In reply to:
Some of these notions may look good on paper, but I don't know that I could "hear" the difference.
There is a definite difference between bipole and dipole modes when the speakers are mounted to the sides of your listening spot. Because dipole mode puts the drivers out-of-phase, the sound seems to come from both in front of you and behind you, but not from the speakers themselves. If you stand directly in front of a surround speaker in dipole mode, you'll experience that somewhat uncomfortable phasy effect where the sound appears to come from everywhere
but the speaker.
Bipole mode, on the other hand, has all drivers operating in-phase and therefore doesn't produce that non-localizable effect.
Both modes still spread the sound around since the drivers are firing in opposite directions.
