Help - Nice small dipole or bipole for HT wanted.

07-18-08: Audiokinesis
In my opinion, a bipolar's side-null is beneficial in a multichannel setup.

The reverberant energy is a separate event from the first-arrival energy (produced by the front channels), and different priorities come into play.

In my experience, a cylindrical or hemispherical dispersion pattern for surrounds trumps bipolar *or* dipole. The surround speakers from many of the manufacturers have an in-phase 180-deg. dispersion pattern.

I had bipolars with the null facing into the room for the past several years. I just replaced them with Omnisats with a fully hemispherical dispersion. There's no comparison in how it fills out the back while remaining unobtrusive. In fact, that's the best thing about the surrounds with ultra-wide soundfields. They create a seamless soundfield and thereby disappear into the overall sonic environment.

Johnnyb53

What about this... ?? the intended directional cues which are in play during the film. Localized sounds. Do they still possess the same snap and pop, or impact which is realized as coming from a directed & intended area?

Or is there a loss attributed to the dispersed sonic field? Ex. ricochets, gun shots, breaking glasss, approaching or departing entities?

My only experience with greater degreed sound field speakers, 180 > 360 degree ambienct speakers was not quite so thrilling as were typical limited field or directional transducers.

They just didn't have the same impact or 'jump' factor.

In my 7.2 HT setup, I have previous generation Mirage OM-R2 L-R surrounds with a hemispherical soundfield (all in phase) and for the rear surrounds I have a pair of nearly omnidirectional Mirage Omnisats, v1. As they are mounted on the wall, they also produce a hemispherical soundfield (also in phase).

07-20-08: Blindjim
What about this... ?? the intended directional cues which are in play during the film. Localized sounds. Do they still possess the same snap and pop, or impact which is realized as coming from a directed & intended area?

With the OM-R2 surround speakers or Omnisats, absolutely. Mirage did years of research to get the right balance between direct and reflected sound, and to get the right tonal balance when wide dispersion brings more of the room into play. There's still a strong core of sound coming from the speaker itself, and Mirages (with sufficient power and current behind them) are very dynamic. Their titanium tweeter is particularly fast and smooth.

That's what I'm saying--with the Omnisats and omnipolar speakers, the directionality is as specific as one could want, but with the wide dispersion, you never sense that one speaker is handing off to another. Together they create a seamless soundfield with exemplary directional specificity.

Or is there a loss attributed to the dispersed sonic field? Ex. ricochets, gun shots, breaking glasss, approaching or departing entities?

Nope, they'll make you jump out of your seat.

Johnnyb53
Well, that's good.

Lastly,
Just how much power is 'sufficient power'?
Thanks a lot.

07-21-08: Blindjim
Lastly,
Just how much power is 'sufficient power'?

Well, I guess that depends on how big the room is and how much you want to jump out of your seat.

Most of my system is powered by 150w per channel. The rear surrounds (where the Omnisats are) have variously used 150wpc and 60wpc. Both did fine. The Omnisats are reasonably efficient for their size and can also absorb a lot of power (150w), so they're quite capable of making you jump.

I'd say a 60wpc system would make the Omnisats sound good because they sounded really good powered by an Adcom GFA-535 II, and anything from 100-to-150wpc with properly set up bass management (cross over to sats at 80Hz) would give you theater-level volume and transients or better in a medium-large (say, 18x20) room. That's my room size and that's what I get.

Anytime I've played a film on DVD/HD DVD with bombastic soundtrack (Lord of the Rings, Batman Begins, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Transformers), guests have commented how it sounds so much better than they've ever heard in a theater. I think it sounds as good as an Imax setup, but more seamless.