System concept

CTRL: The system controller is the central control unit of the Inton system and is connected to other parts of the system installation via IP-network. In most use cases only one or two controllers are needed per installation. It supports one AL3-line that can drive 40 audio modules.

LINK: The AL3-IP-Link connects an AL3-chain with the IP-network. It allows to add 40 more audio modules to the installation. You can have as many Link devices as you want.

TCS: Touch-Call-Station is a call station console with a touch display, that is connected to the system via IP-network.

AL3: Al3 stands for "Low-Latency-Audio-Link". It is a fast audio connection with a bandwidth of 64 channels of uncompressed audio (24bit/48kHz) with a maximum latency of 0,1ms over the whole Al3-chain. In additio to audio transport, there are also control signals transmitted over Al3.

A: The analog audio module features eight analog audio inputs and outputs. It is one of the modules that are chainable via AL3 and allows you to add as many analog inputs and outputs to the installation as you need.

PAC: The power amplifier controller allows you to integrate a four-channel 100V-amplifier into the installation and monitors it. The PAC is chainable via AL3 which gives you the power to add as many amp channels to the system as you like. Note: the four 100V-outputs of the PAC do not have a line relais. If you need line-relais (i.e. because you want to share one amp-channel between multiple lines) we are currently developing a separate relais module for that purpose that allows you to flexibly do that and also to do hot replacement of amplifier chanels in the failure case (amp backup).

AES: The AES-EBU module allows you to connect up to four AES-EBU call stations into the system. The AES module is chainable via AL3 practically allowing you to add all the call stations you need to the installation.

Efficient cabling with the new AL3 bus

Inton ist highly modular and still very simple to install. The innovative high-speed audio bus AL3 allows to use standard network cables to interconnect between system modules in a "daisy chain fashion". If you wonder how AL3 differs from other popular audio distribution network solutions like Dante, you should note that AL3 does not require costly network switches and no IP-addresses. This means you can have a lot of modules without having to worry about IP addresses and if that weren't already cool enough the modules on the AL3-bus are self organizing. It means that it does not matter at all in what order the components are chained, they will always work just like they were configured to. This is very important if you want to be able to to hot exchange of faulty components while keeping the rest of the network live.

The cost effective and simple cabling is what really empowers the highly modular system design. In turn, the fine grained modularisation has a positive effect on the installation cost because there is always just the right amount of inputs and outputs, call stations and amplifier channels.

AL3 can span up to 100m between modules using CAT5-cable (resulting in a max. AL3-chain length of 4km). If you use media converters and fiberglass cable the distance between two AL3 modules can be multiple kilometres which makes the AL3-bus very attractive for tunnels, train lines and other geographically widely spread installations.

Note that the AL3-bus is particularly well suited for tunnel installations, where you usually have amplifiers that are installed at constant distances throughout the tunnel which have to send audio with an individual delay on each channel, that is entirely depending on the position of the speaker in the tunnel, in order to avoid acoustic interferences like audio cancellation.

Even if you go to the maximum number of modules per bus, AL3 guarantees sample-synchronous audio accross all these modules. The delay between the two ends of the chain is always below 0,1 milliseconds, which is significantly below what human hearing can differentiate.

Decentralized installation

Inton uses standard Ethernet cable (i.e. CAT5) for connecting its components. This allows a decentralized system installation where one or many components are broken out via AL3 or LAN/WAN.

Since AL3 is IP layer 1 it must not be routed over conventional switches. This means that the AL3-chains can not share the same cable installation as the rest of the IT. This can be a blessing because the IT can not influence the audio installation and vice verca. But sometimes it is not feasible to pull in extra cables for AL3, so we provide an alternative way of decentralized installation that makes use of existing IT cabling: Wherever the audio has to be routed over a conventional IP network with routers and switches you can convert AL3 via the AL3-IP-Link modules to an IP audio stream. Of course the ultra-low latency can not be kept up over switches and routers.

Break out modules over AL3 if pulling a separate cable is easily possible or if there is no existing IP-infrastructure. The advantage of AL3 is that you don't need any switches at all.

To break out modules over IP-network (LAN / WAN) makes sense, if the network should be shared with IT components or if it would not be economically feasible to pull separate cables for the audio.

Energy efficiency

Inton is designed to be energy efficient. Saving energy is not only good for the planet, it also reduces costs for cooling (rack climatization) as well as for emergency power supply batteries. The latter are not to be underestimated as a significant cost driver of a public address installation, which has to guarantee up to 72 hours of standby after a power outage.

In case of a power outage a small Inton installation consisting of a controller, an AL3-Link a PAC and a 4-channel amplifier can run in standby mode for 144 hours with only two standard 12V car batteries. If running in normal operation mode the same installation would still last 72 hours with the same batteries.

In other words, with Inton two standard car batteries (connected in series to provide 24V) can power an installation size of 12 speaker lines for 72 hours in standby mode.

The larger the installation, the more batteries have to be included. They need space, have to be maintained and eventually replaced after some time. That is why a highly energy efficient public address system saves you money not only with initial installation cost but also over the whole lifetime of the building.

Fine-grained modularity equals excellent scalability

Thanks to its high degree of modularization, the Inton system scales very well for both small as well has big installations. This means that you get just the right amount of inputs and outputs simply by adding AL3-modules accordingly. By adding a many AL3-Links which each support 40 modules you can create installations with a huge amount of amplifier channels, call stations, analog inputs and outputs etc.

This kind of scalability can be an enormous cost advantage against other less modularized systems, which for instance require another system controller for every four amplifier channels you want to add or even worse, a new controller for every four call stations you want to add. With Inton you never need to buy extra hardware you don't need just to get the right amount of lines, call stations or inputs/outputs.

The system illustrated above already is huge, but it is not even close to the limits of system size. To add another 40 modules of any kind to the installation just add another Al3-Link. So much for scaling up, but Inton also scales down quite good: