Could it ever be considered? If you have Sennheiser and Shure gain control, and DT168 Gain control, could other devices ever be supported like Yamaha does?
I would love to use the Directout Prodigy.MC HD preamps over dante.
You have Dante preamp control on the Consoles when you use A&H Dante devices.
You don’t have preamp control of non-A&H Dante devices (like Yamaha Dante devices) because of the way the Dante standard is written. It does not provide a standard for “control” data like preamp settings. Therefore every manufacture has to add their own control data on top of the Dante Standard. Companies use their own protocols to send this data which are generally not compatible with each other. This isn’t an A&H problem/limitation - it is a Dante problem/limitation.
The only way a manufacture can support the control protocols of another manufacture is if they partner with the other companies to offer this flexibility. You specifically mentioned Yamaha in your post. Their consoles don’t magically communicate this extra control data with all Dante devices. They still have this same restrictions when it comes to preamp data and other control data. If their system works with another brand’s Dante device to provide this extra control data, it is because Yamaha has a partnership with that company to provide the data.
Could A&H work with other manufactures to create relationships that would allow integration with their Dante products? Obviously the answer is yes. But that is a lot more involved than just adding a little programming into the system. The programming is obviously going to be required, but it is the permission to use another manufacturer’s proprietary data protocols that is the sticking point.
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I doubt they need permission to recognize someone else’s protocol, but A&H probably wouldn’t want to support it without an agreement with them to get a heads up WRT upcoming changes in that protocol.
That’s what I think too.
If A&H was able to reverse engineer someone else’s protocol, they probably wouldn’t have any copyright issues. However without some agreement with that company, any change the other company would make to their protocol could easily “break” A&H integration and A&H would have to reverse engineer the protocol again to see what changed before they could implement a fix. That fix would have to be released in a future firmware release as well, which can also take time. That’s clearly not a stable or feasible solution.
On the other hand, it A&H did have an agreement with another company to use their command protocol, that company should notify A&H of any pending change with plenty of leadtime to ensure A&H could come up with a patch and schedule a release to coincide with the other company’s release/change.
It’s clear to see that the only reliable way for A&H to implement something like this is with formal agreements with the other companies.
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