Monopole or Dipole surround speakers?

[StevenSurprenant]

First off, here is an article that is worth reading about this subject.

Face Off: Surround-Speaker-Configuration Wars | Home Theater

As for personal experience...

I use Magnepan wall mount speakers for my surround system. For those that don't know, they are thin dipole speakers that are made to hang on the wall. I'll attach a picture to clarify this.

Anyway, I've had these mounted directly on the back wall behind my seating position and I thought they sounded fairly good except that sometimes I could hear the sound coming directly from them. To me, it was somewhat distracting. I got the idea of hanging them in the corners of the back wall and raising them toward the ceiling. I angled them to a 45 degree angle so that they acted purely as dipoles. The result was a tremendous improvement. The surround sound was much more prevalent and the room had much less of effect on the sound.

Anybody experience the same thing? Or do you feel monopoles are better?

[Feanor]

First off, here is an article that is worth reading about this subject.

Face Off: Surround-Speaker-Configuration Wars | Home Theater

As for personal experience...

I use Magnepan wall mount speakers for my surround system. For those that don't know, they are thin dipole speakers that are made to hang on the wall. I'll attach a picture to clarify this.

Anyway, I've had these mounted directly on the back wall behind my seating position and I thought they sounded fairly good except that sometimes I could hear the sound coming directly from them. To me, it was somewhat distracting. I got the idea of hanging them in the corners of the back wall and raising them toward the ceiling. I angled them to a 45 degree angle so that they acted purely as dipoles. The result was a tremendous improvement. The surround sound was much more prevalent and the room had much less of effect on the sound.

Anybody experience the same thing? Or do you feel monopoles are better?

That article is a bit old, isn't it? I though since fully discrete 5.1 came along -- granted, its mentioned in the article -- the verdict had come down on the side of monopole, but maybe there is still debate.

[StevenSurprenant]

That article is a bit old, isn't it? I though since fully discrete 5.1 came along -- granted, its mentioned in the article -- the verdict had come down on the side of monopole, but maybe there is still debate.

It's new to me. That's what happens when you drop out for a while.

[StevenSurprenant]

I suppose monopole would work as long as you you don't sit too close to them. I don't have that option though.

[E-Stat]

I suppose monopole would work as long as you you don't sit too close to them. I don't have that option though.

Our resident expert tells us that you need to embrace certain THX standards and ignore others. When you go to the THX website for home theaters, you find the following guidelines. You'll note that the diagrams clearly use dipoles for the SL and SB speakers:

Pic with radiation pattern

"Place the SL & SR speakers between 90° to 110° to each side and 2 feet or higher above the listener. " (that's what you should ignore) and the center should be below or above your monitor (that's what you should follow). Except of course if you should have a perforated screen where you find the obvious suggestion:

"If you have a perforated projection screen, center this speaker both horizontally and vertically behind the screen."

That's probably another case where he would say "ignore" since he can't detect any difference using the 12" mains to center height differential mounting guideline.

rw

[StevenSurprenant]

Our resident expert tells us that you need to embrace certain THX standards and ignore others. When you go to the THX website for home theaters, you find the following guidelines. You'll note that the diagrams clearly use dipoles for the SL and SB speakers:

That's probably another case where he would say "ignore" since he can't detect any difference using the 12" mains to center height differential mounting guideline.

rw

Here's a nice explanation of the differences... A Guide to Bipolar, Dipolar, & Direct-Radiating Monopole Surround Speakers (PART I) - Blu-ray Forum

When I set my rears to act as dipoles, they made the room seem bigger and the sound was more diffuse and less distracting. In my case, the preferred setup.

It's a funny thing...

He talks about comb filtering and such when using more than one speaker for the center channel and how terrible it is, but he uses an array of mono speakers for each side of his back surround speakers and then speaks about the virtues of that set up. In addition, his set up violates, as he has repeatedly and profusely explained, what the recording engineer intended when he created the recording.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Our resident expert tells us that you need to embrace certain THX standards and ignore others. When you go to the THX website for home theaters, you find the following guidelines. You'll note that the diagrams clearly use dipoles for the SL and SB speakers:

Pic with radiation pattern

THX standards are not quite the same as the THX speakers. Some folks understand the difference between the technical standards in regards to acoustics, speaker set up(as opposed to speaker design marketing), and visual immersion standards. The THX speaker setup works with dipoles, bipoles, and monopolar speakers.

"Place the SL & SR speakers between 90° to 110° to each side and 2 feet or higher above the listener. " (that's what you should ignore) and the center should be below or above your monitor (that's what you should follow). Except of course if you should have a perforated screen where you find the obvious suggestion:

"If you have a perforated projection screen, center this speaker both horizontally and vertically behind the screen."

That's probably another case where he would say "ignore" since he can't detect any difference using the 12" mains to center height differential mounting guideline.

rw

Don't put words any my mouth( for the millionth time). You don't know what the hell I am going to say until I say it.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

That article is a bit old, isn't it? I though since fully discrete 5.1 came along -- granted, its mentioned in the article -- the verdict had come down on the side of monopole, but maybe there is still debate.

No there is no longer a debate. You can see over the last few years that dipole speakers are no longer important when you have stereo signals in the rear. They are slowly disappearing off the market as their popularity wanes. I see more bipolar speakers out there than dipoles.

The latest thing propagated by Dr. Floyd Tool is the monopolar array of loudspeakers in the surrounds like I have in my system. The sense of space is there, the ability to localize and non localize as well is there, and there is no phase issues or timbre matching circuits needed. I been using an array of monopolar loudspeakers for my surrounds for more than a decade.

[Mygaffer]

I have a set of dipole surround speakers and frankly I hate them. For me monopole makes the most sense.

[StevenSurprenant]

I have a set of dipole surround speakers and frankly I hate them. For me monopole makes the most sense.

I assume you've tried both, so I guess that there is no one shoe fits all setup. That's good to know.

[Hyfi]

I just love a good Ping Pong match

[Woochifer]

I guess no better time than now to get my $.00002 in, right?

The problem with this whole topic is that the article dates back to 2000, when home theaters were in the middle of transitioning from Pro Logic to discrete 5.1. The THX standards at that time still mandated dipolar speakers for the surrounds. The dipolar requirement made sense when the surround speakers were trying to mimic a matrixed monophonic surround track played through wall-to-wall surround speaker arrays at movie theaters.

With 5.1 discrete, that requirement no longer made any sense whatsoever, and THX did wind up amending their specs a few years later to allow for THX-approved direct firing surround speakers. But, if you look at the list of THX-approved surround speakers on their website, you got a whole lot of discontinued and ancient products on there. Some of the speaker models on the THX approved list date back to 2000, before direct firing surround speakers could even be approved. Basically, manufacturers that participate in the THX program have to pay a royalty, and speakers have always been the spot where participation among manufacturers was relatively low. Paradigm, for example, has always made dipolar surround speakers that would easily make it through the THX approval process. But, like most other higher end speaker manufacturers, they don't participate in the program.

If you look at the list of THX participating manufacturers, the vast majority of them make amplification, processors, and/or displays, where the standards are more current and relevant. Speakers are where THX has languished. Their alignment recommendations simply follow industry practice. Generally, the 90 degree surround speaker alignment is recommended for 7.1 speaker sets, and 110 degree alignment should be used in a 5.1 setup, as that follows the ITU reference alignment that mixing studios use.

My issue with dipolar surround speakers is precisely because they diffuse sound tracks that might have been purposely mixed for split surround effects and depth in conjunction with the front speakers. With most modern movie soundtracks and multichannel music, dipolar surround speakers muddy up the precise surround placement in favor of a diffused non-localized sound. With older movies that have less directionality and with 2.0 matrix surround tracks designed for more diffused playback, then the dipolar surrounds make more sense.