Mirage MX 5.1

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02 >> I'm John Falcone from CNET.com and this is the Mirage MX 5.1 surround sound speaker system. As you can guess from the name this is a 5.1 surround sound speaker system, but it's also one of the smallest full surround system we've seen to date. The five satellite speakers are only about 4 inches high and they are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Remove the magnetic grilles and you can see the unique omnidirectional design of the tiny speakers. The tweeters are mounted in the center of the 2.5-inch aluminum midrange driver and they fire up into this reflector, which Mirage calls an Omniguide module. That radiates the sound into a 360 degree pattern into the room and gives this mini-speakers a deceptively large sound stage. The speakers can wall or stand mounted. In fact if you mount them higher than 6 feet, Mirage recommends turning them upside down. The subwoofers also rather small. It's got a 6.5-inch woofer in the front and equally sized passive radiators on either side. The 5 Mirage MX satellites together produce a remarkably coherent room filling sound. In other words, the sound of the front and the rear speakers was unusually seamless with the sound seemingly come from all around the room instead of from specific points. The sound quality was remarkable whether we were listening to music or movies. While these speakers might strain in a large room, we found them to convey top-notch performance in our more modestly sized environment. At $1200 the Mirage MX 5.1 system delivers a rare combination of excellent sound quality in a tiny package whose stealthy good looks will blend to any environment. I'm John Falcone for CNET and this is the Mirage MX 5.1. ^M00:01:57 [ Music ]