Welcome to SANE

Most AV standards live behind paywalls. You need memberships in multiple organizations just to read the specs for a typical install. That’s not how engineering infrastructure should work.

SANE — the Society for AV Norms & Engineering — is an open alternative. All our standards are published under Creative Commons, developed in public on GitHub, and free for anyone to read, implement, or improve.

What’s live right now

• Standards — The first drafts are in the RFC pipeline. You can read, comment, and propose amendments.
• AV Glossary — Plain-language definitions for AV terminology, growing steadily.
• Equipment Database — Open, community-maintained specs for real-world AV gear.
• Engineering Tools — Free calculators for throw ratios, SPL, cable loss, and more.
• Deep Dives — Technical explorations on AV topics, published as issues are posted and PRs are merged.

How to get involved

Everything happens on GitHub. You can propose a standard, improve a glossary entry, submit equipment data, or write a deep dive. The RFC process is open and runs on rough consensus — if you’ve got an idea, open an issue.

What we’re not

SANE isn’t trying to replace every existing standard. Some specs are well-engineered and widely adopted, and where they exist, we’ll reference them. What we’re building is the layer that’s missing: a community home for standards that should exist but don’t, and for standards that exist but shouldn’t be locked behind membership fees.

This is still early. The first standards are in draft, the glossary has room to grow, and every new contributor makes a measurable difference. If you’ve ever wished for a spec you could just pull up and use without a corporate credit card, you’re exactly who this is for.