Dipole Asymmetry

sbank

Who recommends your preferred "Let the rear wave bounce approach" besides Bose?

You’re obviously being facetious, because Bose doesn’t make a dipole. But, to answer your question:

Infinity (of yore)
Martin-Logan
Genesis
King Sound
Polk Audio
Kef
Quad.

Then, there are the manufacturers who try to imitate the dipole sound, such as those who make bipole speakers. You can look that up for yourself. There are also posters in this thread who concur that the rear wave is an inherent - and useful - part of dipole design.

Any dipole speaker manufacturer who wants to dampen or eliminate the rear wave can do so by using construction that will block the rear wave. Simple.

I should have also mentioned what is perhaps one of the grand-daddys of all dipole speakers ... Magnepan.

bdp24

Do you use grand-daddy literally or figuratively, cleeds? Magnepan has probably done more to popularize planar speakers than any other company, but the original Magneplanar Tympani T-I was not introduced until 1971, long after the original Quad ESL in 1957.

I meant it figuratively. I agree with you - Magnepan has surely promoted the dipole/planar speaker better than anyone else, but Quad was on the market long before them.

Per Martin Logan 2+ feet off front wall is acceptable. In my set up absorption on front wall flattened the sound stage. Diffusion however maintained sound stage depth but gave more solid imaging. Untreated the sound was very enveloping but seemed sort of disembodied. My room is only 12 x 15 so I can’t get too far off front wall. After a bit of trial and error I am pretty happy with 35". I built a pair of skyline diffusers 18" x36".
Box speakers near walls have their own problems. The MLs work pretty well in a small room because their directionality minimizes side wall and ceiling reflections. I would second the idea of balancing your front wall topography with some kind of diffusion.