Mirage’s UNI-Theater speaker uses a tweeter module that rests just above the woofer. The backside of the module helps to disperse sound coming from the woofer in an even, circular pattern.

It turns out that by manipulating the phase of a pair of speaker drivers, a sort of pseudo-surround effect can be created, kind of like the “stereo wide” switch that you see on old boom boxes. When you combine this with speakers to cover the front three channels, you can create a speaker that can deliver surround sound from one location.

We decided to check out a couple of speakers that attempt to do the seemingly impossible. The Mirage UNI-Theater combines the front three channels into a single long and sleek tubelike enclosure, while the M&K MP-4512 goes one further by including a pair of drivers for the surround channels.

Mirage UNI-Theater
One of the key fundamental differences between the way a movie theater sets up its sound system and the way most home theaters are arranged is that in a commercial theater, the three front speakers are all positioned right behind the screen. This ensures that the sonic picture always matches the visual picture and that your attention isn’t drawn away from the action up on the screen. That’s great if your screen is 30 feet wide, as you’re still going to get plenty of separation between the speakers, but most of us don’t have 30-foot screens at home––it’s usually more like 30 inches.

Mirage’s UNI-Theater speaker uses a tweeter module that rests just above the woofer. The backside of the module helps to disperse sound coming from the woofer in an even, circular pattern.

Getting a nice big soundstage from a home theater generally means spreading the speakers well beyond the width of the screen, and the center channel is used to lock at least the dialog onto the picture. But while normal direct radiating speakers tend to sit at the points that define the boundary of the soundstage, Mirage has long been a proponent of omni- directional dispersion to broaden the sonic picture. The company feels that most of the sound you hear should be reflected by the room rather than heard directly from the speaker, and its Omnipolar models are designed to do this.

The UNI-Theater system houses three Omnipolar speakers in what is essentially a half section of a 37-inch long aluminum tube. Internally, the tube is divided into three separate enclosures, each of which uses one coaxial Omnipolar driver, along with a pair of passive radiators to extend the bass response. The result is an imposing-looking row of nine drivers, covered by a smart-looking metal mesh grill that rounds out the other half of the tube. The length and style match the sleek modern look of a plasma screen nicely, and a clever wall mounting bracket allows you to keep the drivers facing upward for under screen use, or invert the whole thing so you can hang it over the screen, or even higher up near the ceiling. A glass tabletop stand is the third mounting option. Because of the way it can be mounted flat against the wall, the UNI-Theater’s speaker connections are recessed into the back panel in a way that makes them particularly fiddly to use, and you’re pretty well limited to using neatly trimmed 16 gauge speaker wire if you want to avoid any possible short circuits.

The UNI-Theater combines three separate speakers—left, center, and right—into one single housing. The speakers are similar to Mirage’s Omnisats. The left and right speakers are angled outward slightly to help provide a wider soundstage.

The three active driver assemblies use Mirage’s Omnipolar technique, where the woofer is facing almost straight up, while the tweeter is placed right in front of the woofer, using its rounded back surface to disperse the sound in an even circular pattern. With the UNI-Theater, the angle of each tweeter has been carefully tweaked to send the energy a little more in the desired direction, to give a wider spread of sound between the three speakers.

For the surround channels, I added a pair of Mirage’s Nanosats, the smallest speaker using the Omnipolar technology, and for bass I crossed the sound below 100Hz over to my reference subwoofer. The resulting system could play surprisingly loudly, with plenty of authority and drive. While it can’t quite create the level of soundstage dimensionality and space that you can get with more widely spaced speakers, the Omnipolar drivers do an impressive job of extending the sound out beyond the width of the speaker, and the UNI-Theater does manage to sound like three distinct speakers rather than just a big center channel. Tonally, the speaker is a touch rolled off at the highest frequencies, not necessarily a bad thing for many movie soundtracks, and it seems to compensate for this by having a little excess energy in the upper midrange and lower treble. The overall clarity is impressive, and dialog is always easy to understand without a need to crank up the center channel volume.

I was particularly impressed by the Nanosats surround speakers, which managed to combine many of the better qualities of both the direct radiating and dipole approaches to designing surround speakers.

Mirage suggests that another approach to surround speakers is to use a second UNI-Theater in the back of the room to make a 6.1 system, which is certainly an interesting option.

This system is a lifesaver if you want surround sound, but can’t convince the powers that be that those big floorstanding towers will actually enhance the decor.

RATING: ELEVATED
Description: Mirage UNI-Theater; Nanosats
High Points: Soundstage extends well beyond the box; clear and powerful sound; sleek modern styling; versatile mounting options
Low Points: Needs separate surround speakers; slightly peaky sound; fiddly connectors
Contact: Audio Products International, 416.321.1800, www.miragespeakers.com
Price: Mirage UNI-Theater $999 (black or silver); Nanosats $250 pair

The front three speakers of the MP-4512 are similar to the company’s Xenon LCR-25 bookshelf speakers. The side-mounted surround channels use single, wide-range drivers. Though the sound isn’t incredibly spacious, it is quite refined.

Getting a speaker this small to play at a realistic volume is much easier if it doesn’t have to work too hard to recreate bass, and M&K suggests crossing the sound over to a subwoofer at frequencies as high as 200 hertz. I used my regular reference sub, which happens to be an M&K MX-350, and was able to set up my B&K processor to give me the preferred 200 hertz setting. This gave the MP-4512 plenty of headroom, and even silly movie soundtracks such as U-571 can play loud without strain.

M&K’s MP-4512 speaker not only includes the front three channels of a surround system, but it also has side-mounted drivers to emulate the effect of surround speakers. This one speaker can substitute an entire 5.1 surround system.

With the three main speakers placed only inches apart, you might expect the resulting sound to be essentially mono, but the MP-4512 is actually able to deliver a tasty, if somewhat smaller than usual, helping of spaciousness. The narrow spacing does ultimately limit the size of the soundfield, but this proximity does have some advantages in that you no longer have to worry about setting the delay for each channel, and the soundstage will stay focused even if you are seated pretty far off center.

For me, however, the primary appeal of this speaker was not so much its five-channels-in-one party trick, but more importantly its outstanding sound. This really is the antithesis of the cheap and nasty little satellite, and it manages to sound like a highly refined and much more costly design. With dialog, these speakers display exceptional clarity, yet remain entirely free from any nasty high frequency effects.

While it might not get your audiophile buddies rushing over to check out your new surround-sound rig, the M&K MP-4512 is a great solution for people who want really good sound, and a pretty good surround effect, without getting tossed out of the house. As Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.”