Many 'smaller' Dante devices are using POE. Considering how obsessed the audiophile world is about the importance of the power supply for the sound quality, I am wondering if the quality of the device providing POE power does make a difference on products like the AVIO adapters reviewed here.
Does the POE standard guarantee a minimum quality of the power supplied or will POE-based audio products have to have some circuitry to 'clean up' the power supplied?
Other manufacturers of Dante compatible equipment like Sonifex also use POE, even for devices consuming more power (see the 16 channel Dante D/A converter
Sonifex AVN-AO16).
BTW, I am one of the JBL Synthesis SDP-55 owners that want to use the Dante output on that device. I went for the
Tascam ML-16D A/D-D/A-converter, using only D/A, i.e. 50% of its capabilities, of course. It has its power supply integrated, though. As of host firmware 1.44/JBL-Dante firmware 1.2, I would not yet recommend the Dante route to 'improve' things in conjunction with the SDP-55, though.
There are currently too many restrictions and limitations:
- the SDP-55 as a sender sets the transfer sampling rate, which is fixed at 48 kHz in JBL-Dante firmware 1.2. It can downsample 96 kHz, but cannot handle 44.1 or 88.2 kHz yet, so there is silence through Dante with those sampling rates.
- when changing audio streams, stopping playback or switching off the source during playback, there can be nasty noises through the speakers
- the JBL Synthesis SDP-55's Dante implementation is based on Audinate's Brooklyn II, so it should be capable of delivering lots of channels. Right now, only the 16 Zone 1 channels have been implemented though. The two additional Zone 2 channels, which are advertized on the SDP-55's website, are not available through Dante yet.
There might be more issues, but these are the ones I encountered in my use scenario, which is home theater (through a Zidoo Z9S) and occasional audio sreaming (through a Logitech Transporter). Harman support confirmed that there still is work to be done on the Dante side of the SDP-55, but the next firmware is, as of Jan 6, 2020, supposed be released in a matter of days. I am sure hoping for some improvements.
As I live in Germany, sending the Tascam for an ASR review isn't a viable option. But it would be interesting to see how it performs, especially in comparison with the AVIO adapters in this review.