Opera Grand Callas loudspeakers

Opera Grand Callas loudspeakers

A very high performance loudspeaker for the most revealling of systems, the Grand Callas features all of the engineering knowledge available to Opera engineers, giving a breathtakingly realistic sound field.

The new Grand Callas is the further development of the 2007 Callas Model with three more woofers added to enhance low frequencies responce. The bass section is loaded in a completly sealed enclousure to give the best possible bass quality. The new Grand Callas is a real three ways, floorstanding system which includes two complementary sub systems: -the (main) front radiation system with three 5”woofer, one 5” midrange and a couple of stateof- the-art one inch fabric tweeter for the high range (the doublet). -the rear radiation system with three tweeters forming the device called Triplet located on the rear of the cabinet. The rear system act as the CLD implemented for the Tebaldi and Caruso models. The rear radiation from the Triplet feeds the reflected sound field without interfering with the direct sound and thus preserving the loudspeaker transient response (as the CLD). The rear radiation balances the power response of the system at higher frequency (where the front tweeter became directional) and increases the “Brilliance” which is a quality related to the perception of sound details. Details in the music are related to the acoustic properties of the environment where the original event was recorded. More detail enhances the sense of space in the reproduction which is not a just simple boost in the mid-high frequency range. The main front system uses two tweeters (the doublet) placed above and below the midrange. Fron the electrical point of view they are connected in a quasi-series configuration. The doubling the radiating surface (respect a single tweeter) allows a lower cross-over frequency, reduces non linearity and, more important, moves the main beam of sound radiation upwards as the frequency increase. This solution gives a more realistic height to the sound stage as proved by the Callas model. The Triplet and the Doublet are devices developed by Opera Loudspeakers to improve the three-dimensional aspects of the reproduction. Far from theory, the results are clearly audible: the new Grand Callas produces a sound stage which expands the depth with an excellent transient response and with the power, dynamic and low frequency extension tipical of the sealed box. Three 5” woofers acts as a single powerful 10” woofer with a linear dispacement equal to 22 millimeters . The cabinet A great care has been taken in cabinet design and realization to obtain a compact, heavy, stiff but still elegant one. Many prototypes has been tested to find out the best solution. The cabinet is made with MDF and solid wood. The cross section of the cabinet is similar to Diva and Divina models. The front baffle is obtained from a thick MSF board (40 millimeters) which is shaped on both side: on the outer side to reduce the diffraction effects and on the inner side to eliminate “whirlwind” and air flow noise that affect the woofer diaphragm motion at low frequencies. The shape of the inner side of the front baffle is very important and is a feature of all our model from many years. To reduce edge diffraction the front baffle has rounded edges. The glue used to assemble the cabinet is extremely rigid and hard as glass. The result is much more stiff then solid wood, MDF or regular plywood of the same thickness. This make the structure more stiff and increase the quality of lower frequency range. The back of the cabinet is a block of MDF 50 millimeter thick. The top and bottom side are 40 millimeters thick. So the thickness of the cabinet range from 30 to 50 millimeters instead of the usual 20-25. The lateral sides are veneered and the top side is solid wood, all them are finely lacquered in the best Italian tradition. The front baffle is finished in leather that is elegant and fine to see but also works as an air washer for the loudspeakers. Because of the closed box disign there are no problems related with duct noise. The cabinet volume is completely filled with lining material. On the rear side there are four big, solid, gold plated, brass connectors that accept a wide range of cable termination. The Components The Grand Callas model uses the same woofer and tweeter developed for the Callas model, made by Seas (Norway) and customized for Opera applications. The tweeter has a one inch soft precoated Sonotex dome loaded by a double decompression rear chamber, there is a low density magnetic fluid in the gap and a small but powerful neodimium magnet. The linear excursion of the dome is 0.9 mm. pick-to-pick (compared with 0.5 mm of a good regular tweeters). The overall external size is only 53 millimetres and this allows the tweeter to be positioned very close to the midrange and to keep the right distance between the triplet’s sources. This tweeter sounds clear, linear and free from coloration. The woofer has extreme characteristics: -magnesium cone -rubber sorround -solid copper phase plug for superior heat dispersion. -“Excel motor” with copper rings above and below the T-shaped pole piece -wide linear excursion of the moving coil (14 mm pk-pk) -very stiff cast alloy basket with large windows also below the inner spider -38 mm aluminium voice coil former -very low voice coil inductance (which reduce distortion due to impedance coil and flux variations) All this means low distortion (less than 0.3% in the midrange band), negligible compression and superior performance. This woofer has an excellent frequency response up to 3000 Hz free from any breakdown. This is also due to the rubber rim with special corrugation which better control the higher frequency resonances of metal cones. This woofer offers the midband reproduction of the best specialized midrange but with a very long linear excursion that reduce the intermodulation distortion to a neglible level even at hign pressure level. This is why we use the same driver for the low and midrange sections. The Cross-Over Filter The cross-over has two different sections: front tweeters & rear tweeters and woofer & mid-range. This original topology is designed to reduce the number of passive components in the cross-over filter. Front and rear tweeter are filtered by the same cross-over section, very similat to the one of the Callas model, reducing the number of elements and the overall tolerance between right and left channel getting a better image and more precise central virtual channel The 23 woofers of the low section are in parallel. The loe –pass section of the filter il placed at the input of then mid-woofer secrion. This solution, tha you also find in the Tebaldi model, gives much better phase relationship with a minimum of elements in the cross-over. Note that, because of the very low inductance of the woofer coils, impedance compensation is nor needed. The coils in the low pass section, in series with the signal, have a low permeability core while all other coils in the filter section have no core. Capacitors are low tolerance, high voltage, high quality plastic type. Grand Callas cross-over The upper front tweeter is up-limited so that, below 2 kHz, all tweeters produce the same SPL while, as the frequency increase, only the lower tweeter is fully powered. Due to the quasi-series connection the emission coherence in mathematically preserved. The minimum value of the real part of electrical impedance of the Grand Callas is higher than 3 ohm. This makes Opera Grand Callas a real nominal 4 ohm system that can be driven by a wide range of amplifiers, either with valves or solid state. Sensibility is 89 dB SPL 1 metre/2,83 Volt which is considerable for a closed box system. Position in the listeming room Opera Grand Callas is a floor standing design and, because of the closed box design, is very easy to be placed in the listening room. We recommend to lightly angle the loudspeakers toword the listening point. To enhance the image focousing (enlarge the stereo-effect area) position the loudspeakers as shown below so that the third vertex of the ideal triangle falls in front of the listener: The optimum mid-bass frequency responce is easily found moving the cabinet from lateral and rear walls.