Are dipoles being phased out?

SugarmillMan

Are you seeing a trend by Polk and others to return to direct firing surround speakers? The flagship LSiM702F/X is direct firing. There is no dipole choice for LSiM.

Opinions welcome?

zingo

Interesting question... I'll look around and see what other companies are doing...

newrival

As I have heard explained, Bipole/dipole surrounds are being phased out in preference of direct radiating speakers due to the prevalence of discreet surround mixes. Surround information has become more precise in its use and so side and rear (as well as height and width) imaging is better achieved with direct radiating speakers than the diffuse and inherently less precise (image wise) bipole/dipole setup.

I still see them being produced by some companies, such as Legacy, but I could see it being part of a cost savings strategy as well to consolidate a line of speakers for some companies.

newrival

I still use bipole/dipoe surrounds currently, however. I enjoy the diffuse surround with the system I have, But I am looking at direct firing for my next, and hopefully final (for a while) setup.

SugarmillMan

newrival wrote: »

As I have heard explained, Bipole/dipole surrounds are being phased out in preference of direct radiating speakers due to the prevalence of discreet surround mixes. Surround information has become more precise in its use and so side and rear (as well as height and width) imaging is better achieved with direct radiating speakers than the diffuse and inherently less precise (image wise) bipole/dipole setup.

I still see them being produced by some companies, such as Legacy, but I could see it being part of a cost savings strategy as well to consolidate a line of speakers for some companies.

Makes good sense to me. Is there a major sound difference between "direct radiating" and "bipole"? I understood them to be about the same.

SugarmillMan

Also, are omnipole and monopole the same thing as direct radiating?

mantis

I suggest learning more about the formats starting with Dolby Pro logic and why Dipolar Bipolar designs where made in the first place. Once the surround became discrete , there was little to no need for those designs.
In my spec's , I hardly ever even consider a bi or dipolar design.

SugarmillMan

I understand the sound formats very well. You are missing the point of my question.
I merely want to better understand how these terms relate to speaker hardware design.

kuntasensei

Yeah, I was all happy when I found a pair of F/Xi30s to put as side surrounds. At first, I was very enamored with the sound of dipoles. Now, I kinda' wish I had my RTi28s back there again. I may swap them to bipole operation soon... or just find another pair of old RTi28s instead.

And SugarmillMan, here you go:
http://stereos.about.com/od/advancedstereotopics/bb/ssspeakers.htm