Bipole/dipole or direct radiating speakers for rear and side surround speakers?

Question

I know this depends entirely on room layout et cetera, but...

1) Which one would you prefer, in a 5.1 and 7.1 system, for;

a) Side speakers

b) Rear speakers

If you prefer dipole/bipole speakers (either for sides or rears or for both), then please indicate which option to switch for which? (Example: Dipoles for sides and bipoles for rears or vice versa, or same type of operation for both sides and rears)

You may also evaluate in respect of movie watching and music listening.

2) As far as I know, one of the advantages of bipole/dipole speakers is that they can be a bit close to you and to the back wall, right? Is this true for both type of operation (If I switch both to bipole and dipole)

Thanks!

Answer 1

I posted this in another thread earlier today.

I would buy two bipole for the side surrounds and two direct radiating speakers for the rear channel speakers.

Bipole gives a diffused sound (but placement is key) and that's what you want on side surrounds, but with the rear channels you don't want a diffuse sound since most movies in 7.1 are engineered to have a direct sound and not diffuse.

Here's an example, the shootout scene on the rooftop in the "Matrix" you hear the agents gun go off from the front speakers, time slows down (bullet time) you want a diffuse sound as you hear the bullet whizzing by you, because the sound will appear to travel along the walls from front to back, but when it reaches the back channel speakers, you want to hear the bullet directly behind you and not appear to travel all along the back wall.

Hence why you want bipole on the sides and direct firing on the back wall.

Answer 2

Go with direct radiators - this is what the sound booths and sound engineers assume you will have.

I have bipolar left/right speakers and spent a lot of time studying the Hass Effect and why dipole/bipolars work well.

The upshot is - if you can pull them 3-4 ft into the room, back-radiator speakers can be fantastic.  But shove them against a wall .. and you loose the effect.

Dolby used to suggest using dipole/bipole in the ProLogic days to help "hide" the speaker location and they would send the same sound to both left and right rears.

When 5.1 came out - you want your attention drawn to the sides/rear and Dolby's advice was a bit of an embarasment.

Direct radiators are usually cheaper, simpler and work great for a modern 5.1 or 7.1 system.