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i might be wrong, but i think eminent technology was the OEM for monsoon..
You're close. Eminent Tech's website is surprisingly forthcoming about this:
...Eminent Technology had developed a still smaller transducer [smaller than their own LFT-11] for a lower-cost computer speaker. The smaller transducer was licensed to Sonigistix Corporation in Vancouver...and...manufactured in Canada. ...products [were] co-developed [by] Sonigistix and Eminent Technology [and] carried the Monsoon brand. A smaller planar-ribbon tweeter was created at Sonigistix and is used in Philips Consumer Electronics home theater in a box... [my emphasis]
This text accompanies a photo of Monsoon's hated MM-700 system, the one with RDevil's flabby woofer. I'll say it again: The 700's woofer box is so bad that I begged a passing kid to take the whole system off my hands. The
702 is the model you want.
I included the bit about the Philips tweeter because it really is good. Both ericj and I have cheap little Philips hometheaterinabox systems with these funny little speakers equipped with leaf ( = ortho) tweeters. Just outrageous.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y285/heildriver/Philipsleaftweeter.jpg
Eminent Tech also made Magneplanar killers, big dipole double-ended (ie, true push-pull, like your ortho headphones) speakers the size of doors. Since the magnet cost was doubled, I imagine they sounded great but were extremely expensive.
Fullrange dipoles in real rooms are.. y'know.. problematic. Let's put it this way: They're for people who like to modify ortho headphones. You have to be willing to fool with them and be prepared for the unpredictability of backwave energy in a room. You thought headphone cup design was fraught-- hoo
whee! ...Which means your chances of liking a given Magneplanar that someone else has set up are low. Make that seller work for his money. Tell him to put on his work gloves and
shift them babies while you listen.
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I hope questions about electrets are acceptable in the ortho thread...
I've got an Audio-Technica ATH-7 coming soon. Can the ATH-7 transformer box be plugged into a T-amp that doesn't like its speaker channels bridged? (I assume that for sanity's sake they wouldn't have a box with a common ground if it's designed to be plugged into any random amplifier, but I don't know for sure.)
Also - are replacement pads (or reliable substitutes for the originals) available?
I adopted electret-electrostatics into the ortho thread because Stat Snobs don't consider them "true" electrostats. So ask away. In this case, all I can tell you is I've got my Stax SRD-4 box wired up to my T-amp and the combo works fine. No funny smells. Replacement pads that are like the supple originals...? Those seem to be long gone. The replacement Stax SR-X pads will work in a pinch. Not quite the right size, but far better than nothing. On the other hand, though bass suffers, the cloth circles that are left when the old '70s pleather disintegrates are very comfy. I remain puzzled why pads identical to the original A-T and Stax pads can't be manufactured today. Those old pads were wonderful.
