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 Quinta SE Loudspeaker 

The new Opera Quinta SE is then new version of then Opera Quinta 2011. It, is still a three ways, floor standing system but with a new midrange and tweeter, reflex loaded and with a couple of dB more sensitive.

Driver

The new 7” woofer is a custom model, made by Scanspeak, for the whole new Classica series. It is equipped with an aluminum diaphragm with a 38 mm coil (two-layer, CCWA wire) with an aluminum 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. The rigid aluminum diaphragm is free from  subharmonics and from transverse modes and perfectly reproduces the lower frequencies. The two woofers, connected in parallel, share the same 40 liters enclosed volume.

The midrange, by Seas, is a new 7" custom component. The membrane is made with  annealed polypropylene and an ABS phase plug is present  to avoid any resonance caused by the dust cup. The linear displacement of the moving coil is largely oversized and it is exploited only for his the most linear part greatly reducing intermodulation.
The rear volume of the midrange, a separate closed volume, is filled with one layer of pyramidal shaped, 10 cm thick, polyurethane which form an extremely effective acoustic trap. As a consequence Consistency and Clarity are the hallmarks of the sound of this speaker.

The Scanspeak 9700 tweeter is the same one used on the top models (Caruso, Malibran, Thebes). It is equipped with soft  treated dome, decompression chamber, aluminum flange and large linear  peak-to-peak excursion (from two to five times larger than a conventional tweeter). The frequency response extends to 30kHz. The resonance frequency is approximately 500 Hz which makes this tweeter insensitive with respect to any vibration transmitted from the woofer to the front panel (however  MDF 40 mm thick). This tweeter is still considered one of the best available today. 

Crossover 

The crossover uses the same cascade configuration that you can find in our top model Tebaldi and Caruso. The circuit is divided on two different boards, placed at suitable distance from each other, to reduce the effects of mutual inductance of coils. The high-pass sections (for tweeter and midrange) are designed to minimize the microphonic effect (something rarely done).

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 is equipped with two reflex ducts that exit at the rear of the cabinet. If necessary they can be closed so getting the same response at low frequency of model  Quinta 2011.

The front panel, MDF 40 mm thick) is wide enough to accommodate the speakers, it has rounded edges and is covered in leather that also acts as a seal for the speaker. The sides of the cabinet are veneered with real wood and finely polished. The structure is further stiffened by internal bracing. Opera Quinta 2014 is equipped with strong iron bars for wheels or spikes.
The four external connectors (Quinta is designed for bi-wiring) are the traditional gold-plated brass connectors, the same for all Opera speakers, including our top models. They accept any kind of wire termination providing a safe and effective electrical and mechanical contact.

The Opera Quinta is also suited to be used as front and/or rear channel in home theater systems: with two pairs of Opera Quinta you can get an Home Theater System that requires no center channel and no sub-woofer.
Particular attention has been paid to the electrical impedance curve to get a reproduction less sensitive to the quality of the cables and amplifier (tube or solid state). Opera Quinta is a true 4 ohm nominal impedance system that meets the DIN 45500 standards that can be driven by any amplifier suited for 4 ohm nominal load.
The new Quinta Model, although part of the Classica series, makes an important qualitative leap in the absolute quality of the reproduction and in the “value for money” that becomes even more competitive.

Opera Quinta is a final diffuser: it has full extension of the low frequency, capable of reproducing important volumes of sound, easy to insert into the room, with a clear and defined midrange and an high frequency reproduction typical of our top speakers.