Developed in-house by their engineering team, the design of Outline’s Warped Finite Impulse Response (WFIR) filters is now protected by a domestic patent - Italian Patent N. 102018000003311 - and the company confirms that it has applied for the same status internationally. Currently, the designation of a "warped finite impulse response" for sound processing devices is referenced in a patent awarded to Danish audiology company Oticon (US Patent US7885991B2). Outline's international application, submitted in 2018, includes references to the Oticon patent, as well as a "Frequency-warped audio equalizer" patent granted to Srs Labs, among others.
WFIR filters are one of the key features found in Outline’s groundbreaking Newton FPGA audio system control and networking processor, a unit which has been repeatedly described as a game-changer by audio professionals around the world. The unit's design and computing power – in a single rackspace, networkable chassis – provides the perfect ecosystem for WFIR filters.
"WFIR filters offer fundamental technical improvements over traditional FIR filters in that they operate on a semi-logarithmic scale, similar to the nature of human hearing. This means that they are able to maintain high filtering resolution over the entire audio range, even in the case of increasingly high sampling frequencies," the company states in the announcement.
"WFIR technology also allows the use of raised cosine filters which provide a greatly enhanced level of accuracy in equalization. They do require up to three times the computing power required for traditional FIR filters (not a problem with Newton’s onboard processing power), but in turn they provide up to 10 times the resolution on mid-low frequencies. They are also not subject to the latency artifacts suffered by FIR filters," they add.
While the technical performance and characteristics of WFIR filters can be definitively demonstrated by testing them on an Audio Precision test and measurement system, for users in the field they deliver clearly audible advantages in real-world situations, prompting one UK Newton owner to recently comment, “WFIR filters are something that need to be heard to be believed.” His experience mirrors that of many Newton users worldwide who have discovered the unique equalization performance created by Outline’s engineering team.
Outline is a leading European manufacturer of professional loudspeaker systems and associated technologies, and its Newton processor was introduced in 2017 to immediate acclaim. It has subsequently been adopted by a number of the world’s leading audio hire operations and system engineers, delivering a unique feature set in a robust and user-friendly package.
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