how many of you have dipole's at the back?

A

Audioholic

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'>I’m trying to decide between some rear speakers and was wondering if I put dipole’s at the back will I have a more natural sound at the back than I do now with my normal 2 way speakers?</font>
 
jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'>Dipoles and bipoles need almost a perfect room to achieve the proper affect. That said, it also depends on what you plan on listening to the most, if movies then get bipoles or dipoles, if music then get a direct firing speaker.</font>
 
A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>I know of some audiphiles with both dipoles and monopoles at the back selectable from the receiver end. &nbsp;The former for movies, the latter for multi-channel music.</font>
 
D

duff

Audioholic Intern
<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>
jeffsg4mac : Dipoles and bipoles need almost a perfect room to achieve the proper affect. That said, it also depends on what you plan on listening to the most, if movies then get bipoles or dipoles, if music then get a direct firing speaker.
In my experience, bi/dipoles tend to disperse sound in a way that makes speaker placement more forgiving.  So an ideal room with ideal speaker placement would not be necessary.  

Also, I think the generalization of music = &quot;monopole&quot;, movie = &quot;dipole&quot; is a little hasty.  

Sure enough, I prefer dipoles for movies, to better wrap you up in spatial effects.

2 channel music where the rears are just used for effect (like DPLII for example), I think dipoles work better for that same spaciousness.  Also for dedicated 5.1 sources like DVDA/SACD recordings that are meant to simulate a concert hall sound, dipoles will shine by giving you a better sense of envelopment.

The best case for direct radiating surrounds for me would be for non-traditional discrete multichannel recordings, where sound is really firing from all sides.  But for all other applications, I'd go with dipoles.  

So if I have to make a compromise, I'd personally take the dipoles any day.</font>
 
E

EdR

Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>I've got the CSW Newton S300 which is sort of both- it has dipoles on the sides, and a two way monopole in front. &nbsp;A switch lets you select either one or blended with uses all four drivers, which is my preference. &nbsp;That is, there are three difference modes possible.

I've been quite pleased. &nbsp;On well mixed DTS tracks such as the Lord of the Rings extended eds, the effect is amazing. &nbsp;I just finished watching the Superbit directors cut of Das Boot with it's DTS track, and again the surround effects were great, especially on the more subtle effects such as the crew moving around in back and the small sounds reverbrating in the narrow confines. &nbsp;During the scenes where they went very deep, the creaks and groans were coming from all around, and when a bolt let go and whizzed by my head, my cat ducked and ran.

I'm planning on upgrading to a 7.1 system soon, and have purchased monopoles for the center rear speakers.</font>
 
jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'>duff; DVD audio and SACD are mixed for direct firing speakers not bipoles or dipoles. Also, while Bipoles my be more forgiving than dipoles, dipoles need rear walls to reflect off of because they create a null in the listening area and the reflected sound is what is creating the ambiance. Cheers.</font>
 
C

Chuck

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>
jeffsg4mac : duff; DVD audio and SACD are mixed for direct firing speakers not bipoles or dipoles. Also, while Bipoles my be more forgiving than dipoles, dipoles need rear walls to reflect off of because they create a null in the listening area and the reflected sound is what is creating the ambiance. Cheers.
Not all loudspeaker designers that use bipolar drivers count on the rear wave for ambience or center-fill (though this is the most common situation).  For example, take a look at the InnerSound Q&amp;A.

Quoted from the InnerSound Q&amp;A:
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I've always heard that speakers should have wide-dispersion and that InnerSound's speaker designer invented the wide-dispersion, curved electrostatic loudspeaker. So why does InnerSound produce narrow-dispersion speakers?

It's true that Roger Sanders, InnerSound's speaker designer, invented the free-standing, curved electrostatic panel in 1978. He published the technique in &quot;Speaker Builder&quot; magazine in 1980. He expected that his wide-dispersion, curved panels would perform better than narrow-dispersion, planar speakers. But he was stunned to discover that they were inferior to planer speakers with respect to transient response, imaging, frequency response, speaker placement, and output! Frustrated and disappointed, he spent several years studying these phenomena and eventually found that the laws of physics make it impossible for a wide-dispersion loudspeaker to have good transient response, imaging, etc. These topics are complex and technical, but the following explanation should help explain why this is true: To visualize what happens, imagine that you have a conventional wide-dispersion loudspeaker that is perfect in every way. Now play a short transient through it, like a drum rim-shot. The sound that comes directly from the speaker to your ear is flawless (because we said the speaker was &quot;perfect&quot;). The transient is short, tight, and crisp. But because this hypothetical speaker has wide-dispersion, most of its sound goes out in the room where it reflects off various surfaces before reaching your ears. Because these reflected sounds must travel further than the direct sound to reach your ear, they arrive slightly later than the direct sound. The delay is not enough for your brain to perceive them as echos, instead you hear many rim-shots, over only a few milliseconds. So instead of hearing one crisp transient sound, you hear &quot;pop corn&quot; -- a group of transient sounds separated by tiny delays. Not knowing exactly what to do with this mess, your brain &quot;averages&quot; them all together into one, long, smeared transient sound. If you doubt this, just remember the last time you heard headphones. No doubt you were impressed that the sound was far more clean and crisp than what you have heard from any wide-dispersion loudspeaker. This was not because the headphones were so good, it is just that headphones do not introduce room acoustics into the sound. Since music is almost all transient information, wide-dispersion speakers must be avoided if you want accurate sound. Still another problem is frequency response. Because sound travels in waves, the out-of-phase room reflections will either augment or attenuate various frequencies when it mixes with the direct sound at your ear. This forms a &quot;comb-filter&quot;, which seriously alters the accurate frequency response of our &quot;perfect&quot; speaker. Additionally, the room selectively absorbs the higher frequencies which tends to generally reduce the high frequency energy you hear in the overall sound when compared to the direct sound. The frequency response changes based on where the speaker is in the room, which is why speaker placement can be so difficult with wide-dispersion speakers. Finally, a wide-dispersion speaker expends most of its energy projecting its sound out in the room. A narrow-dispersion speaker directs most of its energy directly to you. Although both speakers may produce identical amounts of sound output, the narrow-dispersion one will sound much louder, and therefore subjectively seems more efficient. In summary, wide-dispersion speakers force you to listen to your ROOM. Narrow-dispersion speakers allow you to listen to your SPEAKERS. The benefits of narrow-dispersion speakers are superior frequency response, higher output, holographic image quality, precision imaging, much crisper transients, and ease of placement.</td></tr></table>

Note that Sanders goal is to minimize early reflections, even though he uses dipolar ESL panels in his speakers.  With the narrow dispersion, proper toe, and reasonable placement, the back-wave simply isn't an issue, or so Sanders claims.  I also use large panels to eliminate rather than create early reflections, because like Sanders, I like the clarity and imaging that the approach produces.

I agree with your comments as far as loudspeakers that are designed to use a reflected wave to create more (false) ambiance.  Sanders, I, and a few others, use dipoles to achieve just the opposite result.</font>
 
A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>It is alwaysy desireable to eliminate early reflections when reproducing stereo music.  What gets to your ears should really be tjust the audio waves coming from the speakers. Anything else added will obfuscate the stereo imaging and detail.

That goes true for multi-chanel mixes of SACD and DVD-A IN GENERAL.  They were mized with the identical monopoles in mind for all 4 or 5 speakers. However, I must say that many DVD-A and SACD mixes are not  discreetly mutli- channel and use the rear channels to simulate ambient sounds from concert halls or theaters.  In this case, going dipoles or bipoles can be an advantage.  And stereo sources in DSP 1 o2 modes can benefit from dipoles.

So i agree that my generalization that monopoles are for music and dipoles/bipoles are for movies may indeed be a bit hasty.  My apologies.  So even when playing music,  the facility to choose between the two speaker types can be beneficial.  Those speaker A and B selector switches have a use afterall for surrounds.</font>
 
A

Audioholic

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'>Well from the small research that I’ve done, I believe that dipoles &amp; bipoles obviously were made and work better in movie surround sound, because in the rear channels you don’t want the sound firing straight from the speakers into your ears, but it adds more realism by hearing the sound bouncing off the walls, I also think that dipoles and bipoles can be an advantage when listening to DVD-A and SACD where as av_phile mentioned the rears are used to simulate ambient sounds from concert halls or theatres…at the moment I have monopoles and soon will be changing them to dipoles, so I’ll tell you the difference…THANKS Guy’s..
</font>
 
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jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'>For what it is worth, I had a pair of mirage bipoles for the rear, I loved the way they sounded with movies, but I hated them on music, all music including concerts. I have a pair of paradigm atoms in the rear now and where they don't have quite the diffuse sound field on movies as the mirages did, they sound fantastic on music. They are facing each other and a few feet above and behind the listening area. I feel this is the best compromise.</font>
 
S

Sounds Simple

Junior Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>I am considering dipoles or bipoles as the surrounds for a 5.1 set-up in a small room (9'10&quot;x10'3&quot;x8' Room layout). The listening position will be approximately 7.5 feet from the front (top of layout) and the speakers will need to be mounted up high since there is a door on one side. The room will be used for both music and HT (probably 50/50).

Any thoughts about the pros and cons of diffuse vs direct-radiating speakers in such an application? What about options for speaker placement?

Thanks-
Bob</font>
 

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