Focal Naim America has released the redesigned Trio6 ST6 three-way studio monitor, promising ‘a versatile and powerful tool that will instil confidence in recording and mix engineers, sound designers, composers, beatmakers, studio owners and producers alike’.
The Trio6 ST6 joins the Solo6 ST6 and Twin6 ST6 in the ST6 range. The all-analogue Trio6 ST6 claims a more detailed and transparent sound through the use of innovative speaker drivers, dual Focus mode, user-controlled automatic stand-by, a redesigned laminar port, and a structurally enhanced cabinet.
‘We’re constantly pushing the boundary of transducer design and acoustic performance, but when designing a tool used for creation it’s far more than just striving for the best measurement,’ says Sylvain Gondinet, Product Manager for the Focal Professional Division. ‘As a mixer and a studio designer myself, I know that our understanding and interpretation of physics in audio is intimately linked to psychoacoustics and, therefore, our emotions. This was a real labour of love – the R&D team really pushed to squeeze the most performance out of the speaker from a technical standpoint, but that wasn’t where we stopped.
‘We had to gather as much perspective and feedback as possible. After all, at this point in time, we were a bit biased,’ he continues. ‘We went to a handful of iconic studios and had some renowned engineers and mixers spend time with our prototypes. We gathered their feedback carefully and we continued to refine the Trio6. In the end, there were nearly a dozen different iterations of this loudspeaker before we landed on this version. The new Trio6 ST6 is an incredibly precise tool but also gives you the feeling that you’ve known the monitors forever.’
Made in France at the Focal workshops, Trio6 ST6 is equipped with an 8-inch subwoofer with a ‘W’ cone (a patented Focal innovation). The 5-inch midrange woofer incorporates Focal’s TMD (Tuned Mass Damper) technology, reducing distortion in the 1kHz to 3kHz frequency range by 50 per cent. A new beryllium tweeter featuring IAL (Infinite Acoustic Loading) to control resonance, completes the driver complement.
A redesigned large laminar port significantly limits port noise and the strengthened cabinet provides even better rigidity and damping with fewer vibrations minimising distortion.
Trio6 ST6 has a new dual Focus mode – either one driver or two drivers – which essentially creates three different sounding monitors in one by expanding the Focus mode pioneered first in Focal’s legacy SM9 monitor. These new configurations of speaker drivers are available by pressing a pedal – as though the user has three studio monitors, with two configurations featuring reduced frequency response, enabling the mix engineer to check how a mix might adapt to a smaller system. With Focus mode, sound engineers stay in the sweet spot when mixing, they save space on the desk or console, and they simplify their cabling and monitor changes.
Like Solo6 ST6 and Twin6 ST6, the new Trio6 ST6 includes a variable high-pass crossover and a 160Hz parametric crossover to reduce reflections from the console. The European-required automatic stand-by mode can now be disengaged by the user via a switch on the back of each monitor, giving the engineer a choice.
More: www.focal.com/en/pro-audio/monitoring-speakers/st6/trio6
