Opera Seconda Floor standing speakers
Opera Seconda are high, beautiful 2,5-way floor speaker systems. Cherry or mahogany veneer (glossy black finish is also available) covers side panels of the body with wide horizontal stripes that already become traditional for the Italian speaker systems. Front, back and top walls are finished with leather.
Unlike the vast majority of modern speaker systems Seconda are not bass-reflex, but closed. Although the port provides an additional bass, closed loading has better phase characteristics and smoother rolloff at low frequencies. Both LF- and LF/MF-speakers work in individual and isolated compartments, partitions between which also play the role of stiffeners. These 180-mm emitters by SEAS production have cast baskets and aluminum diaphragms. HF-speaker is with cloth dome with the diameter of 28 mm. Isolation with floor is unusual, but quite effective - quite deep body, powerful 10-mm spikes and wide plate with spikes in the back. Unfortunately, the spikes do not have check-nuts. The signal from dual connectors falls on a fairly complex filter: LF filter of the second order for LF/MF-speaker and LF filter of the third order for HF-emitter.
Perhaps, frequency response of Seconda is not very smooth, but impartiality in the presentation of material and perfect transfer of timbres are definitely strong points of this model. Neutrality impresses and one of the reasons is bass - accurate, smooth, deep and free from "sound on a single note", often found in speaker systems with bass-reflex. Albeit the performance of Opera Seconda is not the most dynamical, it is greatly balanced.
Bass is solid and powerful, precisely following the music, without any domination or excessive weight. The middle clearly balances between detailing and aggression.
Subtle dynamic nuances are not always transferred confidently to the proper degree. Sound stage is accurate, with good depth, although transparency is slightly lacking. Beautiful design fully justifies the price and the performance is a good argument in favor of closed loading.
