Equipping the Jammoum Mosque

Equipping the Jammoum Mosque


Portfolio Description
The newly built Jammoum Mosque in Al Jumum has been equipped with a Harman sound system by systems integrator Ektar International. Located between Mecca and Jeddah, the mosque is the largest in Al Jumum, accommodating more than 10,000 worshipers and spanning two floors with a 36m x 64m footprint.
Jammoum Mosque’s architecture has resulted in some highly reverberant spaces. To take care of this, the Ektar team, including executive director Muammar Al Harbi and project manager Khaled Bouajaja, who oversaw the sound design and system installation, made use of a frequency analyser and a sound meter during the design process to increase the sound frequencies and lower reverberation times.
‘The audio distribution was calculated according to the architectural materials and forms of the mosques, providing direct listening conditions and a unique “voice” for each zone,’ explained a spokesperson for Ektar. ‘All speakers face in the same direction and the audio delays are configured to broadcast sound simultaneously.’
Over the course of seven days, the Ektar team installed a total of 54 JBL Control 25 speakers and six CBT 100LA-LS line array columns speakers throughout the facility. Three of the CBT 100LA-LS columns were placed on the ground floor at the front of the mosque with 26 of the Control 25s. The remaining three CBT 100LA-LS cabinets and 24 of the Control 25s can be found on the upper level. The additional four Control 25 speakers provide reinforcement in the women’s hall.
In addition to the speakers, a Dynacord CMS 1600 mixer was installed along with four PCL 1240T amplifiers that control and power the sound setup respectively. Six DL 2/918 delay line controllers from the t.racks are used for ensuring the delay speakers emit audio without an echo. Meanwhile, vocals and speech are captured by six C535 EB reference handheld condenser microphones, three GN30 ESP goosenecks and a pair of PCC170 boundary layer microphones.
As well as curing the reverberation issues inside the mosque, Ektar International was contracted to install a CCTV setup inside and out, and horn speakers outside. Across the entire site, the team installed 24 Hikvision CCTV cameras inside the mosque and 10 outside the building. Installing the horn speakers offered more of a challenge as they were placed up high on the minaret at varying heights with a delay to not muddy their intelligibility