Milan: Networked AV System Architecture
Created and maintained by Pro Audio market leaders in the Avnu Alliance®, Milan™ is a standards-based deterministic network protocol for real time media. Milan Certification assures devices will work together for maximum convenience, reliability, and functionality.
Milan: Deterministic Network Protocol for Professional Media
Everything will be networked
Audiences expect rich, immersive experiences from live sound and other commercial AV applications. Ethernet is the enabling technology that allows us to deliver those experiences – the network should not be a competitive market or a bottleneck for innovation..
What’s more, as the network becomes the de facto standard infrastructure for real-time media, it must always work – it should be easy, reliable and future-ready.
The Manufacturer's Network
Recognizing a collective need to build on open standards accepted by the broader IT industry, AV manufacturers invested their brightest technical knowledge, expertise, and strategic resources to create Milan.
Milan offers exceptional performance, reliability, and ease-of use for the industry's most demanding applications. Built on the Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards maintained by IEEE as part of Ethernet, Milan fulfills manufacturers' exacting requirements for their own products as well as customer demands. This is the industry's strongest networking foundation for the long term.
Members
Leading AV and IT Manufacturers are Making Milan Together
Key Features of Milan Include
Seamless Interoperability Amongst Devices
Every device will connect with any other device using a variety of agreed-upon formats and market-required definitions in the protocol. Milan adds essential agreements about the implementation of TSN technology, including requirements for compatible and compliant media formats, media-clocking, redundancy, and controller software, while ensuring those requirements are implemented correctly through compliance testing and certification of end devices.
Milan is not just enabling network connectivity; it is the grid to build on for the future.
Guaranteed and Easy-to-Use, Every Time
Milan's deterministic network assures on-time, reliable delivery that can co-exist with other Ethernet traffic without risk of drop-outs or degradation of media. Milan is also highly scalable and flexible, with no switch configuration or IT expertise required, along with enhanced time alignment features to make both setup and use of Milan devices a breeze. And because Milan works with any Avnu-certified switch, end users have a broad, certified interoperable ecosystem of devices to choose from.
Milan brings both technical and usage benefits to any end user.
Designed for Evolution
Avnu Alliance and the members who created Milan are committed to supporting it for future products and long-lasting implementations. Milan is built on IEEE open standards, allowing more hardware options and supporting any type of media – now and for generations to come.
Milan is an evolving, long-term, viable, and durable network.
For the Industry, by the Industry
Created by the best audio manufacturers in the world, in deep cooperation with other industries such as automotive and industrial, Milan creates a link between the AV, IT and silicon industries. The live sound industry's top engineers and strategic thinkers built Milan to be the network for a fully converged future.
Milan is the technical AND business decision for the leaders in live sound.
Milan Device Certifications
Milan device certification guarantees interoperability between Milan devices and any Avnu-Certified switches.
Avnu Alliance members can submit audio end products for Milan Certification testing through the Milan Advanced Certification Program.
The Milan Advanced Certification Program is the first of its kind in the AV industry: an open, third-party, independent certification for real-time media networking, now advanced for a more streamlined user experience.
Download this one-pager to learn more about Milan Advanced Certification Program and Avnu Express Test Tools
Authorized certification test labs around the world have been licensed to perform the robust Milan test scripts, ensuring compliance with the specification, and guaranteeing device interoperability. Benefits of this globally-scaled Advanced Certification program include:
- Fast, easy, and convenient certification testing for all Milan end devices
- Global access, with test houses around the world
- Competitive pricing
- Product development optimization and pre-certification conformance validation using the low-cost Avnu Express Test Tool
- Seamless and transparent Certification Management System allowing real-time visibility into testing progress, conformance issues, and results And more!.
Frequently Asked Questions
Milan at Work
Live sound audio engineering is one of the most challenging jobs in the AV industry. The audio network cannot fail, and often must be deployed in a matter of days or even hours. There can't be any guesswork when there is so much on the line. In touring systems, live-sound installations, and projects across the globe, Milan has been proven to make live sound networks more reliable, easier to operate, and faster to deploy.
L-Acoustics – Miami Ultrafest
L-Acoustics – Miami Ultrafest
For more than two decades, huge crowds have gathered at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami at the tail end of March for Ultra Music Festival, a massive three-day party with the world’s hottest and biggest EDM artists providing the live playlist. As the culmination of the annual Winter Music Conference and Miami Music Week, the festival has long flown L-Acoustics loudspeakers on a number of its stages. But this year marked the first time Unreal-Systems/AgorÀ USA was tasked with providing audio for the Main Stage, and the company deployed an enormous K1-based rig to keep the nightly crowd of 55,000 dancing.
Power was exclusively delivered by LA12X amplified controllers housed in LA-RAK II touring racks, and all signals were routed using the Milan-AVB protocol via P1 processors and LS10 switches.
Meyer Sound – Dead & Company Tour
Dead & Company’s 2022 Summer Tour, which kicked off in June at Dodge Stadium in Los Angeles, was supported by a reinforcement system headed by Meyer Sound’s new PANTHER large-format line array loudspeaker. PANTHER is the first line array system to offer AVB Milan™ protocol network connection directly to the loudspeaker cabinet.
The band’s 2022 tour proceeds eastward with 20 shows scheduled in 16 cities, wrapping up at Citi Field in New York on July 16. Of the tour venues, four are Major League Baseball stadiums, one an NFL stadium, and one college football stadium, with the balance at larger sheds.
Meyer Sound – Dead & Company Tour
L-ACOUSTICS – PEARL Laboratory
L-ACOUSTICS – PEARL Laboratory
PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory) is a massive space in which you can create life-sized environments – a railway station, high street, town square – to examine how people interact with the environment and other people in these types of places. Audio has arguably the most important role to play in convincing participants that the environmental role they’re playing is realistic. PEARL’s technical services manager, Joe Boxshall, chose to use L-Acoustics’ L-ISA spatial audio technology for this reason.
Boxshall describes PEARL as “a real showcase” for Milan-AVB, being the networking element of the L-Acoustics solution. “With the Milan-AVB protocol,” he says, “as long as you’ve got some fibre to patch to, you can plug in anywhere in this building and it will work. It provides the ultimate flexibility: if I’ve got amplifiers here, I’ve got speakers. This comes from our world of theatres and concert halls where we’re used to having to run around and re-plug things.”
L-ACOUSTICS – GrandWest Casino
In South Africa’s second-most populous city, GrandWest is home to various dining establishments, an ice rink, and the renowned Grand Arena—a 5,000 capacity multi-purpose venue that has played host to world-famous acts such as Bryan Adams, Sting, James Blunt, Rammstein, and Kylie Minogue. In 2020, the venue underwent a complete refit of its PA system, with L-Acoustics K Series chosen for its ability to fulfill international touring riders and deliver the highest quality audio for many years to come.
System processing is via two of LP1 processors, with four LS10 switches providing the highest quality Milan-AVB signal distribution to the LA12X and LA4X amplified controllers powering the system. Two DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles with two SD-Racks fitted with 32-Bit cards handle mixing duties.
L-ACOUSTICS – GrandWest Casino
L-Acoustics outdoor amphitheater
L-Acoustics – Hollywood Bowl
JWinner of 13 consecutive Pollstar Awards for Outstanding Outdoor Venue since 2004, Hollywood Bowl is the summer home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has been LA's signature live-music venue for nearly a century. A Milan/AVB system was installed in 2018, including 18 AVB (and Milan)-ready L-Acoustics LA12X and ten LA4X amplified controllers, completely refreshing and updating the Bowl's power infrastructure, and optimizing the performance of its K1/Kara system.
"What the new amplified controllers also do is bring a new level of authority to the sound of the system. There has been a noticeable improvement in resolution and fidelity to the system since we installed them before our current season began. The sound, which was always great through the K1 system, is now spectacular."
Meyer Sound – Avicii Tribute Concert
A crowd of more than 58,000 gathered at the Avicii tribute concert at Friends Arena, in Stockholm, Sweden, in December 2019. System optimization and drive was supplied by 16 Meyer Sound GALAXY 816 and three GALAXY 816-AES3 processors linked via an AVB network running the Milan protocol.
As for the AVB network and Milan protocol, there wasn't much to say, according to Audio Systems Tech Anton Söderberg. "It's been rock solid," he said. "Everything pops up on the screen and works like it's supposed to."
Meyer Sound – massive concert arena
Ed Sherran Tour
MEYER SOUND – ED SHEERAN TOUR
More than 80,000 Irish fans attended Ed Sheeran’s two shows in late April 2022 at Dublin’s Croke Park Stadium. Sheeran’s fourth world tour also marked the global premiere of Meyer Sound’s new PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeaker. Supplied by U.K.-based Major Tom, Ltd. and suspended from daringly conceived mast and cable net rigging, the system was anchored by 212 PANTHER loudspeakers. The Dublin shows also were the first anywhere to deploy a Milan protocol AVB network from FOH mix all the way to the loudspeaker cabinets.
The primary, Milan Certified GALAXY 816 Network Platform at FOH connects to a Milan End Point (MEP) network, configured as a star topology, which consists of one GALAXY 816 platform, three GALAXY 408 platforms, and 20 Luminex Gigacore 26i switches. As failover backup, the always-active parallel analog inputs were connected via a primary and secondary redundant Milan network with dedicated GALAXY units.
L-Acoustics & Multiple Members – YouTube Theater
Opened in 2021, the YouTube Theater is a 6000-seat live performance space in Inglewood, California. The audio system leverages a Milan AVB audio network made up of L-Acoustics P1, LA12X, LA2Xi, as well as a Meyer Sound GALAXY and Luminex switches.
Who's Talking About Milan
How to Get Involved
Avnu Alliance is a platform where like-minded companies can collaborate.
Members of Avnu Alliance and Pro AV leaders have come together to collectively create the network they needed – one that is easy-to-use, open for creativity, scalable across markets, and delivers a convergence between audio, video and control with IT on one network.
This kind of collaboration amongst competitors to develop Milan couldn't have occurred without the framework provided by Avnu Alliance. Membership in Avnu gives manufacturers a voice to collectively define the market requirements to meet their unique development needs for a fully realized professional AV network solution.
Avnu members are able to submit products to the Milan Advanced Certification Program and they get access to the Avnu Express Test Tool, the new CMS, test plans, plugfests and more.
Click here to learn more and become a member
Avnu Alliance Member Benefits
Avnu Promoter
Have a voice and a vote in the future of TSN ecosystem
Avnu Adopter
Develop and implement using Avnu standards.
Milan Associate
Submit products to Advanced Milan Certification Program.