How to Get AES50 Into a Dante System (and Back)

AES50 and Dante don’t speak to each other. AES50 is a point-to-point cable, Dante is audio over an IP network, and no amount of adapters joins a plug to a protocol. Something has to convert, and there are three places to put that converter.

The short answer

• Your console has a card slot: put a Dante card in it. 32x32 on an X32 or M32, 64x64 on a Wing. This is the cheapest path and the one most IEM rigs want.
• The Dante gear has to meet a stage box, not a console: a Klark Teknik DN9650 bridge converts between an AES50 port and a Dante module, with sample rate conversion on every channel.
• You only need Dante on stage: use a Dante stage box with the Dante card above, and leave AES50 to the Behringer boxes.

Why it takes a converter

AES50 sends 48 channels each way down one dedicated cable, with the word clock riding the spare pairs. Dante packs audio into IP packets that any gigabit switch forwards, and syncs clocks over the network. They share an RJ45 socket and nothing else. Plug an AES50 port into a switch and the link light comes on, and no audio ever does. For what AES50 is on its own, see what is AES50, and for how the two compare, Dante vs MADI vs AES50.

Option 1: a Dante card in the console

X32 and M32

Behringer’s X-DANTE card goes in the X32’s expansion slot in place of the X-USB card. Behringer describes it as a 32-channel, 48 kHz, bidirectional interface with 24-bit audio, a secondary port for a redundant network, and DSCP quality of service on 100 Mbit or gigabit Ethernet. Klark Teknik sells the same slot card as the DN32-DANTE for the M32, with up to 32 bidirectional channels. An X32 Rack keeps both its AES50 ports after the swap, so the stage boxes stay on AES50 and the card adds 32 Dante channels on top.

Wing

The WING-DANTE card replaces the Wing Rack’s WING-LIVE card and carries 64 channels each way at 48 kHz, with the same redundant second port, and is AES67 compliant.

What you give up: the USB card. Multitrack recording from an X32 then goes over Dante to a computer with Dante Virtual Soundcard, or over the console’s own USB, which is a different port on the Rack and Producer models. Check which recording path you use before pulling the card.

Option 2: a Klark Teknik bridge

The DN9650 is a 1U box with three AES50 ports on one side and one module slot on the other. Fit the KT-DANTE64 module and it converts up to 64 bidirectional channels between the two, with an asynchronous sample rate converter on every channel, so the Dante side can run at a different rate from the AES50 side. Klark Teknik lists the ASRC as bypassable. The DN9652 was the two-slot version, now discontinued, with two clock domains so it could bridge AES50 to two different third-party networks at once.

Reach for a bridge when the console has no free slot, when the Dante gear has to connect at the stage end rather than at the desk, or when you need more than the card’s 32 channels on an X32. Klark Teknik doesn’t publish a latency figure for the DN9650, only that AES50 itself is deterministic and low.

Option 3: keep Dante for the Dante gear only

An IEM rig that already runs an S16 or DL32 over AES50 doesn’t need to move those boxes. Put the Dante card in the console, hang the Dante-native gear (a playback interface, a wireless receiver rack, a recorder) on a gigabit switch, and route the 32 channels where you need them. The Behringer boxes never see Dante and don’t need to. For picking the switch, see switches for Dante racks.

A channel budget for a band rig

• 16 stage inputs over AES50 from one S16.
• 8 channels of playback and click into the console over Dante from a Dante interface.
• 8 stereo IEM mixes out over Dante to a transmitter rack with a Dante card, or 16 channels out.
• Total on the Dante card: 8 in, 16 out, inside a 32x32 card with room for a multitrack feed.

Preamps

• Preamp count: none on any card or bridge. They move digital audio; the preamps stay in the stage box or the console.
• Gain control: unchanged. AES50 stage box gains are still set from the console. Dante devices with preamps set gain in their own control software.
• Rig impact: a Dante card adds channels, not inputs. If you are short of mic preamps, that is a stage box question: how many preamps your rig needs.

Sources

• Behringer X-DANTE: 32-channel, 48 kHz, redundant port, slot
• Behringer WING-DANTE: 64-channel, 48 kHz, AES67
• Klark Teknik DN9650: 64 bidirectional channels, three AES50 ports, ASRC, 1U
• Adorama: Klark Teknik DN9652: dual bridge, two clock domains, discontinued
• Markertek: Klark Teknik DN32-DANTE: 32 bidirectional channels for M32 and X32