Mirage MX/Denon AVR 590 Listener Review By J.R. McCullough

First I wanted to outline my problem. As my kids have gotten older, it has become harder and harder for me to find some alone time with my favorite hobbies -- music, movies, and gaming. My son is always in the basement, and the family room is too "public" for me to immerse myself in a game or to take part in some critical listening. It seems like I'm always getting interrupted. That leaves my office as my only sanctuary in the house. Unfortunately, high-quality computer speakers are difficult to find. Furthermore, if I wanted to hook up another source to the speakers, my options were limited.

 

In my office I have a relatively new Media Center PC with Windows 7, 24" monitor, and a SoundBlaster professional gaming series sound card with optical output. I also have a PS3 in the room. I previously had Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers, but they were adequate at best. The sub was "boomy" and not musical at all. Also, they had very limited connection options and did not provide surround sound. To solve all my audio issues for now and the future, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a low-end receiver and mate them to a satellite/sub 5.1 speaker set. I have Mirage tower speakers in my other two listening rooms, so when I saw the Mirage MX on the Best Buy web site, I decided to check them out.

 

The MX system is comprised of five identical omnipolar satellite speakers and a surprisingly compact sub. The speakers themselves are very attractive, with a piano black finish and black grill over the omnipolar drivers. They consist of a 2 1/2" woofer topped by a 5/8" titanium tweeter. The design of the speakers maximizes the sound dispersal. Mirage claims a 360 degree radius. The sub includes an active 6-1/2" woofer and dual passive 6-1/2" woofers, all with black anodized aluminum cones and inverted ribbed elliptical surrounds for deep, rich bass performance. The price for this set is $999 [Available at the HT Guys Store]. Definitive Technologies sells a similar set, but the speakers are a bit larger. Having had success with Mirage in the past, I decided to try these first.

 

I mated the speakers to a Denon AVR 590 receiver [Available a the HT Guys Store]. This receiver is on the low end of the Denon line, but it fits my needs perfectly. It is a 5.1 receiver, which is all I need. It has three HDMI inputs, which allows me to connect my PS3 and perhaps and XBOX in the future. At 110 watts per channel it has all the power I need. It supports all the next generation audio formats and comes with the full Audyssey suite. In addition, it has compressed music enhancement circuitry to make those iTunes songs sound better. Finally, it does analog to HDMI conversion.  The knock on the Denon is that it is hard to set up, but I found it relatively simple. The Audyssey speaker calibration was all I needed to get fantastic sound out of this set-up.

 

After setting up everything and running through Audyssey, I launched iTunes to play some music. I was immediately impressed by the balance between the satellite speakers and the sub. Even more impressive was the deep, rich bass coming from such a small subwoofer. And the sub is musical! It is not boomy at all. The bass is smooth and powerful, but not overpowering.

 

Games take on another dimension with this set-up. I fired up Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and took a spin around Daytona in my Ferrari. The sound was nothing short of incredible. Of course I could hear the engine sounds, crowd noise, etc. What blew me away were the subtleties I could not hear with my previous speakers. For instance, the sound of the tires running over the pavement were very distinctive. I then switched back to the PC and delved into Dragon Age: Origins. The thing that impressed me the most was the directional sound effects that I was able to hear with a 5.1 set-up. I have two other 5.1 set-ups in my house that are connected to game systems, but they are in very large rooms. Having the speakers relatively close to my ears in a small room accentuated the sounds effects greatly. I was truly immersed in sound.

 

In summary, I could not be happier with my purchase. I can now enjoy my favorite hobbies without limitation, and without bothering the rest of the family. The missing piece to my office was excellent sound. I now have that in spades. 

Comments

[Christopher]

Not to knock the reviewer, but this is more of a suggestion that hooking up a receiver and real speakers to a computer is a good idea rather than a review of the features or performance of either. There's no comparison of features or description of how well they work.

It does make me think that I might try the same thing a year or two when my son's play time takes over the living room more, so for that reason I'm glad to see it.