Using small satellites with larger bookshelf front and center speakers?

Question

I’m new at this so hope it makes sense. I’m building a system for my 15x20 apartment space and I’m wondering if Mirage Nanosat (omnidirectional) speakers will work well as satellite speakers with a traditional bookshelf front, center, and sub-woofer set up.

I’ve read conflicting information. On one hand it’s said that it’s best to use the same series speaker for front, center, and side to match timber…etc. On the other hand I understand that most of the sound comes from the front and it’s nice if the sides “disappear” into the sound.

In my case the Mirage Nanosat seem like they would work perfect because I don’t have the space to mount even bookshelf speakers on the side. They’re small and I like the idea of omnidirectional sound being diffused so I can be more flexible with placement. However, I don’t know how well these small speakers would work as satellites with larger, directional speakers – but I heard that I can compensate through the receiver (Yamaha RX-V661). So far I’m looking at Polk RTI’s, AV123 x-series, and Axiom M3’s (I’ll be asking the obligatory “which speakers should I buy” question after I narrow it down a bit later) for the front and center.

Any advice will be helpful, thanks.

Answer 1

The idea of using a more omnidirectional speaker for your surround sound is a good one if you prefer a more diffuse sound for your side speakers. And since the vast majority of sound comes from the front it is not a huge deal having side speakers that don't match. You can always try it and if they don't work well together send the side speakers back and get ones with a better match. Almost any size speaker can be wall mounted so speaker size is not an issue unless you are talking about tower speakers.

No you can not compensate for different speakers with the receiver. Receivers have at best "tone" controls and you can not do any real equalization with receiver controls. Even a 7 band EQ is not sufficient for EQing speakers. To do any real speaker EQ I would want either a 31 band graphic or a 10 band parametric EQ per channel with the preference going to parametric.