Mirage Nanosat Small High-Performance Speaker (Single)

by Mirage

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 4.2 x 5.8 inches ; 2.7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001HRDMDM
• Item model number: Nanosat Black
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,606 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #32 in Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Stereo Components > Speakers > Satellite Speakers

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Mirage Nanosat Black

Overview

Ready to take on the world of music and movies, our stylish little Nanosat® satellite with a big heart lets you treasure each moment as if you were actually mingling with your favorite performers.

Compact, attractive and discreet, the Nanosat® uses premium materials and patented technology to deliver large, spacious performances that belie its small size.

So, whether you’re enjoying alone time or hosting a party, this little speaker is quite the entertainer. In fact, reviewers have heralded it for sounding just like a floorstander. It’s available in a sleek black brushed aluminum finish, so it looks as good as it sounds.

Benefits

• Small, versatile package unobtrusively fits any lifestyle
• Makes a great main or surround channel speaker
• Alluring enclosure finished in black brushed aluminum
• Delivers enveloping 360º music and movie performances from any position
• 2.75-inch woofer and 0.75-inch tweeter for impressive lows and extended, airy highs
• Magnetically shielded to avoid TV interference

Detailed Description - The Secret is in the Sauce

Whether you’re listening to mellow music or watching an action-packed flick, our compact Nanosat® speaker, with its modern materials and unique miniature technology, brings your entertainment full circle.

A powerful 2.75-inch titanium deposit polypropylene cone woofer lets you experience amazing bass performance, while a 0.75-inch pure titanium hybrid tweeter generates warm, rich high frequencies.

But what really separates this speaker from the rest is a patented Omniguide module, an ingenious design that involves two deflectors. While one deflector rests on top of the satellite’s tweeter, the tweeter itself is housed in a deflector, suspended over the woofer. These combined elements distribute sound directly towards the listener, as well as reflect it off walls, ceilings and other surfaces—resulting in a perfect 360º soundstage. More importantly, you’ll hear the same enveloping performances from anywhere in your room.

Itty Biggie

You’ll also discover the Nanosat is extremely versatile by offering endless placement possibilities. While included brackets make wall mounting a breeze, it also sits nicely on a shelf or table. But if neither option works for you, the speaker can be mounted to an optional MS-STB floor stand for further placement flexibility. All the while, high quality five-way binding posts ensure distortion-free connections.

In addition to fitting in anywhere, the Nanosat also works in a variety of audio configurations. It can be purchased individually for mix-and-match simplicity, as well as in an all-in-one home audio package called the Nanosat 5.1 system.

If you want to hear your music and movies the way they were recorded without having to put huge speakers in your living room, the tiny Nanosat® satellite has your name written all over it.

The Science Behind the Mirage Sound: Exclusive Mirage Technologies

Omnipolar® Sound

Our Omnipolar approach to speaker design brings unprecedented performance to a variety of product sizes and room positions. This 360º sound philosophy works with your room, rather than against it, to create the proper proportion of direct and reflected sound. Being Omnipolar means our speakers embrace and optimize reflections; offer excellent imaging, width and depth; and perform optimally regardless of where they are placed in a room. In other words, they take full advantage of the fact they cannot be separated from your room. You get a completely immersive experience that permeates evenly throughout your entire listening environment.

Omniguide Technology

Our patented Omniguide module (patent #6,996,243), also the heart of Omnipolar sound, is an ingenious design that involves two deflectors. While one small deflector rests on top of the speaker’s tweeter, the tweeter itself is housed in a larger deflector, suspended over the midrange or woofer, depending on the design. The module disperses sound the way the ear and brain are accustomed to receiving it. Thirty percent of what our speakers deliver is direct sound. The other seventy percent is sound reflected off walls, ceilings, floors and other surfaces for a completely immersive, 360º experience. So, no matter where you sit, the enveloping sound follows.

Specifications

• System Type: Omnipolar® Satellite Speaker
• Frequency Response: 110Hz to 20 kHz
• Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms
• Power Handling: 100 Watts
• Recommended Amplifier Power: 10 to 100 Watts
• Impedance: 4 Ohms minimum
• Tweeter: ¾” PTH™ - Pure Titanium Hybrid
• Midrange: 2 ¾” (70mm) Titanium Deposit Polypropylene Cone with Butyl Surround
• Room Efficiency: 87dB
• Crossover Point: 2.7 kHz
• Inputs: High quality 5-way binding posts
• Dimensions HxWxD (inches): 5.8 x 4.2 x 4.37
• Dimensions HxWxD (cm): 14.9 x 10.7 x 11.1
• Weight: 2.7 lbs. / 1.2 kg
• Finishes: Platinum, Black

What the experts are saying about the Nanosat®…

"...in terms of appearance, I rank them at the top of the pile. But what makes the Nanosats really special are the results of Mirage's Omnipolar technology: a large, spacious sound that belies the speaker's size, and the superbly cohesive soundfield you get from five identical speakers." -- Home Theater & Sound, Doug Schneider (September, 2004)

"5 out of 5 stars” -- VIDEO DOMÁCÍ KINO (November, 2005)

Product Description

Ready to take on the world of music and movies, our stylish little Nanosat satellite with a big heart lets you treasure each moment as if you were actually mingling with your favorite performers. Patented Omnipolar technology delivers immersive 360º sound performance from any position in the room and provides mind-boggling big sound from this tiny, elegant speaker. The alluring Nanosat enclosure is finished in beautiful black brushed aluminum and is also magnetically shielded to avoid TV interference. This single Nanosat speaker can be matched with any Mirage subwoofer to create a stereo or Home Theater system. Single Nanosat speakers can also be added to existing Nanosat 5.1 speaker packages to create 7.1 or 9.1 systems.

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Mirage Nanosat Black

Overview

Ready to take on the world of music and movies, our stylish little Nanosat® satellite with a big heart lets you treasure each moment as if you were actually mingling with your favorite performers.

Compact, attractive and discreet, the Nanosat® uses premium materials and patented technology to deliver large, spacious performances that belie its small size.

So, whether you’re enjoying alone time or hosting a party, this little speaker is quite the entertainer. In fact, reviewers have heralded it for sounding just like a floorstander. It’s available in a sleek black brushed aluminum finish, so it looks as good as it sounds.

Benefits

• Small, versatile package unobtrusively fits any lifestyle
• Makes a great main or surround channel speaker
• Alluring enclosure finished in black brushed aluminum
• Delivers enveloping 360º music and movie performances from any position
• 2.75-inch woofer and 0.75-inch tweeter for impressive lows and extended, airy highs
• Magnetically shielded to avoid TV interference

Detailed Description - The Secret is in the Sauce

Whether you’re listening to mellow music or watching an action-packed flick, our compact Nanosat® speaker, with its modern materials and unique miniature technology, brings your entertainment full circle.

A powerful 2.75-inch titanium deposit polypropylene cone woofer lets you experience amazing bass performance, while a 0.75-inch pure titanium hybrid tweeter generates warm, rich high frequencies.

But what really separates this speaker from the rest is a patented Omniguide module, an ingenious design that involves two deflectors. While one deflector rests on top of the satellite’s tweeter, the tweeter itself is housed in a deflector, suspended over the woofer. These combined elements distribute sound directly towards the listener, as well as reflect it off walls, ceilings and other surfaces—resulting in a perfect 360º soundstage. More importantly, you’ll hear the same enveloping performances from anywhere in your room.

Itty Biggie

You’ll also discover the Nanosat is extremely versatile by offering endless placement possibilities. While included brackets make wall mounting a breeze, it also sits nicely on a shelf or table. But if neither option works for you, the speaker can be mounted to an optional MS-STB floor stand for further placement flexibility. All the while, high quality five-way binding posts ensure distortion-free connections.

In addition to fitting in anywhere, the Nanosat also works in a variety of audio configurations. It can be purchased individually for mix-and-match simplicity, as well as in an all-in-one home audio package called the Nanosat 5.1 system.

If you want to hear your music and movies the way they were recorded without having to put huge speakers in your living room, the tiny Nanosat® satellite has your name written all over it.

The Science Behind the Mirage Sound: Exclusive Mirage Technologies

Omnipolar® Sound

Our Omnipolar approach to speaker design brings unprecedented performance to a variety of product sizes and room positions. This 360º sound philosophy works with your room, rather than against it, to create the proper proportion of direct and reflected sound. Being Omnipolar means our speakers embrace and optimize reflections; offer excellent imaging, width and depth; and perform optimally regardless of where they are placed in a room. In other words, they take full advantage of the fact they cannot be separated from your room. You get a completely immersive experience that permeates evenly throughout your entire listening environment.

Omniguide Technology

Our patented Omniguide module (patent #6,996,243), also the heart of Omnipolar sound, is an ingenious design that involves two deflectors. While one small deflector rests on top of the speaker’s tweeter, the tweeter itself is housed in a larger deflector, suspended over the midrange or woofer, depending on the design. The module disperses sound the way the ear and brain are accustomed to receiving it. Thirty percent of what our speakers deliver is direct sound. The other seventy percent is sound reflected off walls, ceilings, floors and other surfaces for a completely immersive, 360º experience. So, no matter where you sit, the enveloping sound follows.

Specifications

• System Type: Omnipolar® Satellite Speaker
• Frequency Response: 110Hz to 20 kHz
• Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms
• Power Handling: 100 Watts
• Recommended Amplifier Power: 10 to 100 Watts
• Impedance: 4 Ohms minimum
• Tweeter: ¾” PTH™ - Pure Titanium Hybrid
• Midrange: 2 ¾” (70mm) Titanium Deposit Polypropylene Cone with Butyl Surround
• Room Efficiency: 87dB
• Crossover Point: 2.7 kHz
• Inputs: High quality 5-way binding posts
• Dimensions HxWxD (inches): 5.8 x 4.2 x 4.37
• Dimensions HxWxD (cm): 14.9 x 10.7 x 11.1
• Weight: 2.7 lbs. / 1.2 kg
• Finishes: Platinum, Black

What the experts are saying about the Nanosat®…

"...in terms of appearance, I rank them at the top of the pile. But what makes the Nanosats really special are the results of Mirage's Omnipolar technology: a large, spacious sound that belies the speaker's size, and the superbly cohesive soundfield you get from five identical speakers." -- Home Theater & Sound, Doug Schneider (September, 2004)

"5 out of 5 stars” -- VIDEO DOMÁCÍ KINO (November, 2005)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good - not great - small surround speaker, August 19, 2010

By 

M. Thuot "engineer" (Sandia Park, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mirage Nanosat Small High-Performance Speaker (Single) (Electronics)

The Mirage NanoSat, NS, is a not-quite-so-small satellite speaker. This model is slightly larger than the Orb speaker (4.2" X 5.8" H) but is constructed much like the Mirage MX. It has a 2.75" titanium/polypropylene mid-woofer and a 0.75" titanium hybrid tweeter mounted in an acoustic lens assembly. The NanoSat specifications claim the frequency response is from 110 Hz to 20 kHz with a crossover at 2.7 kHz. Measurements indicate that the 110 Hz specification is optimistic since the woofer has a resonance at 152 Hz (broken in) and a response at 137 Hz that is 10 db down while at 111 Hz is minus 20 db - too low an output to be very useful. I would estimate that the correct crossover frequency to a sub would be about 145 Hz. It has an 87 db efficiency specification but sounds like it plays louder than the MX (which also has a 87 db spec.) at the same power input. The NanoSat's power rating is 100 watts maximum (8 ohms). It also has what Mirage calls an Omni-polar design; where the woofer and the tweeter each fire almost straight up onto an acoustic lens that disperses the sound through ~360 degrees. Mirage claims the only 30% of the sound will be direct, with 70% of the sound energy reflecting from the walls, etc. While this gives the speaker a larger acoustic size, is reduces imaging ability making this speaker best suited for surround applications. It should be mounted "upside-down" if it is mounted above 6 feet off the floor to direct the tweeter output down toward the listener. It also should be mounted close (~one woofer diameter) to a wall to improve the low frequency response.
Listening impressions: The Mirage NanoSat, mounted at 2.5" from a wall, has a sound that is well balanced and quite articulate with a good mid-range and mid-highs but not quite as smooth as the MX - the lower mid-bass is a bit stronger than the MX. Like the MX, the sound has little impact (It has a small radiating area of only ~ 6 sqin (almost twice as much as the MX) compared to the ~16 sqin area of common mid-woofers). It has an audible resonance at 152 Hz and a few upper mid-range resonances that make the response somewhat uneven and lead to a hollow sound especially noticeable in reproduction of piano music. Tympani sound good and the flute is nicely rendered. Strings are good and brass has some nice ring but is missing a solid bottom. The tweeter does not have quite the bite of the MX but seems quite smooth - the treble may even be a bit recessed.

The Mirage NanoSat (NS) sounded a bit congested compared with the MX, but at ~$120 each it is the lowest priced speaker in this comparison test. Willie Nelson's voice sounded better on it than on the MX. Piano music was disappointing - sounds hollow - likely cause is the strong 150 Hz resonance.
The Mirage MX (~$150) sounded noticeably clearer than the Mirage NS but the sound was a slight bit lightweight compared with the others - one must drive it hard to get any bite in the strings. The MX sounds much better than the NS on piano music.

Conclusions: The Mirage MX sounds slightly better in balance and clarity than the NS overall, but the NS is somewhat better in reproduction of male voices. The Mirage NS and MX are pretty close in sound quality, but I would give the edge to the MX and say it is well worth the extra $30 per speaker in cost.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stealth surround speaker, March 10, 2010

By 

Paul D. Sebring "pdsebring" (Osceola, IA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mirage Nanosat Small High-Performance Speaker (Single) (Electronics)

I bought these speakers to replace some Mirage clones I used as surround speakers in my home theater system. I have no room for large speakers in the back of my theater. I was surprised that these speakers were actually smaller than the speakers they replaced. The speakers they replaced share the Omnipolar technology. Both speakers lack any hint of bass response. My AV Receiver auto configuration kept setting the subwoofer crossover frequency at its highest setting in an attempt to compensate for the lack of bass. My large subwoofer does not respond that high, so I had to manually move the crossover frequency down. What I gained by acquiring these speakers is smoother sound more like my large front speakers. My large front speakers make the lack of bass in the rear less noticable. My old surround speakers response peak in the lower midrange, which made them sound honky and fake at times. With smoother sound and Omnipolar technology, these Mirage speakers simply disappear. You only hear the sound, and it doesn't sound like speakers. Sometimes the sound is pulled outside of the front speakers and wraps smoothly around you rather than sounding like separate speaker systems projecting at you from distinct directions. Multi-channel SACD or DVD-audio music recordings can sound like real musicians in a real room. Human voices in the back channels sound like human voices. These speakers are exactly what my theater needed. I couldn't be more elated.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oustanding--just use them for what they're best at, August 15, 2011

By 

David L. Littel (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mirage Nanosat Small High-Performance Speaker (Single) (Electronics)

I purchased these a couple of months ago and continue to be amazed at what they do. Some of the other reviews prompted me to write this because they don't address what these things really excel at doing. They are not full range speakers and I don't even see the point of assessing them as such. We're talking about an enclosure roughly the size of a four inch cube. No, there's no bass response to speak of and that's a good thing. Where they excel is the role of satellites in a 5.1 or 7.1 system.

I come to this as a dyed in the wool two-channel audiophile. I've built and designed speakers in the past. I don't like most multichannel systems because they are not faithful to the recordings and the sub-par surround speakers tend to color the critical midrange of the main speakers. The beauty of the omnipolar design is that it projects almost all reflected sound that arrives to the listener at a low level from literally all over the room. There is almost nothing directly radiating at the listener from the rear. The effect is to basically enlarge the soundstage coming from the main speakers without smearing or coloring their sound. Some of the multichannel processing options out there will work extremely well with this setup. Certain sounds and instruments are lifted out and away from the main speakers--but not placed behind you. Set the satellites' volume at the right level (low!) and the result can be scary good. Don't worry about the fact that they don't "match" your main speakers because with different driver sizes and inevitable reflections in the mix, nothing is going to match them anyway (yes, that whole matching thing for surrounds is a myth). Mirage's philosphy on this is dead on. Highly recommended for anyone who has a good two channel setup and wants the option of "surround sound" properly implemented.