Monsoon (speakers)

Monsoon is a brand of loudspeakers, originally automotive speaker systems and later computer speakers. Monsoon was originally associated with OEM-sourced automotive audio speaker systems, notably supplied on a number of General Motors products and then later expanded onto other manufacturers such as Volkswagen. The brand name was also licensed to Sonigistix, a Richmond, B.C., Canada company, and applied to their line of computer multimedia speakers.

Sonigistix started out as a project out of the UBC Electrical Engineering company and existed for two years on the UBC campus. Its founder was Brent Bolleman and its first raison d'être was to refine and market an electrostatic computer product based on the design of Quad Electrostatics. Electrostatic speakers have their own problems due to the need for the membrane requiring high voltage, which is dangerous and has the requirement of a step up transformer, which is costly. The ultimate desire was to have a speaker that looked great and sounded great, so the conversion to planar magnetic design, which had problems of its own but easier dealt with, most notably was the need for rare earth magnets, which were expensive. Much of the focus of the transition focused on how to reduce this cost element and make the speakers more appealing to a larger pool of consumers. The early unnamed company started sending out prototypes to United Technologies. Through this the company made contacts with Woody Jackson a high end audio products expert based in Little Rock Arkansas, and Dave Clark an audio engineer who had ties to Delphi based in Detroit. Clark the task of designing the subwoofer part of the package. Another challenge as the planar magnetic design had a bottom end of 100Hz and it was key to make the crossover design seamless.

By 2000, Sonigistix expanded its product line and the Monsoon brand into the then burgeoning consumer computer multimedia market, developing a solid reputation for their flat-panel speaker designs that were popular with computer users keen on obtaining quality high fidelity from their computer hardware. Monsoon's speaker designs were based on planar magnetic technology, licensed from Eminent Technology who developed the original concept. However, despite the brand's popularity among computer users – or perhaps because of it – within the next couple of years the assets of Sonigistix were purchased by Eastech, an Asian technology company that also focuses on providing consumer products in a variety of audio-based markets.

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