Reviews for Focal Professional CMS50 Studio Monitors

I've had many 'professional 'products on my watch. The Focal CMS 50's are truly what they claim to be. As uncolored and clear as they come. Simply Outrageous no matter the Volume or type of music. On my uncompressed Albums I get music I simply never heard before. The highs are brilliant and the lows are resonant and not muddy. I am running them through a MacBook Pro 17 with the Duet by Apogee running Block between the two. A more clear, majestic soundstage is simply not be had at this low price, for what you get. These are BMW's in a Chevy world. They earn my hearty Recommendation for purchase if you have Uncompressed music on your iTunes. The normal fare from the store sounds 'great', but it's the uncompressed that really will 'Blow You Away'. Buy them if you have the green and won't settle for the Ordinary! You will have No Regrets! Oh, I hooked them up with 1 Mono RCA cable each..

I bought these speakers to compliment my 24" imac and was surprised at the shallow sound and how much background noise they generated for $1,000.00. After some research, I purchased a Benchmark DAC to interface between my Imac and the Focals, and I was amazed at the new sound quality. There is no background noise regardless of volume, and the effect is like being at a live performance. Apple should offer the Benchmark DAC as an additional product to upgrade your listening experience. Believe me, you will have a sound system better than anything costing several times as much, with the Itunes flexibility of control. Of course, your music library needs to be in the Apple lossless format.

These are wonderful speakers, designed for what is known as near field monitoring (for example, when working on sound recording/editing and having the speakers placed close to the listening position, between 1m and 3m away.
They are powered by their own built-in amps and are not designed to be used with a receiver, which probably explains one of the other reviewer's negative comments.
Rather, these speakers work superbly when connected to something like the Apogee Duet Firewire interface. Connect the Duet to your Mac and connect these speakers to the Duet and that's all you need for some magnificent sound.
In small rooms, they can be used for fantastic quality replay of audio files, with an outstanding quality high enough to reveal the weaknesses of most compressed music, while doing full justice to uncompressed or Lossless sounds. These speakers are for ears that appreciate such differences. For others, they would be overkill.
Build is top class. Switches on the rear allow for custom adjustments to suit the acoustic characteristics of any listening room.
If you are looking for quality and have been considering similar studio speakers (say, the Adam A7), I give these my highest recommendation.