Our Italian journey began in Munich’s Hauptbahnhof on Sunday at 06:00 for the 6+ hour train ride to Venice’s Mestre Station, just one stop before Venice proper.
Snaking through Germany then Austria, the Alps—Austrian and Italian—and on into Italy, darting in and out of tunnels bored through mountains, flickering from light to dark to light to dark, reinforced the feeling that the stunning views through the window were more movie than landscape. Then a hard left, East toward Veneto.
Our hotel near Treviso, which is 30 kilometres from Venice, was a short flat two taxi drive from the station through more traffic circles than in all of New Jersey. And we love our traffic circles. Sunday night was a day off in Treviso proper, an ancient city nicknamed by some “the little Venice”, home to retailer Benetton and De’Longhi to name just two while being the original producer of Prosecco and the city of origin for tiramisù. Among many other things, locals are proud of their tiramisù.
In what we would soon learn to be a rare respite, the Unison/Opera factory was closed on Monday so the crew headed by Bartolomeo Nasta, Unison Research Sales & Marketing, and Simone Mattiello, Unison’s Service Manager, drove us northeast far enough to see Slovenia and Austria from the same high perch to visit the Tunela Winery, another company with history that is also family history, for a tour, tasting, and lunch. If you can call this feast for the senses, lunch.
Within minutes of meeting Bartolomeo (Bart) and Simone, you felt as if you were reuniting with old friends or relatives, their warmth, charm, and genuine good cheer greeted us like a long embrace. This feeling of kinship only grew stronger over the hours and days spent in this fantastical beautiful region.
A very short drive on Tuesday morning past abandoned mansions that once sat along a waterway connecting Treviso to Venice brought us to the Unison/Opera factory, situated among other industries in what looked like a typical industrial complex.
The day began with presentations from Bart who walked us through Unison Research’s history, a company founded by Giovanni Maria Sacchetti in 1987 and eventually taken over by Bart’s father Giovanni Nasta under the umbrella of A.r.i.a. Srl. Their first products were the Glowy preamp and Ruler power amp followed by the TRIODE20 that used two push-pull pairs of EL34s in a Class A/B , followed by what the company claims to be the first stereo amplifier built around the mighty 845 triode in an audio application and the Simply Two integrated amp. You may recall my review of the Unison Simply 845 (review), a contemporary take on an 845-based integrated amp.
From my review:
When partnered with sensible speakers, the Simply 845 is capable of drama, delicacy, and danger which transcends reproduction turning the act of listening into full-fledged experience.
Today Unison has two main product lines—the Valve line of tube-based integrated amplifiers, a Reference Pre/Monoblock power combo, and Phono preamplifier, and the Unico line that includes hybrid amplifiers, preamplifiers, integrated amplifiers, CD players, and a Phono stage, as well as two loudspeakers designed in conjunction with Opera. Some of the integrated amplifiers offer an all-in-one approach with optional internal DACs and Phono Stages. Just add speakers, plug & play. Prices start at $1999 for the 80W Unico Primo Integrated Amplifier and run all the way up to $50k/pair for the Reference Monoblock Amplifiers.
As is the case with each manufacturer we visited on this Italy tour, Unison and Opera source many of the parts that go into their products locally including the transformers found in Unison gear—a kind of local factory to component deal akin to farm to table. Not every single thing mind you, I did not ask about solder, chips, and screws, but you get the idea. And every product is assembled by hand on site right here in Treviso.
As you can see, there’s lots of hand work involved in producing Unison products that’s all done in-house and every unit produced is fully tested and run in before being sent to its new home somewhere around the globe. Once again, pride in work was evident from every person we met and the entire place buzzed, quietly, with activity.
Opera Loudspeakers was founded in 1989 by Giovanni Nasta, a sister company to Unison occupying the ground floor, is now run by Riccardo Nasta, Bart’s brother, with some speaker designs coming from Giampiero Matarazzo. Giampiero’s presentation was the most animated of the trip bolstered by decades of experience as a designer, University professor, and reviewer for Italy’s Audio Review, where he’s performed countless measurements on countless speakers and components. It is very safe to say that every pair of Opera speakers are engineered in the strictest sense.
The drivers in Opera loudspeakers are sourced from Scanspeak using proprietary designs and a standard Scanspeak tweeter, because they are really good as is, and the exquisite wood woodwork you can see on every model is sourced from an Italian company with assembly of crossovers and final product all done by hand in-house. “Fatto a mano” (made by hand). The Opera range is divided between two lines—the Classica comprised of 5 models plus a center channel, and Callas that includes the Grand Callas and Callas Diva. Think opera.
Two new product lines were highlighted from each company—the new Black Edition of electronics from Unison, and the Opera Quinta loudspeakers. I had a chance to speak to Unison engineer Alessio Fusaro about his design process for the Black Edition, specifically how far does design and simulation get you and how important a role does listening play in the process. And his detailed answer offered no real surprises except perhaps to note that the design phase gets you a very long way but its only through listening, refining, tweaking design and perhaps parts choice, and listening again (repeat) that we reach the final product. Think engineered and voiced.
Which gets me to another audiophile myth that bothers and bewilders me that goes something like this—tube amps are distortion machines or it’s a good amp if you like distortion and so on down that reductive road to utter nonsense. And these burps of half-digested thoughts have zero basis in reality. Most every hifi product is the result of a balance in this regard between measured and audible performance. DACs, Class D amps, even lab-endorsed speakers are all voiced to taste but of much greater importance is this fact is smack-you-in-the-face obvious if you’ve ever seen and heard more than one piece of hifi. Different amps, speakers, and DACs sound different because people design ‘em based on human perception standards, not numbers.
Thinking the differences in design approach and ultimately sound quality are due to bumbled deviations from some measured ideal is dumber, i.e. more stupid, than thinking you can find your soul mate using a spreadsheet. [/rant]
At the end of the day, we spent some time in the factory listening room with the new Black Edition S6 (est. $6999), which uses a quad of Gold Lion KT77s in the output stage, the same tubes I use in my Leben CS600X, an original S6 ($5999), and a number of speakers including the new Quinta Foorstanding Speakers ($6999/pair) and Prima Bookshelf Speakers ($2499/pair). Another change in the Black Edition is the elimination of the auto-bias circuit found in the S6, “This enhancement enables us to extend the bandwidth towards the lower frequencies, resulting in faster, more detailed sound.”
And I have two things to say—I couldn’t help myself from visually rearranging that room with the hopes of getting better sound, and the difference between the Black and original S6 were wonderfully obvious like walking into a pitch black room of unknown size (original S6) and then having someone turn on the lights to reveal a finely detailed large room (Black Edition). Night and day. (Yes, I want to review the New Black Edition).
Our last dinner in Treviso was a full on family/company affair with Unison’s CEO, Donatella Vigilante, Bart and Riccardo’s mother, in attendance. Through a translator, Donatella asked where my family was from and I did a quick lookup on my phone because I can never seem to remember the name of the tiny hilltop town.
I usually just say ‘north of Naples’ which has served me well for my 60-some years but that clearly wasn’t going to fly here. “San Lorenzello” I finally answered, showing her the name on my phone’s screen, a tiny place in the province of Benevento 50km northeast of Naples (the current mayor of San Lorenzello is a Lavorgna). And her face lit up with excitement as she proceeded to tell me how her father used to take her to San Lorenzello every Saturday morning for a special treat, a sweet taralli, that this little town is known for and how we must, we must, be related in some way. We took a selfie together to send to her Lavorgna cousins that still live in Benevento. It’s a small and lovely world after all.
Further Viewing
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