The AVN-Portal series is a group of three units (AVN-PA8, AVN-PD8& AVN-PM8) capable of audio routing, metering and equalisation. They provide broadcast quality audio communication between studios, offices and different areas in a facility or building complex. Communication between products is via AoIP allowing simple CAT 5 cabling and expansion, whilst using RAVENNA (AES67 standard), they advertise streams using Avahi/Bonjour and SAP. The AVN-PM8 is one of the three portals in the suite.

The AVN-PM8 has 8 x mic/line inputs and 8 x stereo line outputs on D-type sockets with AES59 analogue pinout, paralleled with 8 x RJ45 connectors using StudioHub® pinout. +48V phantom power is available for each microphone input with a red LED presence indication. There is an adjustable input and output gain/trim and an additional mic pre-amp gain adjustment for each mic input.

The key to the success of the AVN-PM8 is the mix matrix where physical inputs can be freely mixed and routed with AES67 streams in a simple and intuitive way to both physical outputs and AES67 streams, whilst also adding DSP functions (e.g. gain) at inputs, outputs and cross-points. The units can stream RAVENNA, AES67 or AES67-enabled Dante® (using SAP) AoIP connected streams.

The AVN-PM8 can be supplied with different front and rear panels: As standard it has a front panel display to show product information and for editing basic IP functionality and they use XLRs and D-types for rear panel connectivity.

The ‘D’ version (e.g. AVN-PM8D) has a front panel input and output metering on 2 bright TFT displays. Metering can show as one of 9 different metering scales and there is a summary view of all input channels with a detailed view of any selected stereo pair. Phase metering is also displayed per stereo channel.

The ‘T’ version portals (e.g. AVN-PM8T) uses rear panel terminal block connectors for all physical inputs and outputs.

The rear panel contains IEC mains and secondary DC power inputs which provide power redundancy to the product. There are two Ethernet RJ45 connections (control and AoIP) and there is an Ethernet SFP module that, when used, replaces the AoIP RJ45 connection.

Webserver Software

For remote operation and monitoring, the units can be controlled using Ember+ commands. A rear panel GPIO connector provides 10 local ports which can be user configured as inputs or outputs and provide software controlled functionality. A voltage free relay contact can be used to operate external equipment. There are virtual GPIO ports which can be used to trigger events over the network and SNMP is also supported.
A built-in responsive web server provides complete configuration & control of the unit including matrix mixing and routing, and also allows for firmware updates and configuration backup.

The AVN-PM8 can also be combined with multiple AVN-HA1 headphone amplifiers to provide a headphone distribution system – the portal output connections can supply analogue power to satellite headphone amplifiers.