November 2003 Reviewed by Vince Hanada	Mirage Omni 260 / Omni CC / Omni FX / OM-200 Home-Theater Speaker System

Description Model: Omni 260 speakers Price: $1000 USD per pair Dimensions: 42"H x 9"W x 15"D Weight: 55 pounds each Model: Omni CC center-channel Price: $500 USD Dimensions: 21"W x 8"H x 10"D Weight: 25 pounds Model: Omni FX surrounds Price: $350 USD per pair Dimensions: 11"H x 8"W x 7"D Weight: 9 pounds each Model: OM-200 subwoofer Price: $1000 USD Dimensions: 18.575"W x 16.125"H x 17.5"D Weight: 55 pounds System Price: $2850 USD

Description (cont'd) Warranty: Five years parts and labor, speakers; one year, subwoofer electronics Features Omnipolar technology Polypropylene Titanium Deposit Hybrid woofers 1" Pure Titanium Hybrid (PTH) tweeters 0.75"-thick MDF cabinets 200W continuous, 800W peak amplifier (OM-200) Adjustable crossover (OM-200) Continuously variable phase control (OM-200) Removable grilles Stabilizing legs with threaded, spiked feet Black-ash or cherry laminate finishes Black-gloss finish (OM-200)

Mirage Loudspeakers is a division of Audio Products International, established in 1973. The Canadian firm is credited with popularizing the bipolar speaker concept: firing multiple drivers, in phase, from the front and rear baffles. The company’s early bipolar speakers had wide profiles and deep cabinets, which created a sound-dispersion pattern that was uniform except for nulls directly to the sides of the enclosure. Mirage refined their bipolar speaker technology by moving the back-to-back drivers closer together and narrowing the baffles’ width, creating a more spherical sound-dispersion pattern. This design, dubbed "Omnipolar," was launched with their highly successful OM speaker line.

But because the drivers account for a major portion of a speaker’s cost, the OM speakers are fairly expensive, so new technology had to be developed to produce more affordable Omnipolar speakers. Mirage’s engineering team researched ways that they could reproduce a spherical soundwave pattern using fewer drivers. They came up with the pod-shaped Omnisat speaker.

Omnisat speakers use what Mirage calls the OmniGuide module, designed to produce an Omnipolar radiation pattern using only one woofer and one tweeter, as opposed to two of each driver as in the OM series. Mirage designs their speakers to work well in a normally furnished room with walls of drywall -- i.e., the vast majority of the rooms in which these speakers will be used. Furthermore, they believe that the reflected soundwave off your room walls is just as important as the direct soundwave from the speaker. The OmniGuide, with its strategically placed woofer and tweeter diffusers, throws soundwaves in all directions -- even behind the speaker. This pattern is reportedly responsible for the Omni series’ unique sound.

Mirage has used the OmniGuide module as the central feature of its Omni series, a line of six speakers in a variety of sizes, from bookshelf to floorstanding models. This review is of the top-of-the-line Omni 260 tower, the Omni CC center-channel, the Omni FX surround, and the OM-200 subwoofer. The package retails for $2850.

Appearance

Each OmniGuide module works with a Polypropylene Titanium Deposit Hybrid woofer firing up at an angle of approximately 25 degrees from horizontal. Directly above the woofer is an aluminum dome that disperses, or diffuses, the soundwave from the woofer. Mounted on the aluminum dome is a 1" Pure Titanium Hybrid (PTH) tweeter firing straight up. Above the tweeter is another diffuser, shaped like a spoon, designed to disperse the soundwave from the tweeter. The entire OmniGuide module -- the tweeter, two diffusers, and their housing -- is mounted to the speaker cabinet with a sturdy aluminum arm. The whole affair looks fragile but is very strong.

The main Omni 260 speaker sits 42" high with its grilles attached. There are two grilles, which combine to extend from midway along the front panel to the top rear of the cabinet. Removing the top grille reveals the OmniGuide module mounted above a 6.5" woofer. On the front face is another 6.5" woofer above a large 2.75"-diameter flared port. Around back is a set of high-quality speaker binding posts. Included with the Omni 260 are a set of attractive plastic feet that can be attached to the bottom of the speaker to give it more lateral stability.

The Omni CC center-channel speaker is fairly wide at 21", and features the same 25-degree sloping top panel as the Omni 260. The CC’s OmniGuide module sits in the middle of the speaker mounted above a 3" midrange. On either side are two 5.5" woofers, with a port each at the far left and right of the front baffle.

The Omni FX surround is a compact speaker suitable for wall-mounting. It’s quite shallow -- only 7" at its deepest point -- and its grille is a single curved piece. The FX’s OmniGuide module sits above a 5.5" woofer. You can mount the FX with the module firing up or down, depending on the application. I placed the FX on a speaker stand with its module firing upward.

The OM-200 features two 8" Polypropylene Titanium Deposit Hybrid woofers on the left and right sides, with large 2.5" ports on each side. These drivers are driven in-phase by an internal 200W amplifier to produce an omnidirectional sound pattern much like those of the Omni speakers. The OM-200 is finished in high-gloss black on top, and with fabric on the sides and front. The control panel is on the top of the front face, with rotary controls for volume level, frequency adjustment from 40 to 120Hz, and a phase control that’s continuously variable from -180 to +180 degrees. The Audio/Video toggle switch boosts bass response even further. Around back are left and right speaker-level inputs and outputs, a line-level input, and a second crossover-bypass input. This last renders all controls inoperable except for the phase control; it’s used when the LFE output from your receiver makes the rotary controls of the subwoofer unnecessary (which is the case with most modern home-theater receivers and processors).

With its grilles on, the Mirage Omni home-theater speaker system is very attractive, with subtle touches that make the speakers stand apart from the usual boxy designs. With the grilles off, the OmniGuide has a space-age look that some may find too high-tech.

Listening

I set up the Mirage Omni system in my upstairs room, which is approximately 14’W by 20’L. I placed the Omni 260 main speakers 2.5’ from the front wall and 3.5’ from the side walls, and the Omni CC center-channel on a low stand at the front of the room, below my front-projected image and about a foot from the front wall. The Omni FX surrounds were set on 3’ stands, approximately 120 degrees from the CC, and the OM-200 subwoofer ended up in the front left corner of the room, angled diagonally toward the listening position.

Listening to the Mirage system was a unique experience -- acoustically, the speakers seemed to disappear. I did get a sense that sound was coming from the particular location where a speaker was situated, but even standing only inches away, I was unable to exactly pinpoint the source of the sound. This was revealed to me when watching the DVD Adaptation. Nicolas Cage’s voice in the first chapter seemed removed from the speaker, floating at a location approximately where the Omni CC was placed. Because the Omni CC did not call attention to itself, I felt more immersed in the movie. The dialogue intelligibility was generally very good, too, with good clarity when played at appropriate levels.

The immersive nature of the Omni speakers was even more evident when I watched the DVD Minority Report. In chapter 14, the Pre-Crime Unit unleashes the "spiders" in the rundown apartment complex in which John Anderton is hiding. The Omni system gave the feeling of being in this stark environment. The reverberation of the voices in the apartment lobby was one of the subtle spatial cues reproduced very well by the Omni FX surrounds.

Another good example that showed the strength of the Omni FX is in chapter 23 of Minority Report, in which the Pre-Crime Unit rappels down from above. The swooping noise began in the hard left and hard right Omni FXes, then came together in the center. I was impressed with the ability of the FXes to image in the rear center of the room, but was even more impressed that they created the illusion of height as the sound washed up toward the ceiling.

The Mirage OM-200 subwoofer was absolutely first-rate -- using two woofers running in an Omnipolar configuration, Mirage is really on to something. I slapped in the deluxe widescreen DVD of Das Boot to test the sub’s capabilities. With a multitude of depth-charge explosions throughout the movie, the OM-200 provided deep, loud bass, but it was the even distribution of that bass that most impressed me. The dual woofers meant that standing waves in my room were significantly reduced, which made placement easier and more predictable. Mirage claims that the OM-200 produces very few cabinet vibrations because the reactive forces of the two woofers effectively cancel each other out. This claim seemed bang on -- the OM-200 produced far less audible vibration that any other subwoofer I have auditioned. With a claimed frequency response down to the low 20Hz region, high sound-pressure-level capability, and even in-room bass response, what more could you want?

Comparison

I was anxious to compare the $2850 Mirage Omni system with my $2750 system consisting of Mirage’s OM-9, OM-C2, and OM-R2 ($3750 with OM-200 subwoofer), which I’ve owned for nearly a year. With both systems, Mirage has aimed to achieve greater spatial realism by directing more of the sound toward the room boundaries than most other speaker designs, but they’ve used different technologies to reach this goal. Instead of the Omni 260’s single 1" PTH tweeter, the OM-9 has two, one each on the front and rear baffles. Each OM-9 also has two 6" Polypropylene Titanium Deposit Hybrid woofers, one on the front, and one on the back.

The OM-9 sounded warmer than the Omni 260. When I listened to Aimee Mann sing "Wise Up" on the Magnolia soundtrack album [Reprise CDW 47583], her voice sounded sweeter than through the starker-sounding 260. The 260’s leaner sound was probably more accurate, but the warmth with which the OM-9 embellished this particular CD was more pleasant to my ears.

But again, the most startling aspect of the Omni 260 system was how the speakers didn’t call attention to themselves. This was most obvious when I compared the Omni CC with the OM-C2. I watched Adaptation, concentrating on the dialogue. The OM-C2 "disappeared" quite well, but was still easier to pinpoint than the Omni CC. Through the OM-C2, voices had a rounder, more three-dimensional quality. However, the Omni CC, while not sounding as three-dimensional, "disappeared" entirely.

Returning to chapter 23 of Minority Report, I listened to the aforementioned upward-swooping sound with the OM-R2s in place of the Omni FXes. The OM-R2s did send a rush of sound toward the ceiling, but the FXes seemed to convey the sense of height a little better. In chapter 1 of side 2 of Das Boot, as the sub begins to come apart under the enormous water pressure, bolts fly from the surround channels. These effects were more precisely and accurately rendered by the OM-R2s.

In terms of price and size, the closest match for the Mirage OM-200 subwoofer that I had on hand was the Krix Seismix 3 ($1550). When I watched Das Boot, the OM-200 provided a more even bass response in my room than the Seismix 3 could muster, and the depth charges sounded tighter and less boomy.

Conclusion

This Mirage Omni system of 260 towers, CC center, and FX surrounds, with the OM-200 subwoofer, was a very engaging home-theater speaker array. Although the Omnis are nice to look at, what really impressed me was their acoustical disappearing act. The Mirage system drew so little attention to itself that it was easy to get lost in the onscreen action. Most of the time, I never thought about how great these speakers sounded, but about how great the DVD sounded. This system allowed me to get more immersed in the movie -- isn’t that what home theater is about?

Manufacturer contact information:

Mirage Loudspeakers
3641 McNicoll Avenue
Scarborough, Ontario M1X 1G5
Canada
Phone: (416) 321-1800
Fax: (416) 321-1500

Website: www.miragespeakers.com 

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