Resumen de Speech intelligibility in mosques
High speech intelligibility in mosques is an essential aim for any efficient sound system design. If the intelligibility levels are low, Praying and Preaching in such structures will loss the attention of the congregation. There are different ways to increase the intelligibility levels. The most traditional solution is to decrease the reverberation time by means of wall and carpet treatments �Passive Treatments�. More advanced solution is to use modern loudspeakers columns to increase the direct to reverberant field ratio �Active Treatment�. The big volumes and high ambient noise in mosques have made it necessary to enforce high intelligibility levels using modern sound reinforcement systems. In this work a real life example will be provided to show the influence of using directed loudspeakers columns in contrast to conventional sound sources. The improvement of intelligibility levels inside the main praying hall of Sheikh Zayid Mosque in Abu Dhabi using Digitally Controlled Sound Columns is demonstrated. The ability of such modern loudspeakers to address different praying modes is shown too.
