Whats the difference between direct radiators and dipoles?
The majority of speaker systems in the market are direct radiators, which are loudspeakers where the principal output is directed at the listening area. A Dipole is a loudspeaker having a Figure 8 directional pattern. For a while a debate raged as to which type is better for surround monitors, although direct radiators now have mostly won the battle. The early thinking was that any program that contained mostly ambience material such as motion pictures or Classical music would work better with dipoles as surround monitors. That line of thinking has been mostly put to rest as most music programming (and even movies) now use a lot of direct source material in the surrounds, so direct radiators are now viewed as the better choice.
