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Design Advantages:

• Tool-Free expansion slots
• Lock & keys provide front and side panel security
• Fully adjustable 360° swivel feet
• Low noise 12 cm/9 cm fans for excellent airflow
• Filtered intake system with washable foam filter
• Installed mother-board mounting nipple

Taking a closer look, the Soprano is very impressive indeed. The all black outer skin (side panels and front bezel) give a nice touch of class. The lightweight SECC steel chassis, "Tool-Free" expansion slots and dual hinge front door system is really unique and offers smooth contours, easy device installations.

First thing we notice on the bottom of the case was are the huge impact resistant case pedestals or in slang terms "feet" or foot stands. These swivel in all directions giving better center of gravity when the foot stands are facing the sides of the case. Soprano's chassis for which they are attached, is made from 0.8mm SECC steel, which is solid, rugged and reliable.

Soprano has a chassis intrusion detector which will sound off, if you leave your case and someone decides to take off your side panel with out your permission. This makes for a good "Anti-Theft" device for any occassion. While protecting your valuable equipment with lock and key, Soprano supports a wide variety of motherboards that are built around the  Micro ATX (9.6’’x 9.6’’) & ATX (12’’ x 9.6’’) standards.

Some close-ups on the ventilator used in the Soprano. You can see the typical Thermaltake orange fan. There are two 12cm cooling fans one at the front (intake) and one at the rear (exhaust), this to provide optimum airflow. The  fans are 120x120x25 mm, run at 1400rpm and have a low noise to operation level at 21dBA. Not pictured is the 90x90x25 mm,1800rpm, 21dBA side panel fan which I will point out later.

The Soprano has over sized thumb screws that seal of the side panels of the case. This is very user friendly as you don't need a screwdriver to open up the case to configure your components. The picture on the upper right shows the control box that's on the panel that you access from outside of the case for easy use of the microphone, headphone, USB and FireWire ports.

What about the front? The front of the case has a door that hides four 5.25" and two 3.5" drive bays. By turning the key counter-clock-wise you open the door to get access to these external bays. When you turn the key clock-wise you open the second door that reveals the air intake fan and filter. The back of the case is like any back and shows 7 expansion slots.

A closer look at the inside of the case, focusing on the internal and external bay drives. The internal bay drives also have in the front the cooling fan. As you can see they holes are a bit different then we are used to. We will show you how that comes...

The expansion slots show you the screw-less mechanism that is used to hold the card on their place. The purple and green plastic will be taking care of that. Above these expansion slots we can see the second cooling fan that will blow the hot air out of the case.

Here we have a nice view on the back panel that will fit the mainboard. Again we get as well a clear view on the placement of the cooling fan. The Soprano weighs in at 9.4kg (20.7lb) which is about average for a case of this size which is 495 x 210x 478 mm.