Focus Audio FS68 standmount speakers

[pete_mac]

I managed to get my hands on a pair of fairly rare (in Australia at least!) Focus Audio FS68 standmount speakers. I haven't seen a pair of these for sale in Australia as yet. They are Canadian-made and were quite popular over there, as well as in Europe and particularly throughout Asia. Reviews at the time were generally glowing in their praise.

The build quality is quite excellent, with extremely rigid and inert enclosures finished in a piano black finish. They remind me of the Lenehan ML1s in this regard. The binding posts are solid copper Cardas items and the internal wiring is also Cardas. The tweeter is the legendary ScanSpeak 2905-9500 1" soft dome (second only to the Revelator) and the woofer is a custom 5.5" Eton hexacone composite. The crossover uses quality components as one would expect.

Size-wise it's about 1" taller than my ProAc 1S clones and Ushers S520s but has almost identical width and depth measurements, and has the same offset tweeter arrangement.

In terms of sound, out of all of the speakers that I've owned, the FS68 sounds closest to the Lenehan ML1, but based upon my distant audio memory of the ML1s, the FS68 is a tiny bit warmer. There's bags of detail though, and the tweeter is a real honey. It's a very very impressive speaker indeed.

I'll need to do some serious listening over the next week or to so determine which speaker will stay and which will go... FS68 vs Proac 1S clone. They both sound quite different so it will be a tough choice. Time will tell!

A few pics:

[henry218]

its beautiful. i always wondered hows the eton honeycomb wooders performs.

cheers

henry

[anfs]

Just wondering, how did it arrive in Australia?

[pete_mac]

Just wondering, how did it arrive in Australia?

I believe this pair were sold in a south-east Asian country and were brought in by the owner when he immigrated to Australia. He's a really nice guy who is quite the hifi enthusiast.

[Krispy Audio]

The finish looks outstanding. Those Canadians are really pumping out some impressive gear.

[pete_mac]

Yeah, they are very well made indeed! As mentioned, they remind me of the Lenehan ML1s in terms of the cabinet rigidity and external finish. The grilles are probably the plainest part of these speakers - fairly standard stuff with plastic lug mounting.

Whilst the FS68 has been discontinued, the FS68SE with a revised woofer and upgraded crossover is still available these days.

[Guest Muon]

Nice speakers, Pete.

Should have fun with those

[pete_mac]

I removed the Eton woofer tonight to have a quick gander at the crossover. After removing some eggcrate foam from the side and rear walls, the crossover was in full view. Point-to-point wiring = nice! The actual components themselves aren't half bad, and the tweeter circuit has a decent with a small Multicap bypass cap (much like Mike Lenehan does in his crossovers). I particularly like that the crossover is soldered directly to the solid copper Cardas binding posts. The speakers also use Cardas wiring throughout.

I don't think I will bother mucking around with these unless I can obtain some info from Focus Audio re: the crossover tweaks that they undertook in the FS68SE. If the crossovers were fully reworked, I might build a replica of the FS68SE crossover (if I can obtain a schematic of course!)

[L J T]

The finish on the Focus speakers is incredible. I can vouch for the quality of the 2905-950000 Scanspeak - It's what I used in my recent build.

I really like the quality of the crossover pictured, nothing beats quality point to point wiring