Manufacturer of lightweight, high-powered speech-projection devices serves various helicopter markets, including homeland security, search-and-rescue (SAR), emergency response, disaster management, law enforcement, and military operators.
Formed in 1997 by employees of Applied Electro Mechanics following that company’s dissolution, Power Sonix, Inc. designs and manufactures lightweight, high-powered, high-intelligibility speech-projection devices. Located 75 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the company develops devices for air, land, and sea applications, with many options for rotorcraft and drone operators.
Power Sonix’s engineers, then employees of Applied Electro Mechanics, pioneered the first lightweight 100-watt speaker driver in 1995, which changed the playing field for airborne and backpack loudspeaker systems. Today, its technologies provide some of the clearest speech-projection capabilities over long distances available on the market.
Variety of Military and Civil Applications
Power Sonix specializes in improving high-powered sound technologies for military and civilian operators to use in homeland security and emergency first-response applications, emphasizing the importance of using sound—especially speech— to save lives.
The company’s speakers are engineered to project extremely clear speech or siren sounds over the noise of engines, rotors, and other ambient conditions. They are compact and compatible with most cockpit audio controllers and high-efficiency Class D amplifiers.
The audio systems, which can project prerecorded or live messages, can be recessed or externally mounted on a helicopter. They can be powered by aircraft-quality battery packs or run from the aircraft power bus, with trickle charging as an option. They can also include a built-in remote control if they connect to an existing Technisonic A710/A711 audio controller.
Working with the Needs of Operators
Power Sonix designed its PSAIR42 model to work on larger aircraft with louder noise footprints, including the Sikorsky Black Hawk. The model’s 1,200 watts of power (1,600 watts for the power-boosted version) project sound through the rotor wash to ensure that communications can be clearly heard. The company’s smaller 600- to 800-watt PSAIR22 model, commonly used on single-engine law enforcement helicopters, achieves similar results.
Helicopter speakers from Power Sonix feature a wide range of uses, including crowd control, ground patrol unit support, SAR, emergency response, military operations, disaster management, law enforcement, drug interdiction, and special ops. Operators currently using Power Sonix audio systems include the San Diego (California) Police Department, Los Angeles County (California) Sheriff’s Department, Miami-Dade (Florida) Police Department, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, in addition to law enforcement and military units in London, England; Moscow, Russia; Beijing, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Tokyo, Japan.
Power Sonix also offers consulting and customized public address and loudspeaker products. Power Sonix works with major military integrators around the world and directly with operators or their prime contractors to deliver solutions that integrate with third-party command and control components.
