Mirage OMD-28 vs Revel Salon2

What is your signal chain leading up to the Mirages? Mirages tend to sound good and musical right out of the box, but they--and especially something like the OMD-28s--respond dramatically to upgrades in upstream components and amplification. You won't have properly explored these speakers until you try them with plenty of low noise power and either tri-wire or tri-amp them.

I have a pair of 1996 Mirage M5si's, which are biwirable large heavy floorstanders. They took a significant leap in transparency and intimate musical involvement when I put in a pair of PS Audio XStream Reference Bi-Wire cable. I also noticed significant changes in dynamics and transparency depending on the quality and quantity of amplification.

The OMD-28's sound good....I've got Emotiva XPA-1 monoblocks. Classe' CP-800 preamp. Oppo-95 source. Regal RP3 TT with Ortofon black. Using high quality connections all around and power conditioner/regulator.

Don't get me wrong, the OMD-28's sound great....but you know this hobby....you always get the upgrade/change bug.

I'm just wondering if anyone has heard the OMD-28's and the Revel Salon 2's.

TAS reviewed both speakers, but by different reviewers.

Chris Martens reviewed the Mirage OMD-28.

Robert Harley reviewed the Revel Ultima Salon2.

Kevin Voecks, designer of the Revel, was previously a designer at Snell and before that, Mirage. Both speakers use a continuous curved enclosure, a spaced plinth, and down-firing port. Another person on the Revel design team was Floyd Toole, who used to run Canada's National Research Council where Mirage (and Paradigm and PSB) did much of their speaker/room interaction research. Voecks also did a lot of research at the NRC.

GIven Toole's and Voecks' backgrounds, even though the Mirage is an omni of sorts, both the Mirage and Revel will have wide dispersion and energize the room in a similar way. Even though the Revel has no rear-firing drivers (the Salon1 did), all drivers are mounted for very wide dispersion and a large room-friendly sweet spot.

The Revel was triple the price of the OMD-28. All the cone drivers are titanium; the tweeter is a beryllium dome. The Mirage uses a titanium dome tweeter and fiberglass/carbon fiber cone drivers. The Mirage tweeter is smooth, detailed, and very nice, but beryllium is much lighter and faster, more extended, and while the titanium dome's resonant peak (which all metal dome tweeters have) is well beyond audibility, the resonant peak of beryllium domes is at least an octave more beyond audibility. The Mirage tweeter is very sweet and smooth, but not in the league with beryllium.

Thanks Johnny.