Koss CM-1030 (c. 1979–1983)
Koss built its name on stereophones, but the CM-1030 was the company's swing at serious loudspeakers. The late-Seventies ad campaign in HiFI-Stereo (Oct 1979, p.156) made the pitch plain: the Koss sound no longer had to stay in headphones, and now it came out of a speaker cabinet. Koss's own advertising touted the CM-1030 as a four-bandpass design that no competing system could match in bass, midrange, or high.
When Audio ran an Equipment Profile in May 1983 (p.78), the model name appeared as CM/1030 - the spelling wobbles between sources. What the profile documented was a substantial four-way, vented floorstander:
- Drivers: one 10-inch woofer, two 4½-inch cone midranges, two 1-inch dome tweeters
- Crossover points: 300 Hz, 2.5 kHz, and 7 kHz
- Impedance: 5 ohms nominal, 4 ohms minimum
- Frequency range: 26 Hz to 19.5 kHz
- Dimensions: 16½ in. W × 14½ in. D × 38⅞ in. H (41.9 × 36.8 × 98.7 cm)
- Weight: 74 lbs (33.3 kg) each
- Price: $1,000 per pair
Beyond that, the record is thin. The surviving portion of the Audio profile cuts off before its measured results, so no independent verdict on the sound has survived in our archive. Koss was a headphone company through and through, and it built a big, heavy, vented four-way and sold it at high-end prices. At least one major magazine gave it a full lab profile.
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