News From The Mothership

Klark Teknik has just issued a press release announcing their purchase of the SuperMAC and HyperMAC audio networking business assets from Sony Oxford. SuperMAC technology is the basis of Audio Engineering Society standard "AES50-2005: AES standard for digital audio engineering - High-resolution multi-channel audio interconnection. Klark Teknik will promote the use of AES50, SuperMAC and HyperMAC and license the use of the technology. Support for existing licensees will transfer from Sony Oxford to Klark Teknik. Compliance with the Audio Engineering Society patent policy will be unaffected. Klark Teknik will additionally seek standardisation for the HyperMAC technology.

SuperMAC and HyperMAC together create a high-performance audio interconnection and routing system, designed for a wide range of professional audio applications.

• Single cable duplex interconnection for audio and sample clocks
• SuperMAC offers up to 48 audio channels bi-directionally over CAT5 cable
• HyperMAC offers up to 384 channels bi-directionally over CAT5/6 or fibre
• Ultra-low fully deterministic latency
• Comprehensive error detection and management
• Ethernet physical layer audio data transmission
• Ethernet TCP/IP protocol compatible auxiliary data channel

As well as licensing the technology, Klark Teknik will be launching a range of products using this networking technology, beginning with the DN9696 High Resolution 96 track/96 kHz live performance audio recorder to be previewed at PLASA 07. Further product announcements from 3rd parties are expected shortly.

Ok - so why is this such big news and why should you care?

SuperMAC and HyperMAC are used extensively in the revolutionary Midas XL8 digital mixing console, that we have been reporting on regularly, to provide a highly flexible audio routing and distribution network. It's the communication backbone responsible for he superior performence of the Midas XL8. Now that they no longer have to license the technology from Sony (read - pay a license fee) we can expect to see a host of new affordable digital mixers and other products from Midas. Now thats great news.