network path, the packets will get to the end of the chain before the buffer expires. Then, Dante uses its clock alignment mechanism (Precision Time Protocol) to exactly line up the outputs down to the sub-sample level. You can compare the word clocks between any two Dante units and they should be within 100 nS of each other, or less than 1% of a sample period (verified with up to 10 units). So the outputs at multiple points in the network will all be sample aligned, each with the specified latency from the sender.