Three years to get around to my own install.

[geolemon]

I could NOT be more stoked to see these show up today!!

...I also could NOT be kicking myself more that my spare home receiver is in my storage unit - and I won't be able to give these a listen until I get it...

14ish years of anticipation after hearing those Bolzano Villetris, not to set my expectations too high - but I've been looking for years for anything that could even slightly emulate that kind of imaging - man I hope this is it...


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[Ge0]

I could NOT be more stoked to see these show up today!!

...I also could NOT be kicking myself more that my spare home receiver is in my storage unit - and I won't be able to give these a listen until I get it...

14ish years of anticipation after hearing those Bolzano Villetris, not to set my expectations too high - but I've been looking for years for anything that could even slightly emulate that kind of imaging - man I hope this is it...


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I remember seeing these at Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto back in 2000. I believe Mirage was a Canadian company. A-Pillar or Dash install ?

Ge0

[geolemon]

I remember seeing these at Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto back in 2000. I believe Mirage was a Canadian company. A-Pillar or Dash install ?

Ge0

Are you near Toronto? I'm in Buffalo - pretty close. If this Trump regime goes on much longer I might be escaping over the border. I can literally see the cars driving over the Peace Bridge (QEW) from my office.

Anyway - Yes, they were a Canadian company. I believe Ontario, even. But I don't know where. I only discovered them this year, and I'm stunned to find a 3"/1" model - that's the combo I was going to play with regardless of my 14-year-plus-imaging-benchmark.

I think they have to be in that dash panel for two reasons:
1) These have to be upright to work on the stereo (two ears) plane.
2) I'll either need an enclosure or a baffle - there's not enough room in an A-pillar.

Take a look at the pics I stole from ErinH's install, earlier in this thread. He has the same car as me, and not only is the dash top conveniently split into two pieces, but the piece against the windshield has enough room for a 4"and sealed enclosure with some defroster duct redirecting. With an IB-friendly 3", maybe not even.

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[Ge0]

Are you near Toronto? I'm in Buffalo - pretty close. If this Trump regime goes on much longer I might be escaping over the border. I can literally see the cars driving over the Peace Bridge (QEW) from my office.

No, I'm in Metro Detroit. I get to Toronto quite often though. Great city. I'm with you regarding the Trump regime. Windsor is only 15 minutes away. Bridge, tunnel, or swim the river .

Niagara is only 3 hours away for me. Maybe we could find someone in London Ontario to host a car audio meet. That would be about 1/2 way for each of us.

Ge0

[geolemon]

I'd definitely be down for that.
Oh - and your question on aiming:

That location being that spot - I'm hoping that will also fit a 3" with some sort of mirage-pod-arm (maybe the actual Mirage pod itself), and room to rotate it back and forth for aiming, for mocking up.
The Mirage design is supposed to work beautifully against walls...
...but walls aren't corners where an A-pillar meets a windshield.

That's one reason I took the mini-deep-dive into the Ohm loudspeakers. They changed it from a speaker that needed 7 feet of distance between it and walls, to one that works great even right against walls - and they did it with nothing fancier than what looks like some mineral wool insulation. So if I'm having any issues from that corner, I can build a curved wall of mineral wool and play with wrapping that around some of the back side/corner side of this thing, to do what Ohm did.

And IF for whatever reason, this Mirage approach doesn't image right, I have the Ohm/Walsh option as a Plan B - using my same 3" but inverted. And probably using that same insulation wall on the backside... but maybe the windshield actually helps on the backside, I could also play with a flat insulation panel on the dash surface back there, for both. Plan B I'd just do up some tweeter mounts on the sail panel.

Worst case - I know ErinH knows his stuff - mount them firing up. Definitely going to have to play with all the options.

Now, I was hoping that I could get that dash panel off independently, but it looks like at the center (possibly other places), it reaches under the rest of the dash pad and has attachment points. So, I think I'll have to pull the whole dash off, remove that, and then replace the dash MINUS that panel for some period of time, to let me play.

[geolemon]

Ok - so four updates.

One -
Murphy's Law.
Of course the same night I receive my "could be what I've been listening for, for 14 years" speakers, we get a monster storm, water in the [finished] basement, and I end up ripping down two walls to explore - finding a minor crack and needing to repair that.
Fortunately years of tool hoarding pay off, I air hammer it out just like I did with a much worse crack in my old house a decade ago - and fix it - the re-insulaton and re-building the wall are easy and not urgent, now. Phew.

Two -
Honda sales people have finally started reaching out to me, being at the end of my lease. I'm still 95% certain I'm just buying my car out, but who knows - maybe they have a used Sport Touring at the same price as my Sport. I just don't want to start the physical install until I'm certain because...
...yeah. Murphy's Law tends to be real. See above.

Three -
I realize all this talk and little action.. that's pretty boring to most people who aren't intrigued or following what I'm shooting for here. So once #2 up there IS finalized, and I start the physical build beyond all this prep and planning and validation, I'll figure out a way to concisely summarize all this and reboot into a new thread.

Four -
Back to the audio!
With the construction in the basement (which is also my office) I don't have much room left ...fortunately "ideal speaker locations" was absolutely NOT on my list of requirements.
So - here's my little test rig for giving an initial listen to the Mirages. It's actually looking good in many non-ideal ways, including the side reflections. Can't wait.

I'm using my lunch break today to set it up, clean it up (these things got dusty, in storage), and by this evening things should be safely dry, no wet surface cleaner residue, and should be good to power it up and see if this has promise as the holy grail I've been wishing for.
No pressure.

Hopefully more to come this evening.




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[mikeyt]

I've been reading this from the beginning and others you've put out here about these trade shows and the "unobtainium" equipment out there for us regular working folks. Are these a pair of those Balzono's you found used or are those the same speaker type or design made by a different manufacturer. I know you said you've been waiting 14 years, so I thought a pair came for sale on Ebay and bit the bullet and paid the going rate for the unicorn?

[geolemon]

No the Balzano Villetri are huge... They have an upper and lower cabinet firing at a center tweeter pod, to achieve this omni-speaker effect. That's why the 14 year dilemma on how to adapt it to a car.

These are by Mirage - a now-defunct Canadian country. They have larger speakers too - but these micro satellites are 3" mids with 1" tweeters, which is possibly a way to finally get this omni effect... I'd swap for different drivers, but use this idea.
You can find even bigger Mirage in good shape for $1000 or less.

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[geolemon]

And on that note...
Finally got my first listening in.
Check out where I have the speakers in this photo, compared to the earlier photo.
And I'm actually sitting pretty close - had to use the fisheye lens on my phone and that makes me look further than I am.

So - mild success.

It's not quite "holy crap!" like the Balzano Villetri were - but... I've intentionally set these up in a horrible acoustical space, so it's not apples to apples.
And I did a bunch of playing with angles (rotation and vertical) and distance from the wall and side wall, just within the barstool top area though.

In this picture, they sound pretty good.
And the imaging is nearly "holy crap" great:
The height is amazing, the depth is decent, the width is only about where the furniture is though. Also, when the sound is only left or right channel, the speakers are very locate-able, which I think both issues are my side reflections.
So there's lots of promise here.

A side benefit of rebuilding these basement walls is that I'm going to have some fiberglass insulation scraps to play with some side shielding, like the Ohms.

Another thing I should do is listen to them in a more ideal space, to get a better sense of their actual potential.

But there's promise here, for sure.

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[SiW80]

And on that note...
Finally got my first listening in.
Check out where I have the speakers in this photo, compared to the earlier photo.
And I'm actually sitting pretty close - had to use the fisheye lens on my phone and that makes me look further than I am.

So - mild success.

It's not quite "holy crap!" like the Balzano Villetri were - but... I've intentionally set these up in a horrible acoustical space, so it's not apples to apples.
And I did a bunch of playing with angles (rotation and vertical) and distance from the wall and side wall, just within the barstool top area though.

In this picture, they sound pretty good.
And the imaging is nearly "holy crap" great:
The height is amazing, the depth is decent, the width is only about where the furniture is though. Also, when the sound is only left or right channel, the speakers are very locate-able, which I think both issues are my side reflections.
So there's lots of promise here.

A side benefit of rebuilding these basement walls is that I'm going to have some fiberglass insulation scraps to play with some side shielding, like the Ohms.

Another thing I should do is listen to them in a more ideal space, to get a better sense of their actual potential.

But there's promise here, for sure.

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Don’t think your cat likes the imaging...


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