Focal CMS65

Focal’s woofer is also a bit special, and uses something they call ‘Polyglass’ technology, where a thin layer of glass micro-balls is applied to a cellulose pulp cone. I don’t know who first came up with the idea of trying this, but Focal claim that it combines the known good self-damping of paper with the rigidity of glass to exceed the stiffness of a single-layer Kevlar cone, and to be almost 10 times more rigid than polypropylene. (In theory, a light, stiff cone reduces distortion while maintaining transient definition.) Both drivers are designed to be magnetically shielded.

The CMS65 cabinets are impressively solid, built from cast aluminium with sculpted corners, and with internal bracing and acoustic treatment to provide a virtually resonance-free housing for the drivers. There’s a slot-shaped reflex port on the front of each cabinet, below the LF driver.

Each cabinet comes with a rubber mat, four rubber ‘spikes’ that can be fitted to the front or rear of the cabinet to adjust the angle, and two removable metal grilles. It’s recommended that, for optimum results, the grilles are removed using the hook provided and the plastic phase-plugs, also included, are fitted over the tweeters. Overall, the cabinet size with the mat fitted is 368.5 x 241x 231mm. Each speaker weighs 10.5kg.

Today’s active speakers wouldn’t be complete without some rear-panel settings for the user to fiddle with, and the CMS65 is no exception: there are five screwdriver-adjustable, detented rotary controls mounted in a metal panel just below the recessed amplifier heatsink. The adjustable-height spikes help the user position the speakers so that the tweeters are aimed at their head, but the room environment and speaker placement relative to walls and corners may require electronic adjustment. Selectable LF and HF shelving filters help to address general room problems, while a further notch correction helps to compensate for reflections from a mixing console or desk. This operates at 160Hz with a Q of 2 (three-quarters of an octave), and can be switched to flat, -2dB, -4dB or -6dB. The LF shelving filter affects frequencies below 450Hz and has settings of flat, +2dB, -2dB, -4dB and -6dB. The negative settings are useful when the speakers are mounted closer to walls or corners than might otherwise be desirable. The high-pass filter has settings at full, 45Hz, 60Hz and 90Hz with a 12dB per octave slope, while the HF shelving filter has a fixed frequency of 4.5kHz with cut and boost settings of 0dB, -4dB, -2dB and +2dB. There’s also an input gain selector (-4dBu, 0dBu or +10dBv) and a power switch. A power standby switch is also available on the front panel, as is a flat, rubbery volume control that offers up to 66dB of attenuation. A red LED lights up when the speaker is powered but in standby mode, and this turns green when the speaker is active. There’s also a clip indicator next to the volume control that shows when the level is set too high. The filter circuits are built around the ubiquitous NE 5532 amplifier IC, in combination with high-precision resistors.

The speakers have a 45Hz to 28kHz range at the -3dB points, with a peak SPL of 108dB at one metre. The inputs can be on balanced XLRs or unbalanced RCA phonos but there’s no quarter-inch jack option.