Doug Schneider and I found ourselves transfixed by the large TV in the hotel bar as we walked in from breakfast midway through the third period of the Canada-USA gold-medal hockey game. Neither of us is a sports fan, but here we were, in deep-red Florida, watching our Canadian team play our national sport. As you probably know, they lost in overtime. It stung a bit, but oh well, so long as everybody had fun.
So I nipped back up to my room, grabbed my laptop, and walked over to American Sound Distribution’s room so that I could hear a pair of Avantgarde Acoustic Opus One active speakers. The Opus One was making its North American debut, and I was told the pair on display were so new they had only 40 hours on them.
This felt like the thing to do, since American Sound Distribution is, in fact, a Canadian company. It’s located in Richmond Hill, Ontario, just north of Toronto. I’ve known owner Angie Lisi for years. She’s always welcoming, and, more importantly, she handles a whole bunch of juicy, tasty brands.
I had visited the American Sound room on the first day of the show, and they were playing Avantgarde’s Uno SD speakers driven by about a gazillion dollars’ worth of Airtight tube gear, backed up by a Wadax Studio digital stack. I could taste the sound that day. It was almost wet, dripping down the walls, with a delicious midrange that had the texture of a well-aged fruitcake. And I mean that in the best way.
The next day, the day of our country’s terrible sportsball loss, American Sound was playing those Opus Ones. The Airtight gear was dark, as the Opus Ones were receiving their signals directly from a Grimm MU2 streaming preamplifier. A much simpler system—and dramatically less expensive.
The Opus One is a two-way system, armed with a 10″ ported bass driver driven by a 250W class-D amplifier. That woofer amplifier is DSP-controlled, with two settings available to suit different room setups. The midrange-tweeter horn is powered by an amplifier that delivers 10W in class-AB mode and 1W in class-A mode. At US$18,000 per pair, minus the source, the Opus One system costs less than one-tenth the price of the Uno SD–Airtight–Wadax system. Think about that for a minute!
The Opus Ones threw out a clean, clear, but incredibly intimate, forward presentation. More upfront in the highs than the Uno SDs, not necessarily in level, but with a dynamic sense of snap that immediately engages you, demands your attention. The Opus One is not for casual listening. It’s not boring, far from it. This is an exciting system.
I sat for a solid hour as the American Sound folks played track after track, from full-throttle symphonies right through delicate vocals. The Opus Ones made it hard to write as I sat there, grabbing my attention and making me look up. I ended up finishing this article in my room.
Given that you could easily feed the Opus One with a very cost-effective streaming DAC, you’re essentially looking at a complete audio system for 18 large (in USD). Oh boy, would it be a head-turner.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
