Founded at the beginning of 1980 in Saint Etienne, France, Focal-J.M.Lab started life in a small workshop, within a precision engineering firm. The fledgling company had a workforce of just two people including the current Chairman and CEO Jacques Mahul, a trained engineer and specialist in acoustic drive units.

The first drive units developed in this workshop quickly won international acclaim due in no small part to the originality of their design, but foremost the startling clarity they produced. At the same time as it was manufacturing drive units under the Focal brand (specially designed for the most famous brands of speakers and for top-of-the-range kit enthusiasts), the company also launched its own range of loudspeakers under the JMlab brand.

An active development policy aimed at constantly adapting the company's products to market requirements, coupled with an audio "style" skillfully combining musicality and dynamic performance has enabled JMlab to achieve leadership within the French loudspeakers market.

JM labs offer a full line of speakers that earned praise from around the US, including The Perfect Vision "Loudspeaker of the Year", (United States), "Product of Merit", Audio Test (Germany) and "Product of the Year". From the internationally respected Grand Utopia, an absolute assault on state-of-the art in speaker design and priced more than a cottage on Put-In-Bay, to the more sensibly priced Cobalt series, Focal-JM labs offer what all our other favorite brands offer: Value. We've seen Focal-JM labs at the shows and have always walked away from their demo's nodding our heads in agreement, their speakers are exceptional from every perspective and that hopefully some day soon, we would carry their line.
Well, that day has arrived.

We're particularly impressed with the Cobalt and Profile series, the design and execution set new standards for their price class and we believe the Profile will earn more accolades as the word spreads.The Profile series is an artistic and engineering triumph. Focal has distinguished itself with an aesthetic and acoustic engineering centerpiece. However, accomplishing their objective was a notebook stuffed with a history of design setbacks and engineering dead-ends.