French loudspeaker designers Focal chose this year’s AES show to unveil their new flagship studio monitor, the SM9. An active design, the SM9 has a rather unusual driver configuration: three drivers are sited on the front baffle, with one large cone mounted on the top. The last of these is an 11-inch passive radiator, which can be thought of as an unpowered subwoofer (hence ‘passive’). This is designed to vibrate in sympathy with the low-frequency driver to achieve an extended bass response, by varying the air pressure inside the cabinet to allow for increased driver excursion. It’s a principle not far removed from the more common ported speaker design, but it eliminates the latter’s associated port turbulence, or ‘chuffing’.
The largest of the three powered drivers is an eight-inch affair, the cone itself comprising a middle layer of foam sandwiched by two layers of spun glass fibre — a construction said by Focal to offer high rigidity combined with low mass, for minimal distortion and a fast response time (the same construction methods are employed for the passive radiator and the mid-range driver). The bass speaker is powered by a 400W, Class-AB amplifier, and handles frequencies up to the 250Hz low/mid crossover point.
Next up is the 6.5-inch mid-range driver, which has its own 100W amp (again, a Class-AB design), while high frequencies are taken care of by an inverted-dome, one-inch beryllium tweeter (powered by another 100W amplifier). The crossover frequency between these two drivers is set to 2.5kHz.
The above configuration endows the SM9 with a frequency response of 30Hz to 40kHz, give or take 3dB, with a deviation of just ±1dB above 40Hz. But this monitor has a most unusual trick up its sleeve: a switch on the side panel, labelled Focus, disengages the LF driver and the low-mid crossover, while shifting the high-mid crossover frequency, effectively turning the SM9 into a two-way nearfield monitor. In this mode, the 6.5-inch driver handles both mids and lows, and the low-end response is restricted to 90Hz. Focal say that this two-way option is ideal for checking that mixes will translate well to band-limited systems, such as iPod docks, car stereos and TVs.
In full-range mode, peak SPL at one metre is given as 116dB, while with the LF driver disengaged this is reduced to 106dB.
A range of EQ controls can be found on the SM9’s rear panel. The full-range line input (an electronically balanced XLR socket with an input impedance of 10kΩ and a switchable sensitivity of either +4dBu or -10dBV) can be high-pass filtered at 45Hz, 60Hz or 90Hz, for use with a sub. There are both low- and high-shelf filters, which act between 30Hz and 250Hz, and 4.5kHz and 40kHz respectively. Low, low-mid and mid peaking filters can also be engaged, and these act at 50Hz, 160Hz and 1kHz, respectively. The low band has a Q of 2, the low-mid has a Q of 1, and the mid-frequency filter has a Q of 0.6. All of the filters (except the high-pass filter) have a ±3dB range, and can be adjusted in 0.5dB increments via detented pots. The entire EQ section can be switched out of circuit via a hard-bypass button.
Expected to be available from around March next year, the Focal SM9s are set to cost £5016 per pair, including VAT.
