The shallow, sleek, silver-hued Phantoms can be as retiring or as prominent as you like. Small enclosures in the rear help to balance the physical impact. These are not speakers you want to push back into a corner or hide behind the potted palm. They need their own resonating space. These half-pints don't take up much space, either.
Shielding refers to insulation around the voice coil and magnet on the speaker cones.
Placed too close to your television, an unshielded speaker can interfere with the picture, causing the color to smear. At 1012 inches high and 6 inches wide, the Mini is easily accommodated as the back-channel source even in small rooms. To bring some real punch to such small speakers, you need a subwoofer. Don't economize on the center-channel speaker. It isn't just a dialogue speaker but the center stage of the sound system, and it must support the action there.