Напольная акустика — Opera Loudspeakers Opera Grand Mezza

The Grand Mezza is a slim floorstanding loudspeaker from Opera Loudspeakers, the Italian company based in Treviso. This is the original 2015 version of the tower, which Opera later replaced with the Grand Mezza v2, a 2.5-way design with different drivers and figures.

Key specs that matter

The original model uses a three-way layout built from one 1 inch tweeter, one 5 inch midrange and two 5 inch woofers. The crossover points sit at 200 Hz and 2000 Hz. Opera quotes a frequency response of 40 Hz to 20,000 Hz and a nominal impedance of 4 ohm, with power handling of 120 W RMS.

Engineering and use context

The crossover is arranged in parallel form. Between the woofers and the midrange it uses a 12 dB per octave low pass, and the midrange is then limited by a cascaded low pass at the upper crossover point, where the tweeter takes over through a 12 dB per octave high pass. Using two small woofers in place of a single large cone lets the cabinet stay narrow while keeping enough cone area for the low end, and handing the band above the lower crossover to a separate midrange keeps the woofers out of the vocal range. A narrow cabinet of this kind suits a living room of about 20 m2, where the slim front takes up little visual space. Opera describes the speaker as intended for normal home use, and the tall, slim proportions leave floor space free in front of the cabinet. The two woofers work in parallel below the lower crossover, so the rated power is split between two cones instead of resting on one. The later v2 changed the layout to a 26 mm tweeter with a 150 mm mid-woofer and a 150 mm woofer, rated at 6 ohm, so specifications from the two generations should not be mixed. The v2 also moved to a dual-chamber bass-loading arrangement in which two internal volumes are joined by a tuned duct and vented through two rear ports, and it is rated at 92 dB sensitivity with crossover points of 250 Hz and 2 kHz.

Pairing

Opera states that low or medium power amplifiers from about 10 to 12 W RMS can drive the Grand Mezza in normal domestic use, which puts small valve amplifiers within reach. The maker adds that the speaker can also accept more powerful amplifiers of over 200 W RMS per channel, provided the volume is kept within reason. Because the nominal load is low, any partner amplifier needs to cope with delivering current into low impedance.

Alternatives

The Opera Callas Diva belongs to the Callas series and is a bigger three-way tower with a 7 inch midrange and an 8 inch woofer.