Hey, GoldenEars! I have a sizeable (3000cuft+), open living room that I'm looking to fill with sound, but with only a 5.1 application.

I want to do a passive LCR soundbar up front for a nice, clean look (and to have my tweeters on the same plane). This is going to be paired with a 92" diag front projection screen, so I'm thinking the SuperCinema 3D Array XL is the way to go.

For my surrounds, I'm limited to only two in-ceiling speakers. In the past, I've preferred dipole surrounds for an enveloping, disperse sound field (rather than worrying about pin-point accuracy with monopoles). GoldenEar doesn't have dipole speakers, but their Invisa SP 652 in-ceilings can be wired in parallel and act as bipoles (according to their website). I'm very much considering this in order to "rain" down sound in the back of the room with the widest dispersion as I can muster with matching GE speakers.

Has anyone used the 652s as bipoles before? Any comments on what I'm trying to achieve? I've also thought about ceiling mounting the Invisa MPXs, but not sure if they would be oriented correctly (or if it matters), or if they would be disperse enough for what I'm looking for.

Dipoles are not correct for today's surround formats. The SP 652 can be used as an ultra wide dispersion speaker as you describe, but it is not a dipole. If you can locate them far enough away, the HTR 7000 makes the best in ceiling surround speaker.

Moderator wrote: Dipoles are not correct for today's surround formats. The SP 652 can be used as an ultra wide dispersion speaker as you describe, but it is not a dipole. If you can locate them far enough away, the HTR 7000 makes the best in ceiling surround speaker.

Thanks, but "dipoles are not correct for today's surround formats" really isn't true. Yes, they are not generally recommended as surrounds these days, but that's only because of the newer immersive (bed + height) applications favoring direct fire accuracy to work with the other speakers. If you take into account the distance of surrounds to the listener, along with not having a "perfect" closed room, and limited in the number of surround speakers as I am (only 2), then dipole speakers can absolutely arguably still sound better than monopoles due to creating a wider, fuller surround sound field with only 2 surround speakers while minimizing hot-spotting near the listener(s), even with high-res audio and newer immersive sound formats.

If your surrounds are a good distance away from the listeners, and you have 4 or more of them, then yes, monopoles would probably work better.

I understand the 652s aren't dipoles (hence my original post describing them as "bipoles" when wired in parallel). I just want to know if anyone on this board has actually done this, and if it creates the widest dispersion of sound when compared to the other Invisa options.