any FXi3 owners out there?????

27dnast

Just curious to hear your impressions... good and bad.

I understand there is some debate as to whether or not a defusing surround speaker is technically good or not (the argument being that studios do not mix their movie audio using defusing speakers)...

At any rate, would be interested in hearing your impressions...

Thanks!
T

Upstatemax

I love my Fxi3's...

The first time I felt like I was "surrounded" with sound was when I installed mine.

They are the only part of my system I have never contemplated changing...

quadzilla

I love mine. They work very well in bipole mode for music, and dipole for movies.

27dnast

Do you have 1 pair? Or 2?


I'm considering some to serve as R/L surrounds.... and smaller bookshelf speakers to serve as the rear surrounds.

Can they be mixed and matched like that?

27dnast

I meant... considering using some FXi3's as R/L surrounds and smaller bookshelfs as rear surrounds...

cfrizz

My FXi3s do a great job with both music & movies.

Conradicles

Upstatemax wrote: »

I love my Fxi3's...They are the only part of my system I have never contemplated changing...

Same here. This sums it up..."If you're mounting the speakers on the side walls in line with your listening position, the dipole mode will create a diffuse, ambient soundfield":cool:

mystik610

Love em. You do lose some of the directionality, but the diffused sound gives the rear channels a great sense of presence. Plus the flush mounting is a good look.

mdaudioguy

Used as side surrounds in 7.1, I prefer mine set to the bipole position.
Check out Polk's recommended placement for the dipole setting. This may or may not work for you.

http://www.polkaudio.com/education/showanswer.php?question_num=45

27dnast

Just picked up some F/Xia4's... couldn't find A3's at a reasonable price.

At any rate, I talked to a guy at polk tech support... he had an interesting suggestion:

He said that I should mount the FXiA4's as my rear surrounds and leave my bookshelf speakers as my R/L side surrounds.

He said the side sound is typically mixed to be more directional and the rear channels are the ones you want more dispersed.

I have been assuming, I would do the opposite.

My concern becomes the fact that most of the new HD-DTS, etc. blu-rays are only in 5.1 and thus the FX's wouldn't get used if they fell to rear (unless I let my AVR simulate 5.1).

I'm still thinking I may mount them as my side surrounds...

kuntasensei

Yeah, don't listen to whoever gave you that advice. Placing dipoles to the rear means you are no longer in line with the null, meaning you're going to lose any diffusion you might have gotten out of them.

The point of dipoles isn't to reduce directionality so much as it is to mimic the multi-speaker arrays that a theater has on the side walls. They do this by bouncing the sound off the side walls and firing the two sides out of phase so that the sound directly in line with the speakers cancels out, meaning you're primarily hearing the first impulse off the walls. Simple geometry will show you that it's not possible for you to place dipoles behind you in a way that puts you in the null for both speakers unless you angle them for a very specific seating location. Ideally, if you're running them as rears, you would switch them to bipole mode so that they have a 180 degree dispersion pattern, letting each hit a wide section of your listening position and ensuring that neither fires such that certain seating positions would have a null. In the case of rear surrounds, you are already given the necessary diffusion by the fact that you have two speakers behind you, which adequately reproduces the rear array in a theater (and the discrete nature of the newer 7.1 theatrical format from Dolby). The rear surrounds are meant to anchor sounds behind you when the mix calls for it, so diffusing them would be counter-intuitive.

Bottom line: dipoles to the side, direct radiators or bipoles in the rear.

And yes, though most mixes are 5.1, you should run DPL-IIx to create rear surrounds regardless. Most modern mixes are done for 5.1EX, meaning there is rear surround data matrixed into the side surrounds. DPL-IIx Movie will properly steer this audio to the rear surrounds in a way that always puts the audio in more than one speaker, so that it recreates the array effect in the home space. Dolby recommends using DPL-IIx Movie for all DD-EX movies in a 7.1 configuration.

27dnast

That's a very logical and believable response. Totally makes sense. Surprised that the Polk customer tech said the opposite! Thanks!!