Music playback

My living room and home theater setup also serve as my primary listening room for music, so I decided to try out a few of my CDs. I chose Van Morrison's Moondance and Rock Kills Kid's Are You Nervous? These albums are drastically different and offered a decent perspective on how the Nanosats would perform with a wide variety of music.

With the Van Morrison album, the speakers accurately projected the voice and background music. On the song "Moondance," I was impressed with the clarity of Van Morrison's voice and the warm sound of the background instrumentals matched the precise lyrics. These speakers managed to make one of my favorite albums sound even better than it had before.

Next up was the newest album I'd purchased, Are You Nervous? This album quickly jumped into an upbeat tempo. The music from the first song, "Paralyzed," filled the room with sound. When walking around the apartment, I was able to hear the music even when standing in the hallway off the living room — despite the fact that the speakers face the opposite direction. I expected the sound in the living room to be detailed and full, but certainly did not expect to hear similar quality music from behind the speakers. As far as I can tell, the Mirage Nanosats made good on their claim.

The dispersion plates are key to Mirage's signature sound.

Omnipolar technology

And how were these small speakers able to launch sound down a path that they weren't even facing? Mirage attributes it to "omnipolar technology."

Omnipolar speakers, such as the OmniSats and the Nanosats, feature pretty much the same design. They have a lower driver that faces up towards the ceiling, a floating tweeter, and 2 dispersion plates which Mirage calls Omniguides. When all is said and done, these speakers (with grille off) slightly resemble a speaker with an attached spaceship on top. The key to their success, however, is the Omniguides. They reflect sound waves out into the room so that they bounce off the walls and ceilings to create a rich, deep soundfield.

The alternative design enables these speakers to project sound around the room and utilize reflected sound more than direct-radiating speakers (those are your typical speakers that fire sound straight into your room, towards whichever direction you point them).

The omni-directional speakers did prove they could extend the soundstage from the narrow location created by my own system to a much broader area. While my loveseat was never the preferred viewing seat for movies, with the Mirages, I heard a wide range of detail and effects from that seat — exactly what I was hoping for. At our next movie viewing, my friends on both couches got the benefit of full surround sound effects.