You know movies sound more thrilling in surround sound than in plain stereo. Unfortunately, you lack the space, inclination, or décor — perhaps in a bedroom, dorm room, or weekend retreat — to accommodate all of the speakers and gear for a home theater system, or even a seven-piece home-theater-in-a-box (HTiB) system. The Niro 1.1 Pro takes the HTiB approach to a new level of simplification and condensation. It’s a three-piece system consisting of a DVD player/receiver, one speaker cabinet, and a subwoofer, all of it styled with understated elegance.

FAST FACTS

DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) player/receiver, 17 x 2 x 13 1/4 inches; speaker, 19 x 4 1/4 x 8 inches; subwoofer, 11 3/4 x 13 x 11 3/4 inches WEIGHT player/receiver, 9 1/4 pounds; speaker, 9 1/2 pounds; subwoofer, 14 1/4 pounds INPUTS/OUTPUTS 2 stereo audio inputs; composite-, component-, and S-video outputs, all with stereo audio PRICE $799 MANUFACTURER Nirotek America, www.niro1.com, 310-533-6000

The Niro 1.1 Pro is not the first home theater system to banish surround speakers, but it’s one of the first to dispense with the left and right front speakers, too. It was created by Niro Nakamichi, the legendary Japanese engineer who helped make the audio cassette a viable medium for music. His Niroson Cinema 1.1 processing allows five drivers in a single, relatively compact speaker enclosure to create virtual L/R front and surround speakers. You place the cabinet atop or just below your TV screen, while the small subwoofer can go just about anywhere. (I put it against the wall a couple of feet to the right of my TV.)

Niro provides a pictorial setup guide, which is all you’ll need. Two ribbon cables are attached to the speaker cabinet. A 15-foot cable goes to the DVD player/receiver, and a 12-foot cable goes to the sub — both have proprietary plugs that can be inserted only one way. The DVD/receiver is blessedly simple and uncluttered. Connect one of the three types of video output to your TV, attach the AM and FM radio antennas, and you’re good to go.

Of course, you do have to contend with the 51-key nonuniversal remote control. I used that to delve into the setup menus to select the video output flavor and screen format. But since the 1.1 Pro is a single-enclosure design, there are no speaker “size” or distance-compensation settings, and you don’t need to make individual channel-level adjustments. You can go from opening the box to reading the FBI warning on a DVD in less time than it takes to pop a bowl of popcorn.

My 42-inch widescreen HDTV monitor has a narrow top lip, so I put the speaker on a short stand just below the screen. Niro recommends a minimum distance of 6 feet to the listening position. I found that about 8 feet was ideal.

The system provided a sweet spot about as wide as a full-size sofa. In terms of breadth and imaging, the front sound field rivaled or even surpassed that from many conventional front speaker trios I’ve heard. The sound poured forth broad and deep, with no localization on the speaker. It extended to the left and right of the TV screen, while dialogue remained centered.

I dared the Niro 1.1 Pro system with the DVD of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, a mind-blowing spectacle with a montage of sound from every channel — it even puts dialogue in the surround channels. The Niro created about a 170° sound field, so while I never heard anything directly from my sides or from behind me, I did hear plenty off to the side just in front of me and even behind the TV screen. To my ears, the Niroson Cinema 1.1 processing was not quite as effective in creating an apparent surround field as Dolby Virtual Speaker, but the effect was surprisingly satisfying. I became absorbed in the movie, and when the crystal flakes tinkled their way down before Santine made her grand entrance, they really did sound like they were falling evenly throughout the front half of my room.

The overall tonal balance was good, with some warmth that didn’t sacrifice clarity, and the little sub did its job admirably. This system won’t help you break your lease, but it has enough muscle for home theater. DVD image quality was on par with that of most other modestly priced HTiB systems, good but a tad less sharp than with some of the best players.

To test stereo playback — the system lacks Dolby Pro Logic II and can’t play multichannel audio discs, though it will play MP3 files on CD-R/ RW discs — I spun the latest CD from Prairie Home Companion favorites Robin and Linda Williams (Red House). The sound was full and rich, flattering their voices. Not surprisingly, they sounded much better in conventional stereo than in Pro Logic, which contracted the sound field.

The Niro 1.1 Pro plays the Mini Cooper to the SUV of a full 5.1-channel system. It’s cute, fun, and fast, but lacks the power and majesty of a complete surround sound system. Still, like the Mini Cooper, it’s a good value, and you can park it in places other systems can’t fit.