Introduction • vii
©2013 Axia Audio
A Note From The Vice President of Axia
2013 marks a banner year for Axia — this year
marks the rst decade of the Connected Studio.
In retrospect, it’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years
since a start-up division of Telos grabbed everyone’s
attention with a radical idea about building radio stu-
dios using Ethernet. At a time when “state of the art”
meant discrete digital audio, and a routing switcher
was something only the richest stations could af-
ford, Axia shocked everyone with the idea that studio
peripherals from the console to the audio processor
could be networked, and that everyone could have the
benets of a routing switcher — for about a third of
the cost of traditional technology.
When we launched Axia, Telos founder Steve
Church made a prediction. “Three things will hap-
pen,” Steve told us. “First, people will say that ‘it will
never work.’ When they’re proven wrong, they’ll say
‘It works, but you don’t need that.’ And nally, as they
see Axia becoming successful, they’ll say ‘IP-Audio?
We do that too!’”
Steve, as always, was right on the money. In 10
years, Axia Livewire has become the world’s most
popular IP-Audio networking technology, and our
mixing consoles are the world’s best-selling — they’re
on-air in over 4,000 studios, and counting. You’ll nd
Axia equipment everywhere: at privately-owned sta-
tions, and large clusters run by big conglomerates. At
established public broadcasters, and at newly-licensed
International stations. At government broadcast facili-
ties, and podcast studios. Needless to say, we’re hum-
bled by the trust broadcasters place in us — and by
your enthusiasm!
Being rst with new technology is nice, but we’ve
never been content to rest on our laurels. So the Telos
R&D team continues to innovate and expand the scope
of IP-Audio. Axia consoles are the rst and only IP-
Audio consoles with a pre-congured network switch
built in, to save broadcasters the effort and expense
of procuring and programming third-party switches.
Our compact xNode AoIP interfaces feature one-but-
ton setup, and can run on mains power or Power over
Ethernet (PoE) for exibility and redundancy. We’ve
even developed our own zero-conguration Ethernet
switch for Livewire – xSwitch – to make deploying
IP-Audio easier than ever.
More than 45 Livewire partners believe in the vi-
sion of the Connected Studio too. Collectively, they
make dozens of hardware and software products
(ranging from telephone systems to audio processors
to program automation) that interoperate directly with
Axia networks via Ethernet – making the connec-
tions “smart”, and eliminating the need to purchase
audio conversion devices. We’ve also partnered with
the high-performance audio standard RAVENNA to
expand broadcasters’ networking options even further.
And there are a lot more great new ideas in the cooker
— so watch this space!
In the nal analysis, Axia’s success isn’t due to
our efforts. It’s you, the broadcast professional, who
has embraced our vision, used our technology in ways
we never dreamed of, and raved about Axia products
to everyone who’d listen. We owe you a huge debt of
thanks. And we promise to never stop trying to amaze
and delight you.
So here’s to the next 10 years.
Onward and upward!
Marty Sacks
Vice President, Axia Audio
