A Reliable Partner: the Salzbrenner Family
20 years ago, there was a sense of a new era in the pro-audio industry. This was when the first large digital mixing consoles were developed. The first-generation systems posed a major challenge both technically and from the operator's perspective. At that time, one of the renowned German makers of audio equipment Georg Neumann KG, today known primarily as a maker of excellent microphones constructed analogue mixing consoles, some of which already had a digital user interface. However, Neumann intended to abandon their mixing-console and the development department. The highly motivated team of developers began looking for a solution which would enable them to continue working on innovative console designs. Finally, they met Friedrich Salzbrenner who together with his three sons Wolfgang, Thomas, and Stephan ran a well respected business offering comprehensive systems solutions. They seized the opportunity and jointly founded STAGETEC based in Berlin.
The Salzbrenner family acted as a partner and distributor and with good contacts in the industry, especially in the theatre market, opened many doors. When, after only four months, STAGETEC introduced the first prototype of the NEXUS audio router, it created a minor sensation. Shortly after, the very first NEXUS installation in the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum recording studio went into operation. It consisted of a small fibre-optic audio network including two NEXUS Base Devices and is still in use today!
Novel Approach
The audio router was not the sole product for long. Digital technology made it possible to make fundamental changes to system architecture since signal processing and system control could be provided by totally different elements. And so, the STAGETEC development team came up with the revolutionary idea of using the audio network with its inputs, outputs and complex routing abilities as the basis for a digital mixing console. Development of digital signal processing and an ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing user interface were the final steps on the road to achieving the goal: CANTUS was born! At the 1994 Tonmeistertagung, it received an enthusiastic welcome from the audience thanks to its intelligent design. The CANTUS consolidated STAGETEC's reputation as an innovator in professional digital audio technology
High Level of Acceptance
A few years later, the NEXUS and CANTUS systems had become accepted internationally with installations at the Kourou Space Station, the United Nations, the Kremlin, a number of Hollywood studios and countless theatres. Broadcasting is another important field. For example, more than 30 CANTUS consoles have been shipped to Italy, most of them going to the state broadcaster, RAI.
Meanwhile, the company's rented premises had become too small, so a new headquarters building was commissioned. In autumn 1999, the entire company moved to the new site in the heart of Berlin. The new company headquarters includes manufacturing production lines, well-equipped offices and workshops, various QC facilities and even a recording studio.
Great Product Family
With the transition from analogue to digital, the size of professional audio technology played an increasingly important role. Ever since the advent of multichannel audio not only the capacity of the mixing consoles' but also the audio networks' capacities have grown steadily. Several thousand inputs and outputs are no longer a rarity, so in 2000, STAGETEC introduced the NEXUS STAR, a routing node for large audio networks. The NEXUS STAR made huge waves in the audio-network market thanks to its sheer size combined with legendary reliability. This also made it a door-opener to the US market.
The equation of audio router plus DSP plus user interface equal a very efficient audio console remains true today. All CANTUS successors from the CINETRA (1997) to the AURUS (2002), the AURATUS (2006), the CRESCENDO (2009) and the ON AIR 24 (2010) are based on this design. Today, these systems are often part of a flexible mixer pool on a large network.
copyrighted by liveProduction.tv Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg
copyrighted by liveProduction.tv Baltic Philharmonie Danzig
copyrighted by liveProduction.tv Bolschoi Theatre in Moscow
copyrighted by liveProduction.tv Vogtlandhalle Greiz
copyrighted by liveProduction.tv Qatar National Convention Theatre Doha
In the meantime, the developers worked continuously on innovative detail improvements: From the then-standard 18-bit converter they developed the most powerful audio converter in the world: the patented TrueMatch 32-bit converter (since 1996). New functions were added for example, the user-programmable Logic Control (2004) for even tighter systems integration; the SDI embedder/de-embedder featuring sample-rate converters for processing audio from asynchronous video streams (2004); and the Dolby-E encoder and Decoder to ensure seamless Dolby-E multichannel-audio workflows (2008/09). At the same time, software and hardware have evolved continuously. Latest developments include the implementation of Loudness Metering (2011) on each NEXUS and the close cooperation with Audinate which resulted in the integration of the Dante system (2012).
Awards Galore
With analogue mixing console technology users, especially German public service broadcasters, place considerable emphasis on the highest technical quality. On the other hand, the appearance of the majority of mixing solutions used to suggest that they had come straight out of an engineering research lab. STAGETEC deliberately departed from this well trodden path, right from the beginning. The user interface of the first CANTUS console was designed by tonmeister and STAGETEC co-founder Harald Klaus in collaboration with an i
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
A Reliable Partner: the Salzbrenner Family
