Dante and AES67 bandwidth calculator
How much network does your audio need, and will a 100 Mbps port do? Enter the channels on the busiest link.
Raw audio data
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Planning figure, with overhead
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Unicast flows needed (4 ch each)
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How it works
raw data = channels × sample rate × bit depth
planning figure ≈ 1.5 Mbps per channel at 48 kHz, scaled by sample rate
planning figure ≈ 1.5 Mbps per channel at 48 kHz, scaled by sample rate
One channel of 48 kHz, 24-bit audio is 1.152 Mbps of raw data. Packet headers and timing add overhead on top, so Audinate's planning guidance uses about 1.5 Mbps per channel. Sixty-four channels at 48 kHz come to roughly 96 Mbps.
The calculator uses that planning figure for 24-bit audio and scales it for 16 or 32 bits.
Field notes
- 100 Mbps tops out at about 32 × 32 channels at 48 kHz in Audinate's own guidance. Anything bigger needs gigabit, and so does anything at 96 kHz past 16 × 16.
- Flows run out before bandwidth does. A unicast flow carries up to 4 channels, and many devices can only send around 32 flows. Lots of receivers pulling the same channels can hit that limit. Multicast sends one stream to everyone who subscribes.
- Gigabit switches, everywhere, with QoS. Use gigabit for any link that carries more than a handful of channels, and set up the QoS (DSCP) priorities Audinate recommends, especially on networks shared with video or office traffic.
- Turn off Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) on switch ports carrying Dante. Its power-saving pauses can cause clock and audio dropouts.
- The busiest link is what matters. Size for the uplink between switches or the port to a big console, not the average device.