Matt, the email was about an update on the progress of the AxiomAir, and a 25% discount on a pair of Arctic White Algonquin outdoor speakers (with free FMBs).
As for the "non-monopole" speakers for Atmos, there are a couple of people here that have them and they are enjoying their setup, so the short answer in the email I guess is true, that no you do not have to swap out the QS speakers currently providing surround duty, but it is also a disservice to not at least mention that Dolby specifically calls out for monopole, regardless of how many speakers you are using. Some people use two right surrounds and two left surrounds plus rear surrounds, and even front wides in their $100,000 setups, but they are all still spec'd to be monopole because of the dispersion.
If one of the right surrounds is placed for a front row of seats, and the other for the rear row, most of the directionality of these monopole speakers is set to impact just that row and now "spray" into the other row. That surround speaker that is closer to being in-line with that row of seats will be what the listeners in that row hear as their, in this example, right surround speaker, and not have much "muddying" from the other surround speaker.
With the QS speakers, as awesome as they are, they are really spraying sound all over the place. Great for traditional surround sound.
As for the Audiohaulic's article, keep in mind that Gene has done pretty much nothing but bash Atmos from the start (as evident in his videos on the subject). He isn't ready to make that change, and has even said in a video that he has no plans of trading out his surround speakers no matter what anyone says (again, because of his blindness to what Atmos can do).
So I guess had the email simply said, "While Dolby recommends monopole speakers in all locations, we have several in our community that have kept their QS speakers for surround locations and completely enjoy the experience." or something, at least it would be up-front about what the creators of the technology state as a "high recommendation for the best experience" and yet still give comfort to the person that running out and buying something different doesn't have to happen.
That way they would give the correct technical answer, but yet offer some "hey, it isn't the end of the world either" type of information.
As for me, yes I looked really hard at putting a pair of QS8s up in a "wide" position (which was originally to fix some of my ill-placed speakers that had a large gap between the front mains and the side surrounds). Instead, I fixed the problem by moving my false wall which allowed me to widen out my front speakers, I also moved the side surround more forward, and then also widened out my rear surrounds while I was at it. This was a big improvement with just 7.1 sound. So the QS8's were going to attempt to fill a large void created by a few placement mistakes. I decided to do it right and fix those mistakes.
I also talked about putting the QS8s further back and more in the middle of my 2 rows of seats so that the "woofers" would fire towards each row (front woofer towards the front row, and rear woofer towards the rear row) as an attempt to try to make a pseudo "two surround speakers" effect. In practice this just made for strange sound that wasn't nearly as "crisp" as when I tested things out with an on-wall M3. So I scrapped that idea and just focused on my front row of seats as my primary listening area. Maybe someday I will add a second set of monopole side surround like a lot of the expensive builds do, but that will be my compromise.... The rear set of seats has that audio compromise, but with my advanced Atmos speaker placement, they fill in some of that gap nicely, so it is negligible.
Anyway, thanks for the conversation. I admit that I was a bit harsh about my response to the email, but a touch of better wording would have actually made for a better answer for the person.
