Review Details

Elite High Definition 2-Way Bipolar Surround Speakers

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on February 21, 2021):

PROS:* Beautiful and unique looking speakers* Solid construction from a mix of hardwood, piano glossy plastic and cloth* Light for their size, weighing in at just 6 pounds a speaker* Use the exact same power draw as a single bookshelf/surround speaker* Can be used as both surround speakers in any setup or as front speakers specifically in a compact surround sound setup even despite what the manufacturer itself says as long as you use a high quality subwoofer* When used as rear speakers in a 5.1 configuration, they mimic both the side surround and back surround speakers of a 7.1 configuration, effectively giving you bothCONS* Bulkier than regular bookshelf surround speakers and need more space* Positioning can be tricky* Relatively high frequency floor of 130 Hz is well above that of most standard bookshelf and surround speakers of equivalent quality and requires some tweaking with the crossover settings in your A/V receiver for your subwoofer and the speakers themselves to match up properlyThese are Canadian speaker maker Fluance's entry level Elite range bipolar surround sound speakers. (SXBP is the range number and SXBP2 is the actual model number). They are absolutely beautiful looking and stunning right out of the box. Solidly constructed from a mix of hardwood, piano glossy plastic and cloth. They're large compared to regular bookshelf surround speakers and double the weight, though that make sense as they are essentially double the speaker.As I live in an apartment, I use a compact Dolby Atmos 5.1.4 setup using bookshelf speakers only. These are replacing an old home theater speaker set from 2006. I use a pair as the front left and front right speakers and another as surround left and surround right speakers. Fluance themselves do not recommend using them as front speakers, likely due to the very high floor of the frequency response which is 130 Hz with a ceiling of 20 kHz. (The lower the frequency floor for a speaker, the more lower level and bass sounds it can pick up and transmit). With this said, they are perfectly fine as fronts in a compact system as long as you set the bass and speaker crossover frequencies correctly which will require a lot of manual tweaking and experimenting in your A/V receiver's settings as I did or for you to run the automatic sound calibration again to get it right.For comparison, a pair of floorstanding speakers can floor as low as 40 Hz and can often be used without a subwoofer because they pick up so much bass while standard bookshelf speakers usually floor at 90 to 120 Hz depending on the quality and brand. With my previous speaker set, I set the subwoofer crossover at 130 Hz and the speakers at 120 Hz (The 10 Hz difference is where the subwoofer and speakers take over from each other.) With the Fluance SXBP2s, I had to set the subwoofer at a relatively high 150 Hz and the speakers at 130 Hz to get decent sound. This is slightly higher than you would expect with a regular bookshelf speaker system and a trained ear will detect that there is some bass being missed with these high settings. On the other hand, the sound is still excellent and you won't be disturbing the neighboring apartments with bass rumble.On the plus side, theses speakers use the exact same power draw as regular direct bookshelf speakers. However, since they shoot sound from two diagonally opposing ends, the sound waves both intersect with each other as they come forward as well as bouncing off the room walls and filling out the gaps regular direct speakers leave. They essentially double your number of speakers and expand your sound bubble. This creates an awesome sound effect where you can't localize the sound the way you can with direct firing speakers. In particular, when used as rear surround speakers, they will effective mimic the presence of both side surround and back surround speakers when placed at the correct angle. This effectively gives you a 7.0 speaker surround system instead of just a 5.0 because of the way the speakers split the sound. I know sound purists argue that modern sound mixing neutralizes both the need and effectiveness of a bipolar speaker. Personally, after experiencing them myself, I call BS on that and could never go back to direct firing speakers. The sound enveloping effect is just awesome, especially with Atmos enabled games, movies and TV shows.These are pretty awesome speakers and I'd highly recommend them as supporting surround sound speakers in a full speaker setup with floorstanding tower speakers for actual home theaters or as main and surround speakers in a compact bookshelf setup for apartments like I have or a smaller room.