After several years in construction, a new tourist attraction opened recently near
Doha: Souq Al Wakrah, with restaurants, shops and cultural installations. Helmet
Trading & Contracting installed over 1,000 Electro-Voice ZX1i loudspeakers driven
by Contractor Precision Series (CPS) power amplifiers, to provide distributed sound
to the quarter, which extends over two kilometers. Twelve N8000 matrices handle
the loudspeaker processing, and the entire system can be controlled with ease via
touchscreen.

Electro-Voice was chosen as the company’s partner for the project; the reason was
simple, as engineer and project manager Mahmoud Fahmawi from Helmet
explained: “Our past experience with the support and quality provided by Electro-
Voice made this decision a no-brainer.’

For the design and simulations, Helmet’s technical experts could count on support
from the Electro-Voice team. Together they designed a virtual sound concept that
included over 1,000 ZX1i loudspeakers, twelve N8000 matrices and Contractor
Precision Series (CPS) power amplifiers. “With this system, we have succeeded in
providing homogeneous coverage of the entire area – including the 500-meter-long
parking lot,’ says Mahmoud Fahmawi. “The sound performance of the loudspeakers
is great. They are equipped with high-end, lightweight components and are also
extremely robust and weatherproof, making them the perfect choice for outdoor
installations. With so many cabinets, the integrated QuickSAM heavy-duty, strong-
arm mounting kit really proved useful. It made the installation easy and
straightforward – saving us a great deal of time and money.’ To blend
harmoniously into the historic appearance of the Souq Al Wakrah, all the
loudspeakers were hidden in recesses and covered with fabric matching the color of
the walls.

Not only was the high performance and quality of the system immediately evident
but so was its user friendliness. The entire system – with custom-designed IRIS-Net
graphical user interface – can be configured, controlled, and supervised via
touchscreen.