Mirage OMD-15 Omnidirectional Wonders

The Mirage OMD-15 is a tower speaker with a rounded cabinet sitting on a built-in pedestal. Avoidance of right angles enables the enclosure to resist the formation of internal standing waves caused by sound bouncing back and forth between parallel walls.

The large, sturdy gold-plated binding posts are recessed, but the recess is fairly roomy. And the posts are widely spaced, so there's plenty of room for spade lugs. You can remove the plastic nubs from the back of the posts to accept banana plugs, as well. All this is a refreshing change from recent slim-speaker designs that limit cable connectivity to bare wire. The towers and center have four posts for biwiring; the satellites I used here for the surround channels have two posts.

Four drivers animate the tower. On the front are a 5.5-inch woofer and a 5.5-inch passive radiator. On top, though, is where the action is. There live the tweeter and what Mirage calls a midbass driver. The midbass is set into a subenclosure that it shares with the passive radiator—and is therefore loaded by the passive radiator. The woofer is loaded by the speaker's port.

Mounted on top of the midbass driver is a tweeter that sits in a separate assembly shaped like a teacup. Above the tweeter is a reflector shaped like a teaspoon. The tweeter aims straight up, while the midbass angles slightly forward toward the center of the ceiling. Most of what reaches your ears is deflected sound, with the teacup deflecting the output of the midbass driver and the teaspoon deflecting the output of the tweeter. Most speakers are directional to some degree; they function at their best when heard on-axis and change character as you move off-axis. These speakers operate under a totally different principle, which Mirage describes as Omnipolar, because they don't quite achieve true omnidirectional radiation. Each one generates something of a mushroom head of sound that seems spread around the enclosure. The soundfield lies in the overlap of these nearly circular mushroom heads. Individual sounds are often less localizable, but the overall impression of fullness and evenness is more than ample compensation.

These were created to be fronts in a HT system but guess what, audiophiles found that they were an amazingly full-range option in a simple 2.0 setup. We have played them extensively here at the shop with some "better" gears and have to say, the hype is right on. They are a slick and polished aesthetic mated with real tech and a amazing omnidirectional presentation. Really a fabulous speaker by any standards. Excellent overall condition - a real treat in their gloss black finish.

Demos are encouraged here in Andover. Mirage, OMD-15 Omnidirectional tower speaker system: $799.00 plus shipping and sales tax when applicable