Energy CR-10 (Bipole/Dipole) speaker placement

You want to hang them directly to the sides of the listening position at 90 degrees or a little further back. I prefer my surrounds a little further back at about 110 degrees due to it making the sound stage feel larger. They can be higher than 2 feet above your ears. In fact, I would recommend you place them higher. You don't want the surround speakers blasting away in your ears. The CR-10 is designed so that it fires down towards the listening position and up into the ceiling. I would mount them so that the top of the speaker is about 1 to 2 feet below the ceiling. You can mount them with screws or nails and they don't need to go into a stud. They are light enough to hang from the dry wall. So just pick a spot and hang them. If you don't like the way they sound in that spot, then just move them to another and patch the tiny little holes where it previously hung.

Hope this helps.

Might want to research this some more. When used in bipole mode, I think many people setup the speakers behind them, although I believe you are right in wondering how close the couch needs to be to the wall. And there may be other advantage to running in either mode and/or placement. There is a sticky thread in the AVS speaker forum that directly talks about bipole/dipole. You might start there.

Private message Mactastic. He has the CR-10's and has them set up the way I just said. He found that in his 5.1 set up, the speakers sounded better directly to his sides with the woofer facing down at his listening position.

One thing to always remember is that everyone's room is going to sound different and guidelines are just that, guidelines. When I first set my room up, I fallowed THX guidelines to a T and in the end, the speakers sounded better when I didn't fallow any guidelines. I just kept playing around with placement until I found the best sounding set up. Just because your room is concrete, doesn't mean you can't play around with placement. Have two friends hold them in different positions or get yourself some very sticky double sided tape. It doesn't take much to hold those light speakers up. I'm sure you can think of a temporary solution that will allow you to play around and find out what YOU like the best and not what Joe Shmoe from AVS likes best.

Of course, you've just told him to ignore you and that there is no need to PM Macstatic

It would be better to understand the difference between bipole and dipole speaker modes, look at recommended placement that is based on their design principles, and THEN experiment with different locations. There is science behind this.

Of course he shouldn't take my "suggestions" to heart and should try to find out what sounds best in his room. I'm sure there is a science to the suggested Dolby/THX set up as well buy that doesn't always mean those suggestions will sound the best in your room with your speakers. I've read a lot of information regarding Bipoles and Dipoles when I was thinking about ordering the CR-10's a couple of months ago.

To the OP. Read the "science", research the guidelines and open yourself to suggestions but ultimately, figure out what sounds best to "you" in "your" room with "your" speakers. The only way to do so is trial and error. Just because someone likes their speakers set up one way, doesn't mean that way is going to be best with your situation. I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from.

This guide might help: A Guide to Bipolar, Dipolar, & Direct-Radiating Monopole Surround Speakers (PART I). If the first part is a little too heavy on the science, about half way down, the guide gets into placement. There is also a Part II if you are interested.