Opera Seconda stereo speakers

Opera Seconda stereo speakers

This is the entry level floor standing (tower) speaker from Italian brand Opera, where finish and quality of manufacture are as important as the sound quality of the loudspeaker. Incorperating many advanced and unique features, the Seconda is the perfect speaker for quality hi-fi systems, or as the front left and right channels of a high performance 5.1 home cinema system.

Opera Loudspeakers is one of the few manufacturers that uses the closed box to load the woofer. The new Opera Seconda, after the success of its predecessors, is a two-and-a-half-way floorstanding system that still uses a sealed box, but it has been completely updated. The cabinet structure, drivers and crossovers are totally new.

Drivers
The new 7” woofer is a custom design made by Scanspeak for the entirely new Classica series. This woofer has excellent performance in the mid-frequencies; so much so that it is used as a midrange in the Quinta model. It is equipped with an aluminium diaphragm, a 38 mm coil (two-layer, CCWA wire) with aluminium former immersed in a suitably shaped air gap. There is also a metal ring around the pole piece to control the flux variations. The basket is die-cast for maximum stiffness. Compared to its predecessor, the volume displacement is increased by a very significant 10%. The rigid aluminium diaphragm is free from sub-harmonics from transverse modes and perfectly reproduces the lower frequencies. The two woofers, connected in parallel, share the same 40 litre enclosed volume. The tweeter, a D26 series model made by Scanspeak, has a one inch high quality treated soft dome, double magnet, decompression chamber, ferrofluid, aluminum flange and a one mm. peak to peak linear excursion (twice as much as a conventional tweeter). The frequency response extends to 30kHz (0 dB) and 40 kHz is reproduced (-6 dB). The resonant frequency is about 860 Hz which makes this
tweeter insensitive to vibrations from other loudspeakers (due to the heavy 30 mm M D F u s e d o n t h e f r o n t p a n e l ) .

Crossover
The crossover circuit of this two-and-a-half-way design is divided into two different boards placed at a suitable distance from each other to reduce the effects of the mutual inductance of the coils. The tweeter high-pass section is designed to minimize the microphonic effect (something that is rarely done in other designs). The capacitors used in the signal path have been carefully selected. This also contributes to the stability of the virtual central channel to create a stable and precise soundstage.

Cabinet
The cabinet follows the curvature of the upper section of our flagship Malibran model. The front panel, made from 30 mm thick MDF, is wide enough to accommodate the loudspeaker drivers, and has rounded edges that are covered in leather which also acts as a seal for the speaker enclosure. The sides of the cabinet are veneered with real wood and finely polished. The structure is further stiffened by internal bracing. Inside the cabinet there is two layers of pyramidal shaped, 10 cm thick, polyurethane which absorbs the rear radiation of the woofers. As a consequence, consistency and clarity are the hallmarks of the sound of this speaker. The Opera Seconda is also equipped with strong iron bars for wheels or spikes. The four external connectors (the Seconda is designed for bi-wiring) are traditional gold-plated brass connectors, which is the same for all Opera speakers including our top models. They accept any kind of termination, providing a safe and effective electrical and mechanical contact. The insensitivity of the closed box system to sub-sonic frequencies makes our diffusers especially suited to the reproduction of analog records (LPs). The Opera Seconda is also suited to be used as front and/or rear channel in home theater systems: with two pairs of Opera Seconda you can get an Home Theater System t h a t r e q u i r e s n o c e n t e r c h a n n e l a n d n o s u b - w o o f e r .

Particular attention has been paid to the electrical impedance curve to get a diffuser less sensitive to the quality of the cables and amplifier (tube or solid state). Opera Seconda is a true 4 ohm nominal impedance system that meets the DIN 45500 standards (minimum impedance greater than 3.2 ohms) that can be driven by any amplifier suited for 4 ohm nominal load.

Opera Seconda has a final diffuser; with full extension of the low frequency, it is capable of reproducing large volumes of sound. It is also easy to place in a room, with its clear and defined midrange and high frequency reproduction typical of our top speakers.

This new model replaces the old Opera Seconda, which gained a favourable opinion world-wide (it enjoys a HiFi Choice "Best Buy" and an Audio Art "Best Recommended" rating). We are sure that this new high-quality version will gain an equal or even higher level of success.