The newest member of Outline’s GTO (Grand Touring Outline) Series of line array speakers is the GTO-DF front fill speaker.
The waveguide was designed at the request of Jason Farah, co-owner and VP of Special Event Services, who identified the need to address the issue of downfill coverage from a new perspective. Outline’s engineering team designed a superior solution to simply tagging on an Outline Mantas speaker to the bottom of the array. The GTO-DF, with its purpose built horn and acoustic lens, claims ‘accurate performance’ within the form factor of a GTO array. Special Event Services was one of the first companies to adopt the GTO Line Array system and the first to use the GTO-DF with simultaneous debuts of the cabinet on both the Darius Rucker Tour and ZZ Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd Tour, both with desired effect.
‘The GTO-DF made all the difference in the world,’ says Farah. ‘The coverage was exactly as the Outline 3-D Open Array prediction software envisioned and the sound was magnificent. Plus, it’s the same footprint and hardware as the rest of the GTO family, so it made flying the rig so much simpler.’
GTO-DF uses Outline’s acoustic lens aperture gradually flaring out downward. The GTO-DF offers four 8-inch mid-woofers and two 3-inch compression drivers (the standard GTO line array cabinet features ten speakers with two 15-inch woofers, four 8-inch mid-woofers and four 3-inch compression drivers). GTO-DF is mechanically compatible with GTO, so it can be easily added to a flying array. Unique to the GTO-DF is a vertical dispersion range of zero-degrees to -25° to ensure precision aiming of the sound into the audience and not onto the stage. The exclusive waveguide offers 120° coverage from 315Hz-17.5kHz.
The GTO-DF, a bi-amped system, can handle 800W AES and 3.2kW peak for the mid-woofer section covering 200Hz-1kHz range. The high-frequency section handles 250W AES and 1kW peak, covering a 1kHz-17.5kHz range. The cabinets weigh in at 172lbs (78kg) each.
‘In the past, the front several rows of the audience could be slightly off axis to the main FOH arrays, leading to an audible reduction in coverage, especially in the critical high-end frequencies that are responsible for intelligibility,’ says Tom Bensen, Senior VP and MD of Outline North America. ‘The GTO-DF, with its bottom-mounted constant directivity horn with embedded acoustic lens, is designed to reside on the bottom of a GTO array to provide the first several rows of seating with the signature GTO sound enjoyed by the rest of the audience. GTO has set a high benchmark for audio quality in the live event market and the GTO-DF continues that tradition.’
More: www.outline.it
