Bipolar tendencies

I struggle with purchases because I am very careful with what I spend. I want it to be the right thing- both quality and price. This is the reason I held off so long on HD DVD- I was waiting for the right solution- it turned out to be the one that cost $98. I'm quite happy.

But, what of surround sound? I built the system with the future in mind- 7.1 system- even though my current receiver only does 6.1 (though it has 7 outputs, the two rears are the same channel). I got a beautiful Paradigm center channel, some gorgeous Yamahas as mains, and Polks for my surrounds. Looking back on older posts, I really struggled with those choices until the Polks fell into my lap.

But, maybe I wasn't on the right page to start with- surround sound is not supposed to be direction, but the Polks I bought are two-way speakers pointed right at my ear. After doing a lot of reading- that's plain old wrong. You shouldn't know where surround comes from other than 'over there'. Even worse, with direct surround, the experience will be different based on seating position L/R and front row, rear row. Only the guy right in the center (me!) gets the correct experience.

What's supposed to happen is that there's actually a null for the listening position for surround sound. It's supposed to be 'to my left', rather than 'right there!' as we expect with stereo imaging of the front/center combination.

To get this null, there are dipole/bipole speakers. They have drivers facing away from the listening position and out-of-phase so you can't pinpoint the sound, other than the desired 'to my left'.

I found a small pair locally and am trying them out by pulling out the Polks, but I really need some good material to decide if I'm going to go on and maybe go whole-hog with something like Speakercraft. The price people are charging for nice dipoles are very expensive. Try to Google them yourself to see what I mean.

As usual, this decision will take some time.