Напольная акустика — Opera Loudspeakers Opera Seconda

The Seconda is a floorstanding loudspeaker in the Classica series from Opera Loudspeakers, whose works stand in Dosson di Casier in the province of Treviso, Italy. Its layout is 2.5-way, housed in a sealed cabinet, and later production carries the Seconda SE name. Pair prices were USD 3,500 in cherry and USD 4,999 in mahogany or black ash, the last one made to special order.

Key specs that matter

Two 7 inch woofers with aluminium cones work with a 1 inch Scanspeak D26 tweeter that has a silk diaphragm, a decompressed rear chamber and magnetic fluid cooling. Opera quotes 30 Hz to 30,000 Hz, with the tweeter reaching 40 kHz at minus 6 dB. Sensitivity is 89 dB measured with 2.83 V at 1 metre, and nominal impedance is 4 ohm with a minimum above 3.2 ohm, in line with the DIN 45500 standard. Maximum rating is 120 W RMS. Each cabinet stands 102 cm tall, 24.5 cm wide and 43 cm deep, and weighs 45 kg.

Engineering and use context

The woofers are a custom Scanspeak design built for the Classica range, with a 38 mm two-layer voice coil wound on an aluminium former. The same driver is used as the midrange in the larger Quinta, which shows how far up the band it is trusted to play. The crossover splits the signal at roughly 2,200 Hz with 12 dB per octave slopes on both the woofer low pass and the tweeter high pass, and its parts sit on two separate boards to reduce mutual inductance between coils. A 30 mm MDF front panel has rounded edges wrapped in leather, and that leather also seals the joint with the enclosure. The side panels carry real wood veneer that is polished by hand, internal bracing stiffens the box, and 10 cm of polyurethane lines the inside. With a sealed enclosure there is no port opening to keep clear of a rear wall. Iron bars under the base accept either wheels or spikes.

Pairing

Opera states the Seconda works with amplifiers from 10 W to 200 W RMS or more as long as they do not clip, so a modest valve amplifier and a large transistor design both fall inside its stated range. The low impedance minimum favours an output stage that copes with a low load without strain. Two sets of gold-plated brass terminals permit bi-wiring with separate runs to the woofers and the tweeter.

Alternatives

The Opera Quinta is the three-way bass-reflex floorstander of the Classica series, with a 150 mm fibreglass midrange, two 180 mm aluminium woofers, 91 dB sensitivity and a weight of 39 kg.