Mirage Omni Series! (1 Viewer)

[Micheal]

I'm thinking of going with the Mirage Omni series as my new HT setup.

2 Omni 260 Floor-standers
1 Omni CC Center Channel
4 Omni 60 Bookshelf (Sides & Rears)
1 OM 200 Sub-woofer

SUB
Speakers

I listened to them during my "speaker search" and fell in love with them instantly. We put on Gladiator and Shrek, they both sounded amazing and the sub was really kicking in! I still haven't made up my mind yet and I plan on getting a full demo very soon. I'm also looking at the 602 S3's since I already know the 602 S2's very well.
But this Mirage line really sounded great! It really surprised me.

Anyone here own Mirage speakers?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Try a search. Have been some previous Omni and OM threads.

I have been looking at Mirage too, although I think I've decided on the OM-7, OM-C2, and 4 OM-R2's. (Keeping my Vandersteen sub.)

Like most centers, the CC is a poor design with the woofer-tweeter-woofer arrangement which creates comb filtering problems off (horizontal) axis as the two woofers deconstructively interfere. (I.e., lobing.) The C2 doesn't have this problem as it has a passive radiator on the front mated with a single active driver. The CC should be OK though, if you don't have people sitting to far afield of the center line of the room. I wanted the deeper bass extension of the OM-7's though too. (I even considered the 60's for surrounds/rears too, but the R2's and Omni FX's might be better for close-to-wall placement.)

But bottom line? I think both series offer a tremendous bang for the buck and a unique soundstage that many people might find they prefer if they ever had a chance to listen to them.

Lots of reviews at Mirage's site, and check out www.ecoustics.com too. Some reviews at www.audiovideoreviews.com . A review of the Omni 60's, ... with actual measurements!

Big humungous thread over on AVS too.

 

[Shane Morales]

Ditch the Mirage sub and get an SVS PCi instead. Cheaper. Better.

I think you'll like the 260's. I was really tempted, but went with the OM7s instead.

4 Omni 60's, eh? Wow. Have you considered 2 250's instead?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Shane- What did you use for surrounds (rears)?

I have 4 FX's coming, but man, now I'm looking at the Omnisats just because they go to 70 Hz -3 dB. But the Omni 50's are still tempting too.

 

[Shane Morales]

I started with the OMR2 surrounds, but I couldn't put them where they needed to go in my room so I moved up to the Omni 250's. Probably over kill, but it was just a little bit more to get the 250's than it was to buy stands for the OMR2's.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I mentally started with the R2's, but the low freq extension bothered me. Then I actually ordered Omni 50's. But then I changed to FX's. I will get the FX's, but I'm actually thinking of either switching back to the 50's, or maybe even some Omnisats... Thanks.

 

[Tony Genovese]

Like most centers, the CC is a poor design with the woofer-tweeter-woofer arrangement which creates comb filtering problems off (horizontal) axis as the two woofers deconstructively interfere.

Kevin:

Not true. According to the Mirage web site, the CC sports a 3" midrange below the tweeter in addition to 4 1/2 woofers. This design should not suffer from lobing. Isn't freedom from this sort of thing the whole point of the Omni series?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Tony, you will still get lobing with the TWO 4.5" drivers at whatever frequencies are common between them.

The C2 is designed correctly in that it has two 5.5" drivers on the front, and 1 on the back, but one of the two on the front is a passive radiator and not active.

 

[Tony Genovese]

I don't think so. Read Norton's review of the NHT M6's in SGHT. This speaker has the same layout as the Mirage and hands over from the midrange to the tweeter at 450, but not in the Omni layout of course. When used horizontally, the tweeter is above (or below) the midrange depending on placement and the two 6" woofers flank them. Horizontal dispersion was superb based on Norton's measurements. I'm no engineer, but I think lobing is a problem when the two woofers cross over to the tweeter at above 1500. In the Omni CC's case, they're crossed over at 500 hz, well below where lobing would be an issue.

 

[Tony Genovese]

Here is the appropriate passage from the review of another NHT speaker (the VC3) with again the exact layout of the Mirage. Again, the comments are by Tom Norton:

"The 45° (red) and 60° (blue) horizontal off-axis curves show no serious suckouts—a problem common in the off-axis responses of many horizontally configured center-channel speakers. The best way to minimize such suckouts is to use a 3-way design with the midrange and tweeter mounted vertically—the configuration used here. "

Just like the Mirage.

The full review can be found here:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/fullarchives.cgi?11

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Tony- Think about it for just one second. You have 2 identical drivers reproducing the same frequencies. There *will* be lobing. There is absolutely no way around that. Constructive and deconstructive interference as you move horizontally across the front sound field. (Think about the hassles of trying to integrate 2 subs in different locations into a home theater. Same exact problem.) The "improvement" with putting a *midrange* below the tweeter, is that you limit the lobing to the freqs occupied by the 2 flanking woofers. So, more of the spectrum is reproduced by the tweeter and midrange, less by the two woofs (3 way vs 2 way), but those 2 woofs are still going to interact. No way around it.

Because of that, yes, the CC is a better design than 90% of the centers out there, but still not as good as their own C2...

 

[Tony Genovese]

Yeah, but forget about the theory. Is the interference measurable? Is it audible? According to Norton, Mickey Fremer, and some others it isn't. To me, if something isn't measurable or audible it doesn't matter to me or to most high end speaker designers. Most of the great centers (Aerial CC3 and CC5), B&W Nautilus HTM1, NHT M6, Vienna Oratorio, KEF 204c, Thiel MCS1, etc use the same arrangement. For you to suggest that these companies would have chosen a "poor design" for their flagship centers is ridiculous.

For all intents and purposes (given the crossover frequency and wavelengths involved) those two woofers (in the CC and all the other examples cited above) are in the same position. The two subwoofer analogy cited in your post is not analagous to the center channel design. Two subwoofers stacked in the same corner is analagous.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

You buy your center channel for your reasons, and I'll do the same.

This is exactly why a lot of people believe that time aligned/phase correct speakers sound better than most normal designs.

Same drivers operating in the same freq range: interference exists. No way around it. No matter how much you want to ignore "theory." Those 2 woofs are *not* a point source.

 

[Tony Genovese]

(Since you brought it up), funny that two of the leaders in time aligned speakers (Thiel and Dunlavy in his $4000 HRCC) use two woofers flanking mid-tweeter arrangements. Multiple woofers are used to increase power handling. At the proper listening distances given the wavelengths involved INTERFERENCE IS NOT AN ISSUE.

This was a discussion regarding loudspeaker theory and "poor design" to quote you. I have simply pointed out that some of the most expensive centers use this supposedly "poor" design. Why? Because it's not poor.

But for sure, you buy your center for your reasons. Your understanding of loudpspeaker design theory in this instance is flawed, though.

Oh, and getting back to the Mirage centers: none of the above in any way is suggestng that the CC is better or worse than the C2. Only your ears can decide that. I have heard neither.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

At the proper listening distances given the wavelengths involved INTERFERENCE IS NOT AN ISSUE.

Says you. Richard Vandersteen thinks otherwise. And so does Mirage with the OM-C2. The CC *is* a better design than most. And if you didn't know, Dunlavy is out of business. (Probably not because of their center channel design though. )

Have you never seen the freq plots in Home Theater Mag, and S&V along with the comments about off-horizontal-axis lobing problems with most center channels? I guess not...

B&W makes good speakers, right? Here's a quote from the S&V review for the CC6 S2 center channel, a typical woofer-tweeter-woofer design: "Response remained quite smooth to beyond 22.5 deg off-axis, but by 45 deg the lobing typical of a horizontally arrayed speaker became pronounced."

Shame, shame! Here's another quote in a review for the B&W LCR S3: "It displayed strong lobing patterns as soon as the microphone was moved off-axis. The lobing patterns varied more radically with changes in radiating angle than I usually find with similar oriented center-channel speakers."

And here's a quote from SGHT regarding the B&W LCR6 S2: "The smaller LCR6 S2 looks like a D'Appolito array (woofer-tweeter-woofer), but it's not one. It's actually a 2 1/2-way design. Both of the woofer/midrange drivers operate up to 300 Hz, but one of them is rolled off at that point, with the other carrying on alone up to the mid/tweeter crossover at 4 kHz. This arrangement allows both woofers to operate in the bass for maximum power handling (!), while reducing the speaker's lobing in the midrange." Interesting!

I'm not picking on B&W, as *all* centers with the ubiquitous woofer-tweeter-woofer design have this problem. Just had my B&W speaker file out and about is all...

 

[Tony Genovese]

UGH. Kevin, this is really rather silly. Your examples prove MY point but (either through obtuseness or argumentativeness) you don't seem to (want to) get it. (Sigh). None of the centers you cite has a dedicated mid-range. That's the point. (The one you don't want to get). All the (high-end) centers I pointed out (including the Mirage CC and the B&W, who BTW don't always make good speakers, witness their WTW centers) do.

Of course I've seen the graphs in S&V and SGHT. I've been a subscriber of SGHT since the beginning and have been reading Stereophile from the beginning (more than 30 years, that dates me, huh). Funny you should mention the D'Appolito arrangement. I own the original D'Appolito design that was on the cover of Speaker Builder (Four/84) in which Joe was trying out in practice the "D'Appolito Arrangement". Where did I get? I bought it from Joe D'Appolito. That article (if you can find it) has some excellent background regarding on the WTW arrangement. Another good source: The AES Preprint 2000 presented to the Audio Engineering Society in October 1983 by Joe. Joe's designs are supposed to be used vertically (not horizontally). Why? Because of lobing. So far, we on the same page?

The reason most centers are designed this way (WTW), though, is ease of placement, and cost. But there is a way around the ease of placement while eliminating the lobing: put in a dedicated mid-range below or above the tweeter. (Although the cabinet will be slightly taller, and unacceptable to those who have certain entertainment centers or SA's that don't care how it sounds, but do care how it looks). Since you are obvously capable of doing an internet search, go to the SGHT site. Go to search and type in "lobing". You will find several reviews with examples of properly designed centers (with dedicated mid-range) and some poorly designed centers (without). Pay particular attention to the way the horizontal response tracks out at 22.5 and 45 degrees. You will find those properly designed centers (ones with the dedicated midrange) track very well all the way out to 45 degrees. Why? Because they use good (not poor) design techniques.

Attempt at education over. If you still don't get it, there's not much more I can (or want to) do. Best of luck and enjoy your CC2!

 

[RichardHOS]

There will only be lobing if the two drivers are spaced too far for the crossover point used. I'm not sure of the particular spacing and XO point, so I won't venture to say whether lobing will be a problem with the Mirage CC or not, but it is certainly possible that it isn't.

 

[Jim_P]

RichardHOS

You got a PM.

Jim

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Tony- You are the one who referenced woofer-tweeter-woofer designs by Thiel and Dunlavy.

Plus, you completely missed the progression of reviews I cited. The last B&W is a very similar design to the CC, where only the lower portions of the freq range are reproduced by the two woofers. Yet the review specifically stated that lobing was "reduced", but not eliminated. Doesn't matter if there is a separate midrange, or if one woofer is rolled off such that the other only reproduces the mids. The problem is the two woofers reproducing the same freqs, and that is common between the two designs.

 

[Tony Genovese]

(Since you brought it up), funny that two of the leaders in time aligned speakers (Thiel and Dunlavy in his $4000 HRCC) use two woofers flanking mid-tweeter arrangements.

You clearly aren't reading very carefully, or just want to argue. Or, maybe you're incapable of understanding the concepts (see Richard HOS above).