Never buy the lifestyle 48. It is too expensive and comes bundled with lots of maintenance every year.
The DVD player never works and refuses to accept even brand new DVD.
The Bose Service center is only interested in replacing the DVD lens every time and blames all the failure due to dust.
May be the prospective buyers should also invest in dust proof but ventilated cabinet for the music system.

ben bon !

I have owned a Lifestyle 12 since 1995, I had a few minor issue which Bose fixed under warranty. It has been user friendly for the entire family no tweaking and plug and play. Well the other day I turned it on and no sound I tried several things and called Bose. They would fix it for 258.00 or they said I could trade it in on a refurbished Z20 for 999.00 or LS48 IV for 1400.00. This is a far cry from 3900.00 and it had the same waranty as new. So a broken system will be retired and a new one installed and it has expanded features. The entire system is compact and although it doesn't play BR DVDs my PS3 does. So for me it is a win win. I will review the LS48 once it arrives and I install it and post my opinion.
Just press the RED easy button;

I bought Bose Lifestyle 48 System over a year ago. Overall video and audio are good, but minor problems include:
a) No Blue-Ray capability for DVD's
b) Poor synchronization of remotes for peripherals like TV & cable; despite what Bose store reps tell you, you can't control eveything with one push of the button - you might as well keep all your remotes.

However, MAJOR problem has to do with UMUSIC system:
One of primary selling points used by Bose store reps is telling you that you can load 200 CDs into system, the Bose will store & remember them all, and by Gracenote technology you can create infinite playlists based on music preferences, and never have to load/reload CD's again. (technology is much like iTune Genius Mix).

Sounded great at the time to me so I bought it, and spent COUNTLESS hours (60? 100?) loading CD's (each takes 10-15 minutes), categorizing them, then training the presets to play what I want (e.g. I don't want Beach Boys singing their version of "Silent Night" when I want to hear a jazz mix...)

Then, one day, our power went out. Only for 10-15 minutes, tops. WIPING OUT ALL MY SAVED CD'S. Now there is no stored music. I talked to Bose rep, at his recommendation sent it to their service center (at my cost), and spent over $150 for them to replace hard drive, AND THEY COULD NOT RECOVER MY STORED MUSIC.

So basically right now I have a basic DVD player with a decent sound system. Needless to say I was P.O.'d. It will be FAR less traumatic for me at this point to connect up my iPhone & play my easily-personalized playlists from that than to waste another month of my life reloading CD's into Bose.

Bottom line: don't waste your money on this turkey. Or your time.

I have had this hunk of junk for 5 years simply because I have repaired it my self because it was so expensive and I refuse to give Bose anymore of my hard earned money for their junk. By giving them anymore money I am not able to use my DVD drive, cd storage, led display but hell I got it to run my aux sound for my gaming after I rplaced the hard drive myself too. Go ahead if you would like to impress your friends and just have money to waste listen to the B.S. Shpill.....as a owner don't ware your money people in fact let this company fall faster then wall street. Junk junk junk junk!!! 4300.00 piece of junk. If they were so behind thier product then all my ssssshuff that doesn't work, would from a great company that accually stood behind there product like they say they do. You could email me any time bose or just send me my money back....

The sound quality is passable. There are plenty of systems that don't cost $4,000 that deliver the same sound. The most annoying drawback is that my Lifestyle 48 has repeatedly failed to capture CD/artist/track names off CDs. Today I saved two CDs with a total of over 40 tracks and had to key each name in individually one letter at a time. This is about the tenth time this problem has occurred and I have worked with Bose tech help each time, they have not been able to fix it to date. This was a much touted feature at the time I bought the product -- it is sheer agony to have to key in names of saved tracks. Last year I wrote a letter to Bose complaining about the problem -- still no response. So in addition to getting a two-star product for a five-star price, I have received zero service. All in all, a very disappointing purchase.

Good advertising and demonstration of their products.

Equipment is a joke. CD changers break down regularly, Amps are terrible, inputs limited and nonexistant. Sound is good unless you compare it to anything else.

The Bose motto must be "sell the sizzle, not the steak."

CAVEAT EMPTOR
Stay away.

Customer Service

Terrible.

Sound is good for such small speakers. Probably not the best, but very good. Concept of a single unit to handle everything is great. You can add wireless speakers in other rooms or outside. I really like the UMusic feature for playing CD's and the fact that it stores CD's. You don't need to keep a million CD's around, loading and unloading..

Unit is not dependable. DVD has never worked right on two units. I'm sure it will become completely unoperatable before long. Problems with the unit pop up from time to time.
Music library is not well thought out and doesn't work well
No direct HDMI - it uses a flimsy adaptor
High cost for mediocre quality.

This system is not a good value. We are on our second unit. Both units had problems with the DVD and the CD library. It hangs up several times through a movie. Sometimes it stops completely. The music library is weak, it doesn't sort correctly (on both units). You are suppose to be able to pick a music genre i.e. jazz, rock & roll etc, or an artist to play. However it doesn't work well. There's no telling what it's going to pull up. Bose sends out CD "updates" every couple months. Every update overwrites the last, so if you buy CD's by independent artists, every update erases any manual input causing you to lose title and artist information in the library. You have to re-enter it. This gets really old. I no longer load them into the unit. The unit doesn't have a direct HDMI input which is standard on HDTV. The sound is good. I'm sure there are probably other units that sound as good or better, but I bought this unit for the convenience of having DVD, CD, TV and Radio in one unit with little speakers. I didn't want my system to be the entire focus of the room. This is a premium priced unit for a mediocre product. We didn't get the quality I would expect in this price range. The support line is helpful and they will send you a CD to fix a problem, but for the cost of ths unit, it shouldn't be having all these problems.

Customer Service

Customer Service has been mostly good, it depends on who answers the phone. I've called them enough, so this part I know well.

Similar Products Used:

Prior to this used Sony component system

Great sound realism
Crisp highs and undistorted lows
Music storage
uMusic feature
Ability to wirelessly link music library (AL8's) to other rooms (up to 14) through Bose speakers and/or their Wave radio

DVD player (I purchased a nice HDMI DVD player with much improved picture quality)

The Lifestyle 48 system comes packed with features and includes a calibration disk that automatically tunes each speaker and subwoofer that ensures the system is optimally tailored to the room. I think some folks forgo reading the manual and end up less than successful in the setup, tone adjustments (treble-bass balance) and the all-important placement of speakers. Setup and tweaking the Lifestyle 48 system takes a little patience but the end results are nothing short of stunning sound and well worth the effort. The Bose speaker technology are industry leaders for a reason - they provide sound realism, crisp highs and undistorted lows. To date, I have loaded over 200 CD's. I have not encountered any hardware of software problems.

Customer Service

Bose customer and technical service is among the best I have come across. They are patient (!), knowledgable, and have never failed to answer my questions.

Real crappy unit. DO NOT RECOMMEND TO ANYONE...RIP OFF. Cheaply made and bad warranty service ... took bose months to get in contact with. Wholesale clubs sell it for half the price. Goto Best Buy. Don't let them sucker you into the 24 month payment plan. Real junk.