Surround Speaker/Room Dilemma

I have a chance to get some of those "dipole" surrounds, where there are speakers on either side of a cabinet that diffuse the sound into the listening area. It's like a flat cabinet where the woofer and tweeter are on one side, and an additional tweeter is on the other side.

Thing is, I know they are good, but WHERE can I put them? I'm going to be doing some major redecorating/rearranging of the house at the end of the summer. The only place I can see putting them right now would be in the rear, up near the ceiling. I've inherited a couple of shelving units, and these would likely end up somewhere near those.

The room is difficult. It's 23' long, 16' wide. The only solid wall is along the left side of my crude drawing below, and the fireplace is located there. The shelving units will be going on either side of the fireplace, and they'll be housing a lot of the gear. As i see it, the only place for the surround speakers is along that wall (approx. where the blue squares are at) above the shelving units.

The green areas are the approximate seating locations. The red rectangles are approximately where left, center and right speakers would be placed.

The top of the drawing shows a blue area on the wall, which is a floor to ceiling window (which stop about a foot away from the ceiling). The right side is partially open to the stairway (the dashed area); the front foyer is in the upper right corner. The bottom wall, lower left, is open to the dining room. Above that opening is a bit of wall coming down about 14" from the ceiling. This is the only alternate location for these speakers (purple). HOWEVER, getting wiring to the 14" section of wall is next to impossible without major wall surgery, or using some of that funky thin wire that hides beneath paint. Which doesn't thrill me. I can't even get to this from the top--the master bedroom is above both the dining room AND living room. (Yes, it's huge. )

I just wonder if it's worth getting the dipole-type surround speakers, since location won't be optimal. I may just be better off using standard 2-way speakers.

 

Ummmmmmmmm...yeah, right.

Maybe for room deadening I should take a few dozen Naugas to the taxidermist, have 'em stuffed, and mount 'em in the corners as bass traps.

 

Based upon experience, it is real important that the surrounds match the front speakers as closely as possible, especially when playing surround music. My front speakers are NHT VT2.4 towers. My surrounds and center are NHT VS2.4 mini-monitors which use the tweeter and midrange drivers of the VT2.4 towers. The overall sound in the room is seamless from front to back.

I didn't look at your profile, what are you using for front speakers?

 

This is going to be an all-Boston Acoustics system, although not current models. The rears will be smaller "A" series for direct (probably A40), or if I go with the dipole, the VRS's. Fronts are already matched. Subwoofers are going to be custom-built, pumped up through the floor if I can swing it.