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Hi-Rez Audio's Uncertain Future

"There's a flat screen in your future."

This remark pretty well sums up the impression most journalists took home from the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show [see the report in this issue—Ed.]. Flat-screen monitors and television sets, both LCD and plasma, are getting a huge push from major manufacturers, and an extremely enthusiastic reception from the press and the buying public.

The reasons are simple. Flat screens are elegant—a vast improvement over the big boxes of the 20th century. Show anyone, technophile or technophobe, a high-definition clip of an NFL game or Olympic figure-…

Recording of September 1997: Reich: <I>Works 1965-1995</I>

Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995
Double Edge, Bang On a Can, Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich and Musicians, Pat Metheny, Schönberg Ensemble with Percussion Group The Hague, London Symphony Orchestra, The Steve Reich Ensemble, etc. Judith Sherman, Rudolph Werner and Steve Reich, prod. Paul Goodman, Dick Lewzey, John Kilgore, Rob Eaton, Les Brockman, Simon Rhodes, and Hans Bedecker, eng. DDD. TT: 10:42:06.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

Steve Reich's 30-year career is no stuck record. Here is an artist with strong opinions, who has forged a new direction and, in the process, launched a…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker

Mirage is a good name for a speaker manufacturer; it suggests that their products produce realistic illusions. A 1934 dictionary I've got supplies a definition for "mirage" that might also be apt: "An optical atmospheric illusion by which the image of a distant object is seen as if inverted." I don't mean that the Mirage OM stands Harry Belafonte on his head, or make him sing "O-Day"—instead, certain tenets of cones-in-a-box loudspeaker design and usage are turned turvy-topsy by Mirage's Omnipolar concept.

History, theory, and such
In 1987, Mirage debuted the M-1—the first "bipolar…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker Page 2

The solidly built OM-7 gave a reassuring thud when rapped with the knuckles; the sides of the woofer cabinet produced a slightly more hollow note.

Chillin' in Socal
I got the OM-7s a few days before Mirage's marketing man, Jeff Percy, and designer Andrew Welker (whose name graces the back of the OM-7, along with Ian Paisley's) were due to visit. The speakers had been undergoing break-in at Mirage HQ, so I expected them to sound as Welker and Paisley had intended.

Which had me worried—this was not natural sound, but the sound of something gone wrong. The midrange was…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker Page 3

I was happily surprised when my favorite "visual" records were nicely rendered by the OM-7s. The horn and whip snaps (or whatever they are) during "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" were placed where I've grown used to hearing them—behind and to the outside of the speaker positions—while the hand-drumming was pinpointed in the middle and mid-right. Little percussive tidbits—bells, blocks, things that go click and pop, as on "Bird on a Wire" from Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat—tended to localize well with most good-quality speakers, and did so with the OM-7s.

It was also interesting to…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Floorstanding, reflex-loaded, "Omnipolar" loudspeaker. Drive-units: two 1" PTH-cone (Pure Titanium Hybrid) tweeters, two 4.5" polypropylene-cone midranges with butyl surrounds, one 8" polypropylene-cone woofer with butyl surround. Tweeters and midranges arranged in Omnipolar array (one of each pair fires forward, one rearward). Crossover frequencies: 200Hz, 2kHz. Frequency response: 30Hz-20kHz, +/-3dB. Room efficiency: 90dB. Impedance: 6 ohms nominal, 4 ohms minimum. Recommended amplifier power: 50-200W.
Dimensions: 43.75" H by 11.5" W by 14.4" D…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog source: Linn Axis turntable, Linn Basik tonearm, Lyra Lydian Beta cartridge.
Digital source: Arcam Audio FMJ CD23 player.
Preamplification: Anthem PRE 1L line preamp and PRE 1P phono preamp.
Power amplifier: Simaudio Celeste 4070se.
Loudspeakers: Thiel CS.5, Joseph Audio RM-7si.
Cables: Phono: Harmonic Technology Crystal Silver. Interconnect: Harmonic Technology Pro Silway Mk.II, Goertz Micro Purl Silver. Speaker: Harmonic Technology Pro 11 Plus, Goertz Python M12. AC: API Power Enhancer and Power Link.
Accessories: API Power Wedge…

Mirage OM-7 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements

The Mirage OM-7's quasi-anechoic sensitivity was fractionally below average, at an estimated 86dB(B)/2.83V/m. However, it will appear to be more sensitive in-room due to the presence of its rear-firing drive-units, which is presumably why Mirage quotes a "room efficiency" specification of 90dB. Its impedance (fig.1) drops below 4 ohms slightly in the upper bass and midrange, the former coinciding with quite a severe phase angle. Optimistically specified receivers would best be avoided with the OM-7. The "saddle" at 35Hz in this graph's magnitude trace indicates…

How Many Hilary Hahns?

Hilary Hahn must be a chameleon. At least, that's how it seemed at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show.

On January 11, the gifted 23-year-old violinist accompanied me to nine different rooms, each time with Neville Marriner and the entire Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in tow. Playing Brahms's Violin Concerto, sometimes Ms. Hahn was modestly draped in "Red Book" Standard, other times in Superbly Accessorized Couture Divine. But even when she wore the same outfit from room to room, she and her backup forces created nine distinctly different sonic impressions when they began to strut…

Acoustic Zen interconnects, AC, and speaker cables

If the devil is in the details, then Beelzebub has taken up residence in the collections of cables we use to connect our components. Reviewing the stuff is tough enough, but things are even more difficult for the average audiophile: Inevitably, the wire that sounds fabulous in the store or in your friend's system doesn't work worth a hoot in your own system, and you're left where you began. Equally inevitably, the wire that does work best carries a price more often seen in Tiffany's or Harry Winston. It's enough to drive a hi-fi nut to drink. So relax, pour yourself a nice glass of wine, and…