Focal XS Book loudspeakers
Focal XS Book loudspeakers
Focal XS Book: designed for the desktop
This is an affordable and extremely good-sounding desktop solution, says Tony Williams
A few months back, James Vesey posed a question: is listening to music while seated at the computer making solitary souls of us all? I get his point, but for many listeners the computer may be a refuge from a family, or indeed the only place they have to listen.
Into this market come the unusually-shaped Focal XS Book speakers, the latest in a range of striking designs from the French company. Selling for £299, they're designed to be used on a shelf, wall-mounted or sitting either side of a laptop or computer monitor.
They’re a little taller than many a ‘computer speaker’ at around 28cm tall, but they’re slim, bowing out to accommodate the 10cm Polyglass-cone mid/bass driver, reflex loaded and used in conjunction with a 19mm aluminium-dome tweeter to give a frequency response claimed as 50Hz-22kHz.
The front-venting port used here is no simple tube: instead Focal has used its extensive research facilities and computer-aided design to shape it for laminar flow, reducing noise while maximising its effect.
Meanwhile the cabinet is shaped for rigidity and to reduce internal resonances, for dynamics and low coloration, while the built-in amplification – 2x20W, in the right enclosure and driving both speakers – is also built for dynamic ability, crisp treble and a what turns out to be a surprisingly weighty bass.
The XS Book has a single control, located atop the right speaker: push it to switch between on and standby, turn it to adjust the volume. Input into the ‘master’ speaker is via either a 3.5mm stereo socket or a pair of conventional RCA phonos, with the connection from ‘master’ to ‘slave’ speaker on a single RCA phono. All cables are supplied, and are of good quality.
PERFORMANCE
The Focals deliver an impressively big sound, and for some of the time I used them as my main background-listening source in a reasonably large room. For that they were fine, but pushing them to fill the room with realistic listening levels revealed the limits of their amplification.
However, that’s not their intended use, and when set up either side of a computer on the study desk their true charms are very apparent. The sound they deliver near-field is gloriously detailed and fluid, with a remarkable sense of stereo imaging and even depth, allied to fine bass weight and definition for speakers so compact, and a sparkling, captivating treble.
They’re fully able to deliver all the swagger of the opening of Kalinnikov’s first symphony (Bakels/Malaysian Philharmonic on BIS), then give fine insight into the detail of the following movement, with uncompressed dynamics and a lovely sense of musical flow.
They’re also remarkably informative and involving with the ‘interesting’ instrumentation and musical effects of Falvetti’s Il Diluvio Universale on Ambronay: they don’t quite match the impact of hearing the work on really big speakers with some serious heft behind them, but fed with a FLAC rip of the disc from the computer or – as I tried during my reviewing period – the variable pre-outs of a number of streaming devices, they reward close up listening with masses of detail and a truly gripping presentation of this intriguing work.
Desktop speakers such as these are never going to supplant my main listening system, but for ‘monitoring’ while ripping or downloading music on the computer, or for those who have to listen in this way for whatever reason, the Focal XS Book speakers represent a significant bargain.
Technical specification
Price £299/pr
Drive units 19mm aluminium dome tweeter,
10cm Polyglass-cone mid/bass unit
Amplification 2x20W, in right speaker
Frequency response 55Hz-22kHz
Maximum SPL 96dB (at 1m)
Inputs 3.5mm stereo, stereo RCA phonos
Accessories supplied 3.5mm interconnect, stereo RCA phono input cable, mono RCA phono connector for left speaker, plus extension connector.
Dimensions (HxWxD) 28.1x11.4x22cm
