I work in audio engineering, and while this is more of a slow burn, I think we’re about to see a new generation of digitally enabled audio equipment hit the market. Audio-over-IP has been in use for a while now, but has been quite expensive, and adoption has been somewhat spotty. We’re heading out of the chip shortage and shipping crisis, and that excites me.
My mixer for sure! An Allen & Heath SQ5, with two dx168 stageboxes. It runs a proprietary AoIP protocol, but it’s SO easy to connect! The flexibility in routing is huge.
This mixer isn’t new, but it seems indicative of what might be to come. It’s a little expensive, (for what it is or honestly isn’t though) but I truly believe we’re overdue for a mixer with these capabilities for less. Or one for the same that does more. In price vs performance the X32 outperforms this, and nothing has touched that spot since its release, but that can’t last forever.
The school i attend has some more cutting edge stuff that’s more indicative of the future: stageboxes and monitor mixes run on the same network as the rest of the building, so I can connect them at any Ethernet plug in the building and get the same signal, it’s so cool!