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excellent system
set up is a little complicated, and you do need a separate fiber optic cable for audio for your devices that use HDMI inputs. The receiver should be described as a HDMI switching device since you do need a separate audio cable. The audio for the most part it is amazing! Sometimes the base is a little overwhelming but that can be easily controlled and modified. I would strongly recommend a smart remote from Harmony to accompany this device so you don't have to have seven different remotes to do very simple task. It's nice to be able to turn everything on by pushing one-button. Although I have the Harmony 550 and I would recommend going to the next step up if you can.

Good, but not great
This is the 2nd Onkyo system I have owned. The sound is good, makes watching movies even more realistic. I would have rated higher but I was unable to get the auto sych to work with the enclosed microphone.

Excellent value for the price
I was originally intending to buy the Onkyo receiver and/or the 5.1 speaker system but then ended up buying this one. Excellent buy at the price, when I ordered the system earlier on. Easy to set up, the automated speaker calibration works cool and it indeed helped. I did not use the speaker wires provided with this system but instead bought 14 and 16 gauge wires from the local Frys instead, since in some cases the length of the wires exceeded 20-30 foot when run through the walls. The only problem as many folks have stated here is that the receiver becomes hot but so far I have not been witness to system shutting down automatically as a few of them have observed here. The speakers (all 7 of them) are not that heavy and can be easily placed on the wall. Overall, we are extremely happy with the system so far.

Excellent product for the money
This is an excellent product. i would strongly suggest it to buyers. i bought it from amazon direct..with a good discount, and the sound is just awesome.

one disadvantage though is the speaker cables are very short (especially for the surround rears), i had to buy wires from bestbuy to make it work...but still it is really worth it.

Very good entry level system
Really simple to setup. 2EQ audio calibration works wonders... The sound became more clearer and very crisp after the calibration. If you plan to upgrade your existing dvd player to a blu-ray in the near future then DO NOT get this system! You will loose out on Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio decodings(True 7.1). Better get a THX certified system capable of decoding these HD formats!
The receiver runs really hot!!!You need an air conditioned room to keep it running longer. I purchased a small fan from Target and it keeps the system running very cool. If any of the speaker wires gets short circuited or if the system becomes very hot then automatically the system shuts down to protect the circuitry and there are instructions in the manual on how to reset the system...pretty neat feature.
Also you need speaker stands especially for the satellites and the front speakers. you can get Gemini I and II speakers stands from circuitcity or bestbuy. Not very expensive...Goes great with the black speakers!

Overall very good entry system and so far the best sound you can hear from this set is a DTS ES 6.1 Discrete (Lord of the Rings)based DVD. The DTS decoding is amazing!!!
Also if you connect your cable box to the receiver, try using digital optical out and then use DTS Neo6 (I found this to be better than Dolby PLIIx) DSP setting. The surround effect is really very good.
Iam very happy with this system so far...

Too bad it's not more well known
For the price, this system is spectacular. The build quality is excellent. The design is cool. And the sound is great. Unfortunately, I think the price is good only because Mirage is almost always on the verge of going out of business. Omnipolar technology is still non-existent in mass market outlets.

In the best listening position, these tiny speakers sound just as good as the B&W and 3a speakers I was using. I used to pursue hi-fi nirvana, but now I think good enough is good enough. What is amazing about these speakers is that when you hear the speakers from another room, human dialog is eerily natural, as if a real person is actually speaking in the next room. This aspect of omnipolar speakers is of course well publicized from people into alternate speaker technologies. However, for my ears at least, this 'unusual' property does not seem to stand out as much, or at all, when I'm listening seriously in the perfect position, and when listening to music.

Still, these speakers don't cost more than conventional speakers. So why buy inferior technology when you can get ominpolar technology for the same price?

good system
I've had my Nanosat system for several months now, and I think I've finally spent enough time with them to write a review that does justice to this system.

Overall I would say that these speakers are a good value. They look very cool, are built like tanks, and with the sub properly located, they deliver a top notch movie and music experience. The sub has excellent, powerful bass. (people with a high pile carpet should possibly put a pad or something under the sub because the down firing speaker moves so much it will probably hit the carpet on louder bass notes) The satellites have crystal clear and highly detailed highs. I've been listeneing to a lot of old favorites, and it's almost like I'm hearing them for the first time again. I've heard nuances that I'd never noticed in the hundreds of times I've listened to them before. As far as sound quality is concerned, the limiting factor seems to be the recording quality of the movie or cd... For the first time I can actually hear a difference between DTS and Dolby Digital.

I have the Nanosat 5 system plus 2 extra nanosat speakers setup in a small (approx 12x14) room in a 7.1 configuration. The speakers are connected to a Yamaha RX-V659 7.1 receiver which I bought at the same time as the speakers, so I had no prior experience with the sound quality of the receiver with any other speakers. All of this is connected -initially with 7.1 analogue and then finally digital fiber optics - to my PC which has a Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Gamer soundcard.

When I decided to get these speakers, I had read tons of reviews online. Most of what they said has proved true, so I'll try not to rehash what others have said. There are a few things you may also have read about these speakers that I would like to dispell. I had heard about the 'cloud of sound' these speakers supposedly have that makes the room sound somehow bigger... Maybe I just don't have enough experience with higher end surround sound to recognize what they're talking about, but I don't hear it. They do, however, have the amazingly seamless soundfield that the speakers 'dissapear' into that people have raved about. It's something that has to be experienced to believed. Some people had written that this 'cloud of sound' made the pinpoint possitioning of sounds a little less distinct. Maybe... but to me everything sounds convincingly located and very detailed. Maybe it's just not as evident in 7.1 vs. 5.1.

A few reviews said something concerning volume with the center channel speaker. The center channel volume is fine. I've never had a problem hearing dialogue. My center is mounted a bit lower than all the others (it sits on a pedestal behind my monitor about 6" above head height while all the other speakers are mounted on the wall about 16" from the ceiling facing down), but I don't really think that makes a big difference.

Another thing that I'd read was that these speakers -need- the sub to sound good because the speakers don't have much bass. That is somewhat true. Bass without the sub is undeniably weak, but not aweful. I have a full 88 key keyboard hooked to my pc, and without the sub the speakers can cover the full piano range no problem. The real problem is this: sounds below a certain frequency may be more or less non-directional, but this sub covers much higher pitches than that. It's a fact that makes subwoofer placement very, very important. It ruins the surround effect when everything lower than a certain pitch seems to be coming from the corner of the room where the sub is, especially when that pitch is so high relatively speaking. This is definitely this system's weakest point, and keeps me from giving it a full 5 stars. I found that placing the sub behind something to break up/ disperse the sound a little helps a great deal, but the way I've solved this problem is by putting the sub under my desk basically right in front of me facing straight at me, but I realize that isn't an option available to everyone.

I have had a little trouble with the sub electronically. The sub would pop every time I touched the volume knob when I first got it, and then one day I started noticing this low grating noise coming from the sub. The problem turned out to be dirty contact points on the volume knob. I solved it by turning the sub off and turning the know back and forth a bunch to wear off any crud built up on the contacts. I haven't had a problem with it since, and it doesn't pop when you mess with the volume knob any more.

Volume on this system seems adequate for a small room, but I wouldn't put it in anything much bigger than what I have. It may be that the receiver -and not the speakers- can't handle the volume, but it certainly doesn't seem like my setup could handle much more.

If you buy these, the one thing you absolutely, positively need to know about these speakers is that they need some break in time...especially the sub. When I first got this system, I was a little dissapointed. Sure it was better than the Creative Inspire 6.1 speakers I had, but was the improvement worth several hundred more? After about 2-3 weeks things began to smooth out. The improvement was remarkable.

Much better than Bose Acoustimass 10
I have an Onkyo TSR605 receiver and I hooked up the Bose 10 speakers versus the Mirage Nanostat and the Mirage satellites are much, much clearer; also my old Onkyo woofer that came with my previous Onkyo Home Theater System produces much cleaner bass than the Bose (I started to get a headache with the Bose subwoofer because it was almost always booming when it shouldn't be and it was a muddled bass instead of a clean bass). I tested both with a movie (The Incredibles) and a concert DVD (Sarah Brightman). The Mirage Nanostat is about 0 without a woofer and the Bose 10 is 00 but even if they were the same price, the Mirage is much clearer and won't give you a headache like Bose's subwoofer. For those who complain that the Mirage Nanostat center channel would be better if it pointed at you instead of the ceiling, I turned it so the speaker faced me to get a slightly louder sound or you could turn up the center channel and lower the rest of the other speakers but if this isn't good enough, I also hooked up the Bose center speaker and it acoustically matched the Mirage Nanostat speakers so you could always buy the Bose center speaker separately for 0. The Bose 10 speakers are going back to Best Buy tomorrow. I wish I could change my rating to 5 stars but Amazon won't let me change it.

Now, that's what I've been looking for!!!
I needed to keep a good balance between getting a system that I would be happy with, that didn't cost too much money & that wasn't going to be visually "obnoxious" according to my wife. Well, the Mirage Nanosat System MORE than lived up to all of my expectations, all of my needs and all of my desires! For this amount of money, you must buy this system.

The perfect system for almost everyone
For anyone who isn't a hardcore audiophile, these speakers are the perfect addition to your home theater system. The sound stage is absolutely enormous and the sound reproduction quality is top notch. For movies, gaming, parties and your everyday listening, having a big sound stage is essential.

The vast majority of speakers are directional, which means you have to be sitting within a fairly small area to get the proper stereo reproduction. In many cases, if you listen to a typical 5.1 speaker setup, you can point to the speaker location. That is a bad thing and breaks the illusion of a realistic sound stage.

Because of the omni-directional nature of the sound coming from these little speakers, you feel like you are flooded with sound. But somehow, instead of feeling diffuse and messy, it feels like you can pinpoint every sound perfectly.

It's easy to spend far more on speakers, but it'll just be a waste of money. Buy these speakers and spend the money you save on buying a bigger television or a better quality receiver.