Speaker systems, General questions from a speaker novice.

[Ron Hill]

OKay, i've been meaning to post this for a while.

At some point in the hopefully not too distant future i'll be moving
house to a purpose built bungalow where wheelchair access is a
priority. Both my wife and I enjoy movies and we've agreed that the
living room should feature a projector based home cinema setup. :)

I've been looking at various speaker systems and amps and I have a
question regarding speaker setup.

Looking at something really spicy like the Mordaunt Short THX speaker
setup how would one go about using this in a 6.1 setup. The front,
centre and sub I get but what does one do with those dipole surrounds.
Are they side wall speakers or rear surrounds? Do I need extra
speakers for ES/EX etc? Give me the low down oh knowledgeable ones.

[Bapapapa]

Dipoles will go on the rear wall and you'll need an extra pair for ES/EX.

[Ragnar]

What Bapapapa said is incorrect, the dipoles go on the sidewalls, & whether you need 1 or 2 speakers for the backwall (rear centre), depends on whether the AV Amp has 1 or 2 speaker outputs for the rear centre output.
If the amp has 2 rear centre speaker outputs (stereo), then get another set of dipoles, & fix to the back wall, like a rear stereo pair.

If the amp only has 1 output, then you would be better off getting another centre speaker, & placing this on the backwall in line with the front centre speaker if possible.

Hope that helped. :)

[Bamse]

What about bipolar speakers, side wall or back wall?

[MikeK]

Originally posted by Bamse
What about bipolar speakers, side wall or back wall?


Either - they work on a different principle to dipoles!

[Bapapapa]

Bipole, dipole, schbidipole.

My apologies.

:nuts:

[Ron Hill]

OK, totally confused now. :)

I don't get how sidewall speakers fit into the 6.1 sound format.
Bear in mind that I currently have a humble Digitheatre DTS.

My understanding is as follows.

5.1
Centre - pointing from the front toward the listener.
Left and right front surround. - ditto
Left and right rear surround. - firing from the sides accross the
listener.
Subwoofer - non directional.

6.1 ES/EX
As 5.1 plus
Two speakers pointing from behind on the rear wall towards the back of
your head.

As for bipole and dipole you might as well say tadpole as far as my
knowledge goes or as number 5 would say "need input!" :D

[Ragnar]

Dipole speakers if fitted to the side walls, would fire both towards the back wall & the front wall, not across the room like a traditional speaker.
The dipole has 2 sets of speakers to diffuse the surround signal, these are placed on the side wall, the 2nd pair would be used for the rear centre channel, (the 6th speaker in a 6.1 system).

THX who designed the 6.1 ES/EX system, recommend 2 speakers for the rear centre channel,(it will be the same mono signal through both speakers,) something to do with less directional sound or something.

[Ron Hill]

Ragnar: Hmm, yes that makes sense to me. Diffusion of the signal to
reduce point source detection and increse the realism of the surround
field. Flippity flip you'd nearly think I knew what I was talking
about. :D

Okay - dipoles = double speaker units.

So what's bipoles then?

[Ragnar]

Bipoles & dipoles are 2 speaker units,(they look the same)
Bipoles = both speakers fire in phase(at the same time).

Dipoles = both speakers fire out of phase( one after the other)

If you want some more info about speakers,
go to www.homecinemachoice.com , then in the pic of the remote control, select the ARTICLES link, then select the FAQ link, then from there select a heading from the dropdown menu.