Nigel Hooper
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2004
- Messages
- 208
Mint OM7 and OM-C2 center channel offered for sale. The C2 is considered one of the finest centers made in the world. Both are black high gloss in excellent condition. Truly phenomenal high end sound. Omni fX for rears. $2100.
The floorstanding OM-7 under review here retails for $3000 per pair and comes with a five-year warranty. It features Mirage-designed and -manufactured drivers: two 1" Pure Titanium Hybrid tweeters (front and back), two 4.5" polypropylene cone midrange drivers (front and back), and one 8" polypropylene cone woofer (front only). Crossover frequencies are said to be 200Hz and 2kHz. The company rates the OM-7 as having 90dB in-room efficiency (shave off a few dB for anechoic efficiency) and an 8-ohm nominal impedance. It’s not necessarily a difficult speaker to drive, but I found it best to use a good solid-state amp of reasonable power. Low-powered tubes likely won’t mate well.
Bass response is rated down to 30Hz, which is realistic given the type of "whomp" I heard in my room. Essentially, this is a nearly full-range speaker (full range would be one that goes below 20Hz) that I would not consider using with a subwoofer. It's so well balanced, and I wouldn’t want to risk messing that balance up.
The little tidbits that finish off a high-quality speaker are here in abundance. There are big, thick binding posts (two sets per speaker for biwiring, should you wish), spikes for penetrating carpet to keep the speaker rock-solid on the floor, and rounded, silver-colored feet that finish off the bottom of the speaker nicely.
For anyone that doesn’t understand the implications of Omnipolar technology, it’s time for a quick
reminder. Put simply, these speakers employ a completely even radiation pattern unlike conventional
point-source speakers.
Radiating energy equally from all of the planes and angles so that, in theory, they can be pointed in any
direction and still provide the same sonic focus. ‘That’s great,’ you might say, ‘but what’s that got to do
with anything?’ Maybe if we mention that the Mirage OM-C2 is the first ever centre speaker to incorporate
such technology the nature of this accolade might become a little clearer.
In a nutshell, this unashamedly expensive centre is without doubt the best centre proffered for review this
year. Considerably larger than most, the long black shiny OM-C2 demands to be coupled to only the
largest rear-projection TV sets. Whether you bi-amp or bi-wire it, this monster box screams class. Even as
part of the hugely impressive Mirage Omnipolar system, the OM-C2 made its dominating presence
known. So impressive was it’s performance that our speaker know-it-all Adam Rayner was almost silenced
again...’That the OM-C2 can sound so effortlessly ethereal and delicate, yet carry through the midst of a lot of other
efforts from the rest of an array of speakers, is testament to very high quality indeed.
