Positioning; Running In - Focal CMS 50 Manual

CMS
U s e r M a n u a l
6

Positioning

The CMS loudspeakers are near field monitoring loudspeakers and should be positioned at
a distance between 1 and 3 meters from the listener, pointing towards the listening position.
They can be sitting on the console top, hung or even placed on appropriate stands. In any
way, it is recommended that the tweeter is at a height from the floor approximately equivalent
to that of the listener's ears. If required, it can make sense to place the speakers upside down
so that the previous rule is better fulfilled.
The CMS loudspeakers could be placed vertically or horizontally depending on the environ-
ment, preferably pointing towards the listener (fig. C, D, E).
Once the position is defined, you have 2 kinds of feet (4 rubber feet and 2 adjustable spikes)
to optimize the loudspeaker positioning (fig. F, G). The adjustment of the spike height permits
to control the height of the soundstage. The gap and the right/left positioning of each louds-
peaker permit to control the width, the centering and the global coherence of the soundstage
(left/center/right), at the source of your recording precision.

Running in

As in all brand new loudspeaker, the drivers need some run-in period: the CMS transducers are
mechanical elements demanding a little time to settle and adapt to the climatic environment.
This period will vary, depending on the working conditions and may take up to a few weeks.
Avoid pushing the speakers very hard during their first hours of use, but to accelerate the run-in
process, it is good practice to operate the speakers at moderate levels for 20 hours or so, with
programs having significant low frequency content. Only once the transducers have come to
stabilize will you get the optimum performance.