AES11 is the AES (Audio Engineering Society) standard that specifies the requirements for the synchronization of digital audio equipment.

For all equipment (audio interfaces, converters, mixing consoles) to work together without errors, they need to follow the same "timing" or "pulse". The AES11 standard defines how to create and distribute this reference pulse.

It establishes the use of DARS (Digital Audio Reference Signal), which is essentially a signal in AES/EBU (AES3) format, but which does not carry audio.

It only carries the clock information to serve as the master time reference for the entire system. By connecting all devices to this same DARS reference, it ensures that they operate at the same speed, avoiding digital problems such as clicks and pops that occur when devices lose synchronization.