Outline GTO Line Array Series Featured at InfoComm

Outline is showing GTO (Grand Touring Outline) Series of line array speakers at InfoComm 2011 (Booth #683). GTO, the company says, is a unique combination of high power output in a compact and relatively lightweight cabinet featuring Outline's patented Butterfly design. The cabinets deliver clear, non-colored, high SPL audio capable of bringing listening environment quality to the live event experience, the company adds. The first to adopt GTO was the band Slightly Stoopid, who played through the GTO while on tour at the 2010 Mile High Music Festival. The band's production management insisted GTO systems be used for the upcoming 2011 summer tour and it be supplied by Dowlen Sound.

"Every show that has used GTO line array speakers has enjoyed superior quality audio, covering the full audio spectrum at levels designed to envelope the audience in sound," says Tom Bensen, senior vice-president and managing director of Outline North America. "Each year brings new levels of quality to the live sound market through great sounding consoles and power amplifiers, controlled by sophisticated system software. With GTO, the last link in the audio chain can actually deliver that quality to the audience, even in a large stadium or outdoor venue. GTO is definitely the next step in advanced speaker design."

Building on the engineering legacy of the original Butterfly system launched in 2002, GTO benefits from a process of natural evolution that retains the basic design principles, proven within the Butterfly product, and expands them into a new system that provides greater SPL, more control, improved resolution, faster transient response and unrivalled uniformity in long distance sound projection, the company says.

When coupled in an array, GTO's unique V-shaped front baffle allows individual sound sources to be positioned much closer together than in conventional line-source systems. This facilitates superior acoustical coupling between high-frequency modules, thus producing a smooth yet extended HF response. It also creates the ideal "unbroken baffle" shape through an array which minimizes diffraction and deterioration of the mid-high frequencies, contributing to the far-field performance of the system. A GTO line array system is capable of delivering a true visceral response to the audience while maintaining clarity, the company says.

Each cabinet offers 10 loudspeakers housed in a compact case that yields a very large surface area of sound-producing elements that guarantees phase coherence between component groups at the exit point of the cabinet. Each cabinet weighs just 212lbs, yet still delivers extremely high SPLs. The design contains a number of weight-saving components, but the greatest contribution to this success was the use of a space-age aluminum alloy from the aerospace industry for the integrated flying hardware in preference to steel. This innovation reduces the per-cabinet weight of the hardware by 66-percent, yet is strong enough to fly up to 24 GTO cabinets with a total weight of 2.36 tons.

Each cabinet offers four double parabolic reflective waveguide devices each driven by a 3" diaphragm (1.4" throat) compression driver to cover the high frequency range. The critical mid frequency section, covering the 200Hz to 1kHz range, delivers superior electro-acoustic transduction coherence to yield the midrange punch so lacking in other designs, the company says. Both the midrange and high frequency bands exit the GTO cabinet through the same 90-degree horizontal dispersion waveguide. The low frequency section features two 15" cone transducers designed to produce articulation and dynamic response in the 50Hz to 200Hz range. Each cabinet offers an integrated splay angle panel to make adjustments between cabinets and is available with the GTO main flying frame capable of handling up to 24 cabinets. The GTO series rounds out with the GTO-LOW bass extension cabinet and the LAB 21 HS Infra-Low, 21-inch subwoofer. Four GTO cabinets mounted together are capable of producing 150 SPL.