I have a 5.1 setup. Running HTD level three floorstanding speakers and center in front. Have level three HTD dipole/bi-pole surround speakers for surround set-up. Room dimension is 16' by 16'. I have seating that is backed up to the rear wall. My question is whether I should put the di-pole/bi-pole surround on the rear wall (directly above and behind the couch about 2 to the 3 feet higher) or on the side walls? Also should I put the setting on bipole or dipole? One other problem about putting the surrounds on the side walls. I cannot put them at the end of the side walls because of the door that allows me to enter the room. Any advice would help. Thanks.
I hope you're incorrect about 16x16 because square is the worst. Ways in which it could be worse I suppose, is if it was a smaller square, and also that the ceiling was the same height. If 8', that's bad too, at 50% of the 16' figure.
I'm not sure how much it helps in the grand scheme of things, but it probably still does quite a bit anyway if I had to guess, but I think that you need to get off the back wall, 38% is a good distance. The closer you are to it, the more you want heavy duty broadband absorption there, but then I'm not sure if it's wasted money in a square room anyhow. I'd ask the pros, maybe ask GIK. Anyway, sorry that was a tangent, but still related to speaker placement . . .
Because if you get off the back wall, you can have your dipole setup, directly at yours sides, the in-phase side apparently should be firing forward. You can play with both bipole and dipole settings to see which you prefer. If the setup must be as it is, with you significantly behind the surround speakers, I would only consider bipole, and quite frankly, I'd see if I could either return or sell them in all likelihood depending on how far forward they are. If forward enough, you don't want them to be acting as extra front speakers but with material that should be ambient surround stuff. JMO.
Oh wait, hm I suppose above is better, directly above you, but even then I probably wouldn't do it. It's kind of pointless, I've never experienced it, but I wonder how weird it might be. Dunno. Like I said though, pull couch forward, options open up big time. If bipole setting, you could have them in a variety of places. The dipoles should pretty much be 90 deg IMO, though some people might use them on the back wall I suppose. Maybe others with more experience will chime in.
