I currently run a 6.1 HT system with a Denon 3805, JBL s310 fronts, JBL s center and 3 polk FXI 30 bipole/dipole surrounds (plus HSU VTF-3 sub)in a dedicated HT room. Room is about 16x21x7 with some treatment...I think the system sounds pretty good now, but am considering upgrading my speakers. Do you think the Q8's would make a big difference in surround sound? Also, considering vp150 and m 60's or possibly m 80's (would they be a waste in a mostly home theater system)? I recently listened to some B&W 704's and they sounded sweet for stereo music, but the complete HT system is probably out of my price range. My other option is to get polk rti 10's and a csi5 center to better match the fxi 30's (even though I can't really hear any major differences in the JBL's and Polks. Any info/help in making a descision would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry, I have 2 of the polks mounted on the side walls (set to dipole) and 1 on the rear wall set to bipole.

You've already got a pretty nice HT system; I guess the main benefit you would get from upgrading to Axioms is that same "sweet music system" performance you heard with the B&Ws (M60s are often compared to B&W 703s).

From my own limited experience timbre matching between surrounds and mains/center seems to be vitally important for music but less important for HT. I ran quite happily with M60 / VP100 and some crappy old tower speakers as surrounds and never noticed a timbre mismatch on HT, but playing music in 5.1 sucked. When I switched to matching surrounds (initially M2s, now QS8s) all of a sudden 5.1 music started to sound wonderful...

I have not heard QS8s vs. bipole/dipole surrounds (just vs. direct speakers) -- I know the difference is dramatic going from direct to quadpolar, but I imagine the bi/dipolars would be somewhere in between.

The benefits of the QS speakers seem to be in three areas :

1. They do an even better job of "disappearing" and giving you the effect of more speakers in a much larger room

2. You don't get the side effects of bi/dipolar speakers, that "phaseshifty" effect in some positions when the drivers are wired out of phase (forget if that is bi or dipolar).

3. As a consequence to 2, they seem to be able to give you the best of both worlds -- good performance on music AND good performance on HT -- while di/bipolars (one of them ) tend to be discouraged for 5.1 music because of the "phasey" effects. I guess you can probably flip the switches when playing music but haven't had a chance to play with that...