Masjid Wangsa Maju
Masjid Wanga Maju or Masjid Usamah Bin Zaid was a RM33 million new mosque built by the Malaysian government for the Wanga Maju community area. It was a mixed development project consist of a mosque, religious school, and a staff boarding house. The mosque is a three level with a total built up area of 58,000 square feet and can contain a full capacity of 8,900 people at one time.
It was timely for the Wangsa Maju Mosque to be built there for the muslim staying around the area to perform Friday prayer and other religious activity.
Located in Wangsa Maju Section 2, Jalan 2/27a not far from LRT Wangsa Maju and diagonally opposite the Alpha Angle shopping complex at the hillside facing Section 2, the mosque was opened and it provide a relief to the people in Wangsa Maju as the people has welcome the new mosque in their community.
The mosque was constructed in 2002 and managed to be completed in August 2008 after a series of unavoidable construction delay by the main contractor.
For the audio requirements it turned to Artistic Controls Sdn Bhd in 2006 to provide Sound System and Public Address System for the Mosque and the religious school. It was during this time Artistic Controls who work in collaboration with the local distributor Imasistem to provide Electro Voice (EV) Vari Intense loudspeaker as the main system.
The main prayer area which is at ground floor consist two Electro Voice EVI-15 2 way full range 15″ Vari Intense loudspeaker supported and two Electro Voice EVI-28 Dual 8″ 2 way Vari Intense loudspeaker for front coverage.
The reason for using EVI Vari Intense loudspeakers are obviously for clarity and coverage. Electro Voice unique EVI Vari Intense loudspeaker is engineered to eliminate the need for additional long throw horns. In a typical hall, the distance from the loudspeaker to the last row is two or more times that to the front row, resulting is a substantial loss in level and intelligibility at the rear. With EVI Vari Intense loudspeaker the horn deliver 6 to 8 dB more SPL to the back of the room.
At the entrance two EV 15” was installed and Dynacord DDL244 delay unit was used to match the sound to the front of house so that the direction of the sound will seem coming from the front.
For the first floor balcony which is also a prayer area another pair of EV EVI-15 loudspeaker and two EV EVI-28 loudspeakers was install at the left and right. The speaker will provide the sound coverage right to the back.
The Loudspeakers processing are handled by Behringer and the power amplifier is from the five Dynacord S1200 Power Amplifier. The FOH sound console is a 16 channel Dynacord CMS1600 Mixer.
For other area like the meeting room, library room, stair case and corridor the sound system is covered by Amperes ceiling speaker.
The most important installation is the minaret tower. As the mosque is served for the Wangsa Maju community a good long throw horn speaker is needed to covered the surrounding area. For these reason four Toa DH120/TU650M 100W Straight Horn speakers was used.
The coverage was so good that during the testing some of the residence staying around the area came to the mosque and praise the sound quality as they can hear clearly even far away.
Overall the sound quality in prayer area is excellent and coverage is good. During the testing the SPL level has to set lower as it was too loud as commented by some of the religious leader. Even though the SPL can set higher but we tone it down.
Beside the design of the interior of the mosque which mostly built by marble does not allow high gain as the bouncing back of the sound will created inherited echo. This is where the acoustic problem in the mosque design as there is very little acoustic treatment to the wall except with the help of a good thick carpet on the floor to reduce the echo.
This has created some problem initially and the level has to set to a minimum level and it was hampered by the sound echo. Nevertheless the sound engineer managed to reduce the feedback to a minimum level with the help of the loudspeaker processor and equalizer.
Even the architect from DBKL has positive comment, “The sound quality is good and we can not get this sound quality in any other mosque nearby”.
In conclusion, for the first time the Electro Voice Vari Intense loudspeaker was used in the mosque installation and we are very proud to be able to provide this opportunity to try out. It provides the main prayer hall a uniform SPL and giving a high level of voice intelligibility.