Patent 7987224 was granted and assigned to Yamaha Corporation on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In the case where an audio network system that performs transport of audio signals between a plurality of processors is constructed such that the plurality of processors each including two sets of transmission I/Fs and reception I/Fs are connected in series, and a TL frame generated by a master node is circulated along a ring transmission route formed among the processors in each fixed period, the TL frame including a plurality of storage regions for audio signals, when one of the processors is required to be the master node, the one processor resets in sequence processors which are connected on both sides thereof and processors behind the processors connected on both sides to once remove each of those processors from a ring transmission route if it belong to any ring transmission route, then incorporates the processors into a ring transmission route in which the one processor belongs to.