Opera Loudspeakers - Opera Prima Bookshelf/Stand Mount Speaker

The Company

Opera Loudspeakers was founded in 1989, but its origins go back to the early 1980s, to an unusual but highly fruitful synergy between two cultures and two audiophiles, one Italian and the other English. The first loudspeaker to bear the Opera name was called Caruso, and was the precursor of a series named in homage to the legendary voices of the lyric opera. Callas, Operetta and Divina soon followed, each gaining enthusiastic acclaim in the developed audio markets of the world. Opera loudspeakers immediately appeared as a fusion between the old and the new: between traditional Italian craftsmanship in cabinet-making and the most advanced acoustic technology. Every Opera loudspeaker, even the least expensive model, follows a tried and tested philosophy of design: the use of top quality materials allied to carefully applied basic principles of acoustic science. Today our loudspeakers are exported everywhere, from Europe to the Far East with relevant space on the most important hi-fi magazines.

Our intent is to create a complete line of high quality , beautiful to see and to listen to; we then developed over therefore also a line of accessories with the same principle that gave prestige to our speakers.

Gianni Maria Sacchetti, founder

Opera Prima Loudspeaker
The Opera Prima 2015 is a new addition to Opera’s Classica Series and is larger than the entry-level Mezza model. It is a two-way speaker with a 6.5" woofer, reflex loaded, with about 10 liters of internal volume. The Prima is intended to be placed on a shelf or stand. The Prima is characterized by an excellent sound quality that places it at the top in terms of its size and value. The sensitivity of this speaker isa little less than 91 dB (at one meter with 2.83 Vrms) making it one of the most sensitive in its category. The Opera Prima 2015 can also be used as front or rear channel in a home theater system.

The Cabinet

The cabinet is less than 30 cm deep, which makes it ideal for placement on a shelf in a library or a study. The cabinet of the Opera Prima is made from 25 mm MDF shaped with rounded edges, and the sides are veneered with real wood that has been finely polished. The front, top and rear panels are upholstered in faux leather. Besides the obvious beauty of such a surface, it also functions as a seal for the speakers. The front panel, in correspondence with the housing of the woofer, has been milled to avoid reflections and air cavitation. A wooden brace connects the two opposite sides, forming a rigid reinforcement for the entire cabinet.

The front panel, as is a tradition for Opera diffusers, is wide enough to contain the speaker drivers. Since this diffuser is designed to be placed on a shelf or close to the rear walls, the reflex tube is place on the front panel. Inside the cabinet there is a substantial amount of sound-absorbing material (open cell polyurethane 3 cm thick) which controls the damping of the response and reduces internal reflections.

The Components

All models of the "Original Series" use the same one-inch tweeter. It is an extremely solid and powerful soft dome tweeter, with ferrofluid in the gap and a large decompression chamber. The linear excursion of the dome is 1 mm peak to peak (at least twice the normal amount with respect to the competitors) and this ensures outstanding power handling with very low harmonic and intermodulation distortion. The quality of this tweeter, produced by Scanspeak, is well known and appreciated worldwide.

The woofer, which is also produced by Scanspeak, has been specially developed for the Classica Line. It is a 6.5" (18 cm) driver with a 38 mm voice coil. The diaphragm is made from aluminum and the rubber edge (rim) is by Muller. It is characterized by a particular semi exponential profile. There is also a copper ring for the stabilization of the magnetic flux that reduces distortion in the midrange. Two series of holes located on the voice coil former eliminate the effects of compression behind the dust cap. All these details contribute to the quality of reproduction of the midrange. The die-cast basket, with an aerodynamic design, is fully open even below the internal suspension (spiders). The diffuser is equipped with gold-plated connectors with a large enough diameter to accept any type of cable with any termination.

Filter Cross-Over

In designing this new Classica Line, Opera has paid particular attention to the electrical impedance. In particular, we wanted to ensure a load condition compatible with any type of amplifier. To do this the minimum impedance was maintained within the limits allowed by DIN rules which provide, for the nominal 4-ohm speakers, that the impedance does not drop below 3.2 ohms. The electrical impedance module of the Opera Prima 2015 is fully compliant with the DIN rules and it remains stays regular with a contained phase shift.

The Opera Prima 2015 has a nominal impedance of 4 ohms and can be driven by a wide range amplifiers, either valve or solid state. The quality of the components of the cross-over has been enhanced and employs self-bonding coils. In the signal path you will find Mundorf capacitors and MOX resistors with low tolerances. The coil of the tweeter is wrapped in the air while that of the woofer is wound on a core formed from pressed powders with low permeability. Even the printed circuit has been optimized to eliminate any interference between the low and the high frequencies.

The cross-over of the 2015 Opera Prima uses a classical configuration with symmetrical slopes of 12 dB per octave. The cut-off frequency is set at about 2000 Hz. The sensitivity is 91 dB (2.83 Vrms in a meter). It is used the fewest components possible and all of excellent quality. The filter is mounted on the printed circuit with tracks of increased thickness and optimized with the system Quebek.

Room positioning

We recommend that the Opera Prima is placed no closer than 30 cm from the side walls. It is not recommended to place these speakers in room corners. If the speakers are mounted on stands, optimal location within the room should be determined through careful experimentation, bearing in mind that the closer the diffuser is located to the rear wall, the more it has to move away from the side walls. The distances between the side wall, the bottom wall and the floor must be different and they should not be a multiple of each other.

Opera Prima 2015 is provided in mirror-image pairs that can be arranged vertically or horizontally.

Specifications