Advice on BA surround speakers

[ZinMe]

I am looking for surround speakers for my system. I have a Denon 3805 with Boston Acoustics VR965L fronts and a Boston Acoustics VRC center channel speaker. I plan to use two surround and two rear speakers for 7.1.

For timbre match, I'm trying to stick with Boston Acoustics. There are two models I'm considerings:

(1) Use four Bravo II speakers. These have the same tweeter and midrange driver as my fronts and centers (1 inch VR tweeter and 4.5 inch drivers.) They are a direct speaker and can be mounted flush on the wall or in the corner between the wall and ceiling.

(2) Use two BA VR-MX with a single VR-E/MX in the rear. Each speaker has a 5.5inch driver, a 5.5 inch passive radiator and two 1inch VR tweeters. These speakers fire in two directions, one direction is direct, one direction is diffuse. (The rear fires driect in both directions.)

I plan to listen to music 60% and theater 40%. Both sets would mount easily in my room-- no big advantages regarding placement for either set-up.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any dealers with 20miles (Palo Alto, CA) who carry either speaker. Serveral internet dealers have them. Any recommendations on which speakers would make the most sense for me?

Thanks,
ZinMe

 

[ZinMe]

Update. I'm more confused that ever.

I have some advice saying always go with direct speakers for a 7.1 system because you get plenty of surround feeling with 8 speakers and better clarity than with dipole/difuse set-ups. Makes sense to me, particularly if you mostly listen to music. The Bravos, which are the direct option, also offer a very discrete, flexible and easy to locate design.

Yet, when I look at a long list of folks who are using BA speaker set ups, 75% of them have the dipole/diffuse speakers and love them, although this is generally in a 6.1 or a 5.1 set-up. (I have some interest in this approach because I used to have maggies, which had great "live" presence because the signal was emmanating from the front and rear of the speaker creating a lot of depth to the audio.)

Without being able to audition these, it's difficult to make a decision. Any advice on pros / cons in general about dipole/diffusion vs. direct would be appreciated.

 

[Sheep]

Some say Direct is the way for multichannel music. Personally, Its stereo for me. If you list to 70/30(%) music to movie, I would get direct. If its the other way around, I would get di/bi/quad pole speakers.

SheepStar