Recognized globally for its innovation and manufacturing quality, Italian loudspeaker manufacturer Outline is a respected name in the global sound reinforcement industry. Founded in the northern Italian city of Brescia in 1973 by Guido Noselli, Outline’s continued development of loudspeaker technology created the Butterfly enclosure which pioneered a completely new design of front baffle (Outline’s patented V-Power concept), and the D.P.R.W.G. waveguide (another Outline patent) that represented a major step-change in the form factor and performance of line-array modules. Outline is also recognized for its COM.P.A.S.S. (COMpact Polar Adjustable Sound System), the world’s first mechanized loudspeaker enclosure and the first to achieve mechanically assisted sound directivity with remote, real-time adjustment of dispersion in both horizontal and vertical planes. Revolutionary then and now.
As a result of five decades of continuous research, Outline has produced a number of milestone designs, including the ET250-3D turntable, a ‘transversal’ measurement instrument which provides the data for precise analysis of a loudspeaker’s characteristics. Initially conceived for in-house use exclusively, the turntable design evolved to become an industry standard, in daily use by some of the world’s largest technology companies and also by many loudspeaker manufacturers, as well as universities and research institutes throughout the world.
High-profile users include Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, Lucasfilm, Dolby, MIT and many more, where it is used on a daily basis to measure everything from antennae, solar panels, hearing aids and smart devices to loudspeaker systems and transducers, mobile comms devices, microphones, domestic appliances and even medical equipment.
The original turntable concept of a high-precision, computer-controlled turntable capable of placing significant loads with perfect accuracy in a measurement environment has now been developed further, with the creation of two new models to suit different speed and load requirements.
The Outline ET50-3D and ET250R2-3D turntables both feature a new Ergal aluminum hardware design, which achieves military-spec mechanical resistance while considerably reducing the overall weight. Additionally, both feature a wider choice of rotation speeds with enhanced maximum handling loads and a simple user interface with an input / output communications port based on TTL signals. However, the key to their accessibility, data acquisition and control is the network interface, allowing remote control via standard Ethernet protocols - an area that Outline always pioneered for its speakers and line array systems.
Each turntable has an individual IP address and the user simply connects this to an existing LAN to control it via the provided software or via one of several third-party measurement systems. Control libraries for Matlab and Python are available and in fact both devices are controllable by any software with Ethernet control capabilities.
This facilitates automated polar measurements via seamless integration with various measurement software suites including Audio Precision, Audiomatica Clio, Listen SoundCheck, Klippel, NTI and ARTA. The combination of Outline hardware and the user’s choice of control software allows precision placement of the object under test, with repeatability and accuracy of the test results.
Like all Outline products, the ET50-3D and ET250R2-3D measurement turntables are engineered and manufactured to the highest standards, with the models capable of safely and accurately orienting loads of up to 200 kg (440 lb) and 1000 kg (2200 lb) respectively.
Apart from professional loudspeaker systems and measurement equipment, Outline specializes also in the design and manufacture of digital audio signal processors, an area where the company recently produced the Newton, an extremely advanced FPGA-based processing platform, entirely developed in-house.
www.outline.it
