clarity, high-quality, richness; great sub; value

none for this price range

I bought the Mirage AVS500 with with LF-100 subwoofer about 2 months ago. I am most satisfied. The sound is clear and rich and works very nicely with home theater. [I do not use these speakers for music.] I purchased the mega mounts ($35/pair) for my rear satellites and they allow me to rotate the speakers. The speakers are not the typical tiny mass market kind; they look and sound like "real" speakers. The four AVS200 satellites are small, but not tiny (4x11x5) and sounded much better than I thought they would. I could only compare them to my Vandersteen 1Cs in a sound test of music, and was surprised that they did not sound like a tin can. They had much more richness and presence than I expected (although this test showed the infamous upper-bass hole that others have indicated with sub/sat systems; not an issue for modeset home theater IMHO). The AVS100 center is very good with clear dialogue and sound. And the LF-100 sub, while only featuring only an 8" woofer (9.5x15.5x13) is more than enough for my medium-sized living room. It thunders all around me when I watch action movies. This home theater speaker system, combined with my Outlaw 1050 receiver and Pioneer DV-444 DVD player, is truly a powerful delight for a medium-sized apt dweller. I would highly recommend the Mirage AVS-500 satellite system over anything at Circuit City, The Wiz, etc.

Smooth, rich sound - especially the 'clings' of swords. The satellites are just so small - it's hard to believe they do the business so well.

none at all.

These are absolutely stunning!

My Sony DB825 DD receiver seemed to lack bass, but upgrading to this AVS package has left my system rocking the house.

In Dolby Digital, it takes a while to get the crossover point for the sub just right but then it just powers through the bass while the satellites give clear, rounded sound. It's an amicable performer in Pro Logic too, although because the front and back speakers are identical, the surrounds are much less of a presence in this mode.

As brilliant home theatre speakers, I expected them to be somewhat poorer performers on music. But I've found they're able to bring out a rounded sound to almost every type of music I've tried. You do need to adjust the sub a bit if you're playing anything with a lot of mid range music in it, however.

If you can find an audio store that will demo these for you, then definitely try them out with something like Ronin. You won't be disappointed.

Love these speakers! After a lot of research, we decided to go with the Mirage AVS-500 with the PS-8 subwoofer. You won't find many audio stores with these speakers set up--they wouldn't be able to sell the more expensive speakers after you heard these!! These are NOT entry level as far as I'm concerned-they are keepers! The center speaker produces clean crisp sound that is excellent for both music and movie dialogue. The subwoofer produces rich deep bass. We watch a lot of DVD movies and even though we don't have a digital receiver, the sound is awesome. We highly recommend!

Excellent home theater sound. Superb value. Surprising amount of bass from the extremely well-built FRX-8 subwoofer, which has a dedicated LFE input. (A rarity in this price range and see comment below)

Mild lack of midrange presence when listening to music. Sparse documentation.

After going all over town to every audio store I could find, from Best Buy and Circuit City to high-end-only audio boutiques, and auditioning 6-piece sub/sat systems from Bose, Klipsch, Boston Acoustics, Polk, Definitive Technology, and others, I finally decided on this Mirage System. It was simply one of the best-sounding systems in the $1000-or-less price range. The center channel is very clear and intelligible. The highs are like crystal. The bass is tight, fairly deep, and powerful, at least for my mid-sized (2000 cu.ft.) room. Most importantly, it sounds smooth and together. The bass from the front-firing subwoofer blends seamlessly into the soundstage. (I located my subwoofer in the front, right side of the room.) I also found that the "external crossover input" can be used as a dedicated LFE input, although the manual does not explicitly state this. Hooking it up this way takes the guesswork out of manually adjusting the crossover setting on the subwoofer. I just set the crossover setting on my receiver to 100 Mhz, which matches the satellites' published frequency response (90-20K Mhz) nicely, and voila! The amount of bass that is produced is perfectly balanced for movies. However, I do find that I have to attenuate the bass output by several dB when listening to music; otherwise, the bass is a little too heavy for my musical taste. Overall, I am extremely pleased with this speaker system and have been showing it off to all my friends. I've been in numerous audio store sound rooms and I would have say that the only speakers that sounded significantly better to me cost at least 2-3X as much as this system. At one high-end store, a pair of the AVS satellites were sitting on top a pair of floor-standing Phase Tech speakers. The salesperson popped in a CD and fired up the amp. The sound coming out was very rich and detailed. I thought he had hooked up the Phase Techs. To my astonishment, the sound was actually coming from the AVS satellites. I even walked behind the speakers to check the connection. It was amazing. So if you're on a moderate budget and want a great-sounding home theater speaker system, you really ought to give these a try.

great value. crisp high. excellent imaging
vocals seems to float center and infront

cut-off freq 90hz are you kidding?
weak center speaker

bought these five mini speakers only this may 00 and boy!!!they really blow me away. using these with a yamaha sw-yst160 sub is real heaven. the only weakness or shall i say weaknesses is the lack of bass, surely who would expect deep bass for this dimunitive speakers. weak center speaker is another, i have to crank up the center by 4 db on my pioneer pro-logic to get an understandable vocals if not loud passages would suddenly rattle the neoghbors if set only at 0db. for value i give these speakers a 5 star. these guys beats bose am10 by a mile.

Size of speakers; clear,crisp sound, (not "muddy" midrange & highs); price;

none

I have purchased this group of speakers for a home theater setup in my large living room (18x16) and I also purchased the subwoofer, FRXS-8 (Mirage). The speakers fill the room with more than enough sound and provide excellent mixing of highs, midrange and bass. I hooked the speakers up to a Sherwood RVD6090R (65 watts/channel) which provided a great all around system for listening to stereo CD's or watching DVD's. I very economical system for the "casual" listener. I did use Monster cable for the speaker wires and a Monster Subwoofer cable ($40).

Similar Products Used:

Bose

These are some great sounding speakers! They really shine in Home Theater with Dolby Digital. I listened to alot of different speakers and I found for the price and size of the AVS-500's they could not be beat. I also got the PS-8 sub with the 500's and it matches seemlessly. I highly recommend these speakers to anyone looking for a great-sounding, economical, and space-efficient speaker.

These really are great speakers for the money. I picked these up locally afterhearing them in a Audio/Video Solutions (Laurel, MD) main room, which didn't look too great for sound with its linoleum floors and concrete walls. I didn't expect them to sound so great--my first pick at that time was to get 4 Optimus Pro LX5 and their Pro center channel for my first home theater system.

Regarding discussion in the newsgroups that the Energy Take 5 system has higher
treble response than the AVS-500--then the Energy must really be bright. I have the tone controls on my Carver HTR-885.1 receiver flat for bass and treble, and
the Mirage sounds great in a 2,100 cu. ft. carpeted room--great highs IMHO.
You do need a subwoofer of course. I was slated to have a Mirage PS-10 complement my AVS-500, but frustrations with several mail-order companies made
me look elsewhere. I now have a Velodyne VA-8100X on order, look for my comments under that heading soon (in addition to comments on integration w/
the AVS-500).

For home theater however, I sometimes wish the surround speakers in this package
were dipoles. Now, I've never heard dipoles in my room before, but I imagine
that they would work better than the AVS-500 surrounds, which are the same as
the fronts. I wonder what would've been if I'd went with the Pro LX5, which have dipole tweeters. I still must give 5 stars for everything else about the AVS-500.

The Mirage AVS is a compact, stylish performer and an excellent value. The sound is clean, full, and detailed. The satellites generate silky smooth highs and tight, crisp midrange, while the matching subwoofer produces rich, deep bass.
The Mirage is a close sibling of the widely acclaimed Energy Take-5, setting itself apart with a smoother quality of sound. In choosing Mirage over Energy, you are basically sacrificing some high frequency detail for a richer, fuller, sound. Which attribute is more desireable is a matter of personal preference.

Bottom line, the Mirage AVS system is exceptionally good, particularly in relation to its size and price.

I've had the speakers for two weeks and they are really a match for my system. I have a Pioneer DV-505 dvd player and a Yamaha 795 receiver. The sound quality from CDs rivals full range reference monitors costing quite a bit more. I opted for the larger FRX-S10 just to have flexibility in case I move the system. The hook-up and placement was real easy (I used bar stools and ladders to experiment with placement) and they don't takeover the house. I wanted Magnaplanar 1.6 speakers but their size and placement requirements wouldn't fit in my room.These maybe similar to the Energy but for music listening they are much smoother.