The product range includes both solid-state and tubed integrated amplifiers, preamps, power amps, CD players, and turntables.

Opera even makes its own tonearms. The company is noted for its innovative industrial design, including the Droplet CD player.

Opera offers its products in a range of colors and finishes. The industrial design is provided by a nearby shop I visited that’s run by a well-known professor of industrial design and his wife. They began working with Opera as one of their clients, but Opera has grown so much that they now dedicate themselves full-time to Opera. It doesn’t hurt that the professor is a life-long audiophile and analog enthusiast—he designed Opera’s top-of-the-line tonearm. I visited his design studio-listening room and saw in glass cases an array of the world’s great tonearms. An adjacent room houses the tonearm manufacturing operation.

I heard a number of Consonance products in a variety of venues. Most notable of these products was a 300B-based power amplifier, which I heard in three different systems. (Opera offers three versions of the 300B monoblock—single-ended, parallel single-ended, and push-pull). One of these systems was in the elegant Beijing apartment of a serious audiophile and LP collector. He didn’t live in the apartment; it was converted into an acoustical space purely for music listening. The treated room housed a pair of massive Tannoy loudspeakers driven by a Consonance CD player, Consonance preamp, top-of-the-line Consonance turntable, and the 300B-based amplifier I just mentioned. The sound was exquisite; smooth, effortless, with immediacy and directness.

Opera employs a marketing approach that is unique, both in China and in the West. They regular hold a “music night” in which their best customers, customers’ friends, and top executives from local firms are invited to an Italian restaurant for dinner, live classical music performed by well-known musicians, and discussion of music and musical culture. The guests are invited to spend the night in the adjacent hotel, each room of which houses a different configuration of Opera Audio’s equipment. What a great way to expose more people to high-quality music reproduction.

Everything about Opera Audio was impressive, from the fundamental design ethic to the build-quality to the sound (at least during my brief auditions). 

Next: The Ultimate 300B Tube: A 50-Year Quest

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