Audio Over Ethernet

In audio engineering and broadcast engineering, Audio over Ethernet (sometimes AoE - not to be confused with ATA over Ethernet) is the use of an Ethernet-based network to distribute real-time digital audio.

It is designed to replace bulky snake cables and fixed wiring, and instead use a standard network structured cabling in a facility, providing a reliable backbone for any audio application, such as for large-scale sound reinforcement in stadiums, airports and convention centers, multiple studios or stages.

While on the surface AoE bears a resemblance to Voice over IP (VoIP), AoE is intended for high-fidelity, low-latency professional audio. Because of the fidelity and latency constraints, audio over Ethernet systems generally do not utilize audio data compression. AoE systems use a much higher bit rate (typically 1 Mbit per channel) and much lower latency (typically less than 10 milliseconds) than VoIP.

Audio over Ethernet requires a high performance network. Performance requirements may be met through use of a dedicated local-area network (LAN) or virtual LAN (VLAN), Overprovisioning and/or Quality of service features.

Most AoE systems use proprietary protocol(s) (at the higher OSI layers) which create data packets and data frames that are transmitted directly onto the Ethernet (layer 2) for efficiency and reduced overhead. The word clock may be provided by broadcast packets.