Only you can decide, guy, there are reasons for and against dipoles, bipoles and direct radiators. Do some research and do some listening. You're not talking a big dose of reality from a surround system, so only you can decide what you like here.
Not that it actually matters, it being simply a matter of preference, but don't some of the surround protocols call for bi/di pole surrounds? I'd love to hear (Jan, cover your eyes!) an all-Magnepan HT setup. ONE DAY, I'll get my wish!
The surround "protocols" no longer exist as they did a few years ago. Dolby Digital and DTS both have "music" and "cinema" modes. For music you would generally prefer monopole surrounds and for cinema you would want dipoles or bipoles. UNless you have a speaker that can switch between all three polar outputs you'll have to compormise somewhere. With cinema it's easy since there is no reality. With surround music tracks it's just about as easy since most producers have no idea what to do with music in surround formats.
From a philosophical standpoint, music is heading the way of HT....no objective reality. Head over to the 'gon and read some requests for help. Very few references to live music, but plenty of requests for all the usual suspects.... palpable, warm, 'bloom' (WTF?), and a host of other adjectives (rite part of speech?) It'd be like trying to explain a summer walk in the park to Eskimos.
I used to ask all of my customers if they ever heard live music. Way back in 1975 I got about 10% who said they did and 80% of them only heard amplified music played live or they meant they had a few live albums. Most of them used the car stereo as their reference for quality.
The Yamaha rep told us back in 1980 that their car stereos could "image". We all fell off our chairs. Even if it did, who cares?
The difference now is those hifi terms have worked their way into the car stereo and HT markets as ways to sell somemthing without ever having a reference.
Don't get me started this early in the morning, LS.
Jan, don't get excited. It's OK! Most people, myself included, have few references to actual, live music. I will walk around the block to avoid hummer/strummers. But, I do go to SanDiego once a year to hear the Spreckles Organ. Played by the Municipal Organist! I prefer the winter and as near rain as I can manage since the instrument sounds much better 'in the wet'. Dress warm and dry! Even the outdoor Summer Stock theater I go to every summer, while having a live pit orchestra, is amplified.
Hi end / good sound is more marginalized than ever. pods/ MP3 / HTIB and the rest conspire to redefine what good sound 'is'.
A car salesman 'acquantence' (they don't have actual friends) told me they 'Sell the Sizzle'........