Applications
Mosque Sound Systems
A mosque asks the system for two different things: the call to prayer carried across the neighbourhood, and every word of the khutbah clear inside a hard, domed hall.
What this application asks of a system
The prayer hall is one of the hardest rooms in sound. A dome, marble or tiled floors, plaster walls and almost no soft furnishing give a long reverberant tail, and the content is the spoken word: the khutbah, the recitation, the call within the hall. Reflections from one syllable land on the next and the meaning smears long before anyone runs out of level, so turning the system up makes it worse.
Listeners are not where a venue's audience is. The congregation stands, bows and sits on the floor, so the coverage has to hold from standing ear height down to the prayer rows, across a wide and usually shallow room, with the women's section, the mezzanine and the overflow spaces each needing their own share of the sound.
The call to prayer is a separate system with a separate brief: carried from the minaret or the roof across streets and courtyards, intelligible at distance, and controlled so that it reaches the neighbourhood rather than spilling uncontrolled in every direction. Outdoor positions are exposed to sun, heat and weather, and their protection is agreed at design stage.
Most mosques run unattended. The muezzin or the imam needs the system to be correct when they press one button: presets locked, zones named, levels safe, and nothing on the panel that can make it feed back.
What we look at first
- The reverberation of the hall and where the hard surfaces and the dome are, before any loudspeaker is chosen
- Vertical pattern control, so energy lands on the congregation and stays off the dome and the walls
- Coverage from standing ear height down to the seated prayer rows, across the full width of the hall
- Separate zones for the main hall, the women's section, the mezzanine, the courtyard and the call to prayer
- Where the call to prayer must be heard, and how far, before the outdoor positions are fixed
- Sightlines and architecture: slim, wall-mounted formats that respect the interior
- Operation by the imam or muezzin without a technician: locked presets and one-touch zones
Recommended SSOUNDS products
Grouped by the job each product does in this kind of system. Specifications live on the product pages and in the data sheets, so nothing is restated here.
Column arrays for the prayer hall
The speech-first answer for a domed, reverberant hall: tall, slim, wall-mounted columns that keep energy on the congregation.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS LC16.3
16 × 3″ full-range column, 127° × 24°, for announcements and speech in airports, stations and mosques.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M3.12P
3″ × 12 full-range column array, long-throw speech intelligibility for reverberant rooms.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M3.6P
Compact 3″ × 6 full-range column array, clean speech and music for architectural install.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS XTO 4.6
Column element of the XTO System, passive line array, 4 × 6.5″ drivers, 65 Hz – 20 kHz and 134 dB peak in a sightline-friendly column.
Line arrays for large halls
Where the hall is deep or the congregation runs into thousands, a flown line array holds level and clarity to the back rows.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS XTO 8P
Compact element of the XTO System, 2-way bi-amplified 8″, 110° constant directivity, 141 dB peak, 0°–10° splay.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS LS208
Compact dual-8″ line-array element, 141 dB peak, 55 Hz reach and 100° coverage from a 26 kg box.
FeaturedSSOUNDS
SSOUNDS XTO 10P
Mid-format element of the XTO System, 3-way 10″, 100° constant directivity, 144 dB peak, 0°–14° splay.
Point sources: courtyard, call to prayer, fills
Long-throw boxes for the courtyard and the call to prayer, and compact fills for side aisles, mezzanines and overflow rooms.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS P15-X
3-way long-throw point source, 2 × 15″, 4 × 6.5″ and 2 × 3″ behind a 70° × 40° waveguide, 2,000 W.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS P15
Two-way dual-15″ point source, high-output mains and fill with a rotatable constant-directivity horn.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M-12
12″ full-range point source, mains or floor wedge, the all-rounder of the M-series.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M-10
10″ full-range, compact mains or monitor with strong vocal projection.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS P10T
Three-way 10″ install loudspeaker in an IP67 moulded ABS cabinet, 50 Hz to 20 kHz, on a 70/100 V line or at 8 Ω, for worship, hospitality, retail, courtyards and conference rooms.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M-8
8″ full-range, high-output multipurpose box for portable PA, fill and install.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M-6
Compact 6.5″ full-range, versatile install and portable speaker with M8 rigging.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS M-12W
12″ two-way coaxial outdoor loudspeaker, IP56, 90° × 90°, 128 dB peak, with 70/100 V taps.
Distributed audio for ablution areas, offices and corridors
Ceiling loudspeakers for the spaces around the hall that need the prayer relayed at a low, even level.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS CL6
6.5″ two-way ceiling speaker, discreet, even distributed audio with 70/100 V tapping.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS CL8
8″ two-way ceiling speaker, full-range background and foreground audio with 70/100 V tapping.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS CL8SUB
8″ in-ceiling subwoofer in a back-can with spring-tab mounting, the low end under CL6 and CL8 ceiling zones.
Amplification, zoning and processing
Zones for every space, presets locked behind the panel, and the delay alignment between the hall and the fills.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS A14X
4-channel touring amplifier for line arrays, 4 × 2,000 W @ 4 Ω, analog input.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS D14X
4-channel DSP amplifier with FIR, line-array power plus full system processing and presets.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS D24X
High-power 4-channel DSP amplifier, subwoofer-grade output with full FIR processing.
SSOUNDS
SSOUNDS DSP 4×8
4-in / 8-out loudspeaker processor, 96 kHz, 1/36-octave filters and full system alignment.
Outdoor columns: minaret, courtyard and call to prayer
Weatherised columns for the minaret, the courtyard and the call to prayer, with a narrow vertical pattern that carries towards the listeners rather than into the buildings around them.
Why these products. The M3.12P names churches and reverberant rooms, the domed prayer hall's acoustic problem in its plainest form; the XTO 4.6 names auditoria; the XTO 8P and LS208 name houses of worship; the P15-X is the catalogue's long-throw point source; the CL6 and CL8 are the distributed ceiling loudspeakers; and the A14X, D14X, D24X and SS-DSP-48 carry the zoning and processing. The LC16.3 and LC8.3 columns name mosque prayer halls; the LC9.4W and LC4.4W are IP66 die-cast aluminium columns that name mosque courtyards and the call to prayer; and the P10T is an IP67 three-way install loudspeaker that names mosques and their courtyards. The LC8.3D is a Dante column that names prayer halls, and the M-12W is an IP56 coaxial outdoor loudspeaker that names courtyards. The CL8SUB is an 8 inch ceiling subwoofer that names the side rooms of mosques.
Get this specced for your room
Send us the drawings, the seat count and what the room has to do. Our engineers model the coverage and come back with a product list, a rigging plan and a budget.