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 Looking
Back: Axia's First Year
One year ago, Telos Systems announced the
formation of a new division named Axia, specializing in
audio-over-Ethernet. One year later, we sat down with Michael
“Catfish” Dosch, President of Axia, to talk about what that first
year held and what’s on tap for the next year.
Mike, new companies always start out with high
hopes. Was Axia's first year as good as expected?
It was much better than we expected! We figured the
first year would be endless demonstrations, presentations and
maybe a few sales. We did do a lot of demos and seminars, but we
also took a lot more orders than anticipated. Many broadcasters
tell us that "IP-Audio is the future", and they’ve either already
purchased or are planning to purchase Axia products soon.
How has the broadcast community reacted to the idea of
IP-Audio? It's pretty revolutionary tech.
Reactions vary among individual broadcasters, of course,
but generally, the early adopters - broadcasters who are eager to embrace
new ideas and technologies - have been the most excited about Axia. An
interesting segment that may surprise you is broadcasters with tight
budgets. They tell us they like Axia because it allows them to enjoy
high-end features that, previously, only the richest stations could afford
— for about half the investment.
Of course, there are many broadcasters who are skeptical or
unaware of the benefits of IP -Audio. We've still got work to do to prove
to all broadcasters that this tech is the best way to build studios.
 There have been some high-profile Axia installations in
this first year. Care to tell us about them?
We've built dozens of studio projects this year, from very
small to quite large. We have just as much fun working with a
college
radio station like WEGL as we do at a commercial station like
in Riga, Latvia, or helping to install a huge multi-studio facility for a
It’s quite a privilege to have stations entrust
us with their studio audio.
So how are those first Axia installations doing?
Great. Several stations have been on the air with Axia for
more than a year now, and all of our users tell us the system is
rock-solid! You can imagine that most clients are pretty happy when their
installations come together in a fraction of the time that other digital
solutions would require. The simplicity and power of Ethernet never fails
to impress.
What was the most unique Axia application you observed?
A large consumer electronics company is using Axia to test
their audio products; they send various audio test signals into nodes that
feed products undergoing stress testing in an environmental chamber. But
most folks don't have such unusual applications. Most of our clients are
building broadcast studios and choose Axia as a routing switcher, a
console, a soundcard replacement, or all of the above.
What questions do engineers ask most about Axia?
"Will I experience audio dropouts? Won't there be a lot of
delay? Do you need to be an IT expert to hook this up? Do you have a
smaller control surface?" The answers, by the way, are "No, no, no and
yes." Let me explain.
First, Axia networks are fully duplexed and non-blocking,
so there are no collisions or dropped packets like people used to
experience with older, non-duplexed Ethernet networks. The technology that
makes reliable, precision networked audio possible is the
Ethernet switch.
 Second, delay isn’t a problem because Livewire is designed
for mic-to-headphone monitoring in broadcast applications, with
total
input to output time of about 2.75ms. To put that in perspective, a
high-end, non-networked, digital console from a major manufacturer is
1.75ms.
As to IT expertise, installing, configuring and maintaining
an Axia system is incredibly simple whether you’re an IT expert or a
newbie. And lastly, yes, we are now offering
Were there any first-year challenges?
Surprisingly few. We spent a lot of time refining the
technology in our labs before we brought it to market, so those first
clients, who may have been hoping for an adventure, only experienced
boringly stable products. I'd say our biggest challenge was building
products fast enough for some of our more eager clients, but that's a fun
problem to solve.
I've noticed quite a bit of "disinformation" regarding
IP-Audio from Axia's competitors. How do you respond?
Usually with a chuckle! When VoIP phone systems began to
emerge, I doubt that the companies who built PBX products said "Hey, that
VoIP stuff is great and it works better than our stuff and costs half as
much." Does anyone really expect to hear a truthful, unbiased opinion from
a company with a vested interest in the old tech?
We think broadcasters are smart enough to come to their own
conclusions. Engineers with questions about our tech shouldn’t just take
our word for it — or our competitors'. We urge interested broadcasters to
talk to Axia users. The people who use the gear are the best equipped to
tell you how well it works.
 Last year, you mentioned some new Axia products in
development: a scalable control surface, more DSP-based features in the
StudioEngine, new software applications. How did that go?
Like clockwork. We showed
at NAB; it has built-in mic processing and some other nice new features.
The
was also introduced at NAB, and we’ve
already taken several large orders. Element builds on the success of
SmartSurface and adds some new capabilities, like the ability to mix
surround or stereo audio. A station that’s planning on doing HD Radio (tm) can
use Element for stereo programming now, and be confident that they're
ready for discrete surround or anything else HD Radio might throw at them.
And we launched a new PC utility called iPlay, which allows any ordinary
PC to listen to any Livewire audio stream. Of course, we've got more new
product ideas in the pipeline...
Axia recently added more technology partners whose
products work directly with Livewire. Any more coming?
Yes. Pristine Systems and OMT [iMediaTouch – Ed.] are now
offering the Axia IP-Audio driver in their products so that their delivery
systems can send digital audio to Axia audio systems
without soundcards.
We’ve also just finished evaluating
BE's Big Pipe Ethernet radio and have
certified it as Livewire-capable. And we’re talking to more companies
about licensing our technology and/or making compatible products. Readers
can check our “Partners” page on the Axia website to see what’s up.
Cool. So what's on tap for Axia's second year?
More partners, more products, but best of all, more
interesting clients. After putting Axia through an extended evaluation,
Minnesota Public Radio has chosen Axia to equip the new studios they’ll be
building later this year. And there are lots more projects in the works.
Thanks for your time, Catfish.
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