SoundTube Entertainment has announced Dante enabled in-ceiling and surface-mount speaker including Master speakers that allow the connection of non-Dante speakers on the network.
Four SoundTube IPD in-ceiling models and one surface-mount speaker are now available, along with two Master IPD4 speakers. The company intends to add more speaker models in the future.
The system permits individual setup of speakers and provides proprietary 40 watts (with the SoundTube STNet Switch) per channel PoE to any STNet speaker on the system. The speakers can also be connected and powered by standard PoE plus and PoE switches. The category cable which connects each SoundTube IPD speaker to the SoundTube STNet-Switch provides the signal, speaker power and report-back information. Each speaker in an STNet system can be part of a zone or can be in its own zone. Speakers are configured through software.
A Dante system controller DSP is connected to the STNet Switch via one of the two provided gigabit Ethernet ports. Up to 16 speakers may be connected directly via one STNet Switch; switches may be linked via a second gigabit Ethernet port for expansion of the system. Any Dante-enabled controller DSP will work with the STNet switch. (CobraNet is still supported as well.)
SoundTube speaker monitoring software keeps track of STNet IP-capable speakers in a system. The software graphically indicates groups of speakers; if a problem occurs in a speaker within a group, the group will be highlighted on the system manager’s screen. Clicking on the group of speakers will bring up the information for the group and will identify the problematic speaker.
In addition to the standard IPD speaker models, SoundTube offers IPD4 Master speakers, individual Dante-enabled speakers in the STNet system which can power up to three additional non-IP speakers. Each IPD4 speaker can be broken down into two channels and are matched in a system with standard passive SoundTube speakers of the same type. All IPD4 speakers come in both an active and a passive version.
The Dante speakers will be demonstrated on stand 3-C87 at ISE 2017 held at the Amsterdam RAI, February 7 to 10.