What Zd542 said!
Mirage's M_si series is great. The M7si is OK but from the M5si on up they're awesome! I've had miy M5si's for almost 19 years now and have no intention of swapping them out. An excellent condition used pair (when you can find them) run $500-700 and are the bargain of the decade: the midrange intimacy of a mini-monitor with the room-filling power and bass extension of a big floorstander. Mine are near linear down to 29 Hz and audible to 26.
I bought mine for half price when Magnolia was dropping the line in 1996 and replacing them with Def Tech. It was a commercial--not sound quality--decision. The sales people I talked to there were sad to see Mirage go because they knew it was a better speaker. At the time Def Tech was launching with a high budget ad campaign and had more buzz and visibility. That doesn't mean they were better.
In fact, Def Tech's bipolar implementation missed the point according to Mirage. Mirage had purposely made the speakers wide and shallow to make them as near omni as possible. When Def Tech went narrow and deep, it separated by front and back drivers by more than a foot, and created a bigger void in the side radiation pattern.
Mirage's M_si series is great. The M7si is OK but from the M5si on up they're awesome! I've had miy M5si's for almost 19 years now and have no intention of swapping them out. An excellent condition used pair (when you can find them) run $500-700 and are the bargain of the decade: the midrange intimacy of a mini-monitor with the room-filling power and bass extension of a big floorstander. Mine are near linear down to 29 Hz and audible to 26.
I bought mine for half price when Magnolia was dropping the line in 1996 and replacing them with Def Tech. It was a commercial--not sound quality--decision. The sales people I talked to there were sad to see Mirage go because they knew it was a better speaker. At the time Def Tech was launching with a high budget ad campaign and had more buzz and visibility. That doesn't mean they were better.
In fact, Def Tech's bipolar implementation missed the point according to Mirage. Mirage had purposely made the speakers wide and shallow to make them as near omni as possible. When Def Tech went narrow and deep, it separated by front and back drivers by more than a foot, and created a bigger void in the side radiation pattern.