CobraNet
An early (1996) Ethernet-based digital audio distribution protocol from Peak Audio, now owned by Cirrus Logic, that predates Dante and AVB and is still found in legacy installed sound systems, amplifiers, and DSP hardware in venues and theme parks.
Stewarded by Cirrus Logic (formerly Peak Audio).
Continuous streams that are large enough to be sized properly, and that must arrive in order and on time.
What kills it. Anything that starves the link — usually a management transfer nobody scheduled — and jitter that outruns the receive buffer.
What it carries
- Sample rates
- 48 kHz, 96 kHz
- Audio bit depth
- 16-bit, 20-bit, 24-bit
- Audio channels
- up to 64
- Audio encoding
- Linear PCM in eight-channel bundles
Audio: 64 channels each direction on 100 Mbit, in bundles of eight, which is the unit you route rather than the individual channel. 96 kHz halves the count. 20-bit is the historical default and still what a lot of installed hardware negotiates.
What goes wrong
Sources
Known gaps on this entry: default_ports, first_published, implementations. If you can source one of them, that is a ten minute pull request.
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