Diepoles or studio 20's??

[madmax1]

Today i went into my local HiFi store and was looking at studio 60's for my front end. Right now i have 20's there, but was gonna move them to the rear. So i told this to my salesman and he said that would be a mistake? He told me to go with the dipoles instead. Now i do 50% movies and 50% music. My system is as follows- Paradigm studio 20's in front, cc-470 center, servo 15 sub, KLH in the rear--- this is why i want to upgrade!! So if anyone could tell me why which one is better to go with, thanks in advance!! The Diepoles vs putting the 20's in the rear????? THX!!!

[paul_pci]

I'm not going to tell you which one is better, but I am going to make the observation that buying dipoles when you have perfectly suitable speakers for the rears amounts to spending unnecessary money.

[jasmit]

Why don't you try it with the 20's and if you're not satisfied, get the dipoles? An awful lot of people use 20's as rears and are very happy. I don't have to tell you how good the 20's are. At the risk of being unfair to your saleman, I agree with paul; I suspect that he's angling to make a few more bucks off of you.

[Woochifer]

Sounds like the sales guy's trying to sell you an extra pair of speakers. There's no reason whatsoever why you can't or shouldn't use the Studio 20s as surrounds. If you plan to use your speakers for both movie soundtracks and 5.1 music, then it's actually preferable to go with direct firing surround speakers.

Dipoles will diffuse the sound in the surround channels, which will help with ambient sound effects, but it will also render directionless the surround sounds that benefit from good stereo separation. IMO, dipoles are a relic from the Pro Logic days when you had monophonic sound getting fed into the surround channels, and movie soundtracks were primarily about mimicking what long arrays of surround speakers sound like. With multichannel music and an increasing number of movie soundtracks, you want the separation and directionality in the surrounds. The way to go with that is direct firing speakers.

The key to making it all work is the placement and positioning. The diagram below shows the reference 5.1 surround speaker placement. You should try to position your speakers in a similar arrangement. Dolby also recommends that surround speakers get raised about 2' above ear level and pointed directly towards one another. This preserves the directional cues, while diffusing the sound just enough to create an ambient effect with more monophonic surround effects.

[kexodusc]

Woochifer nailed it. In my opinion dipoles and bipoles are more destructive to the pinpoint imaging capabilities and coherrent sound stage. I owned a set of Paradigm dipoles briefly, and should have returned them sooner so I didn't take a hit selling them on ebay. I'm one of many people who was more than happy using Studio 20's as surrounds (and rears).
I know some prefer them though, and report great results. I think it's a personal taste thing. To you the dipoles might be better. The cheap solution, as mentioned, is to try the Studio 20's out first. If you're not satisfied, then you can consider the dipoles.
But I'd tell your salesperson to take a hike in the meantime...I'd be willing to be that the majority of home theaters DON'T use dipoles or bipoles, and that the majority of home theater owners are just fine with that.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Woochifer nailed it. In my opinion dipoles and bipoles are more destructive to the pinpoint imaging capabilities and coherrent sound stage. I owned a set of Paradigm dipoles briefly, and should have returned them sooner so I didn't take a hit selling them on ebay. I'm one of many people who was more than happy using Studio 20's as surrounds (and rears).
I know some prefer them though, and report great results. I think it's a personal taste thing. To you the dipoles might be better. The cheap solution, as mentioned, is to try the Studio 20's out first. If you're not satisfied, then you can consider the dipoles.
But I'd tell your salesperson to take a hike in the meantime...I'd be willing to be that the majority of home theaters DON'T use dipoles or bipoles, and that the majority of home theater owners are just fine with that.

Not big on dipoles these days, but bipoles are perfect IMO for both music and movie soundtracks. Surround Sound Magazine did a listening test that was published about a year ago. It compared the sound of bipoles, dipoles and monopoles. This was a blind test, and no one, not even the person conducting the test knew which was which. The bipole speaker was continually preferred over the other two speaker designs. The listeners in the test thought that the monopole was too direct, and the dipole was too diffused. They found that the bipole had the best balance of direct to reflected sound.
What you don't want is pinpoint imaging in the rear. The rear soundstage for both music and movie soundtracks should reflect what is heard both on the soundstage, and in the concert hall. Both of these venues favor a more ambient surround than a couple of monopoles can provide even though it is the favored design for most hometheaters.

This test may not reflect what many here prefer for the surrounds, but at least it gives the bipole design some legitimacy for playback.

Do not listen to the salesman, give your existing speakers a try in the rear, and make your decision after listening.

[kexodusc]

I've never paid serious attention to bipole vs. dipole performance...they were both similar to me upon initial observation. What in your estimation are the benefits of bipole over dipole?

What you don't want is pinpoint imaging in the rear. The rear soundstage for both music and movie soundtracks should reflect what is heard both on the soundstage, and in the concert hall. Both of these venues favor a more ambient surround than a couple of monopoles can provide even though it is the favored design for most hometheaters.

I'm a little surprsided here Sir T, this is a contradiction to comments you yourself have made in the past. We've discussed multi-channel audio before, and agreed that if the artist in multi-channel music does indeed intend for pin point imaging in the rear then that is exactly what you should have. I'm not so sure I'm as confident in the ability of bipoles to deliver this, though my experience is admittedy limited.

Much like depth and staging are built across the front, using direct radiating speakers should provide for similar effects throught the surround field. Admittedly not as diffuse, but then you're trading one set of features for another. For music/movie setups such as mine , from experience I can say that bipoles and dipoles fail in this application. That said I can see how for many ambient soundtracks bipoles could be preferred.

I fully intend to explore bipoles in the near future. I've already got a cabinet design and some crossover ideas done. If this works out, I should be able to have my cake and eat it too.

I think it's quite interesting that a lot of 2-channel stereo guys actually prefer the bipole speaker offerings from various manufacturers...

This really is an age old question in home theater. Pretty much all major publications have performed similar tests, and for movies, I often see the bipole/dipole speakers recommended. Then every once in a while, you find someone with tastes like myself who find it more destructive than convincing. Blind tests aside, my own all important tests just don't make it jive. And this doesn't even touch the perceived value in spending often double on bipoles over standard direct radiating speakers. And we arrive at the personal preference thing again. There really is no universal right or wrong.

I think it would be great if Dolby or DTS decided to pick a speaker format and go from there. I wonder, when they make the soundtracks, do they "build in" the appropriate level of surround diffusion? If so on what reference system? This, I suspect would answer a lot of questions?

[madmax1]

Gonna get the studio 60's and put them up front, then put the 20;s in the rear like i planned. Just couldnt beleive how pushy he was on the dipoles!! I told him i got all my other stuff from him and still pushing those dipoles. Kinda sucks cuz hes the only one close to me selling paradigms. Oh well thanks everyone for your input!!!