Clean Sound, Looks Nice

Where's the bass?, price

This speaker system is very pricy. the sound is very clean coming from those small cubes. the only thing is the bass, i still don't hear it.

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polk, klipsh, sony

Size, directional mounting, bright trebles, natural bass, directional sound reflection. Good for acoustic, Flamenco, pop.

Setting up - sensitive to position, mounting brackets are extra. Not so good for classical and heavy rock.

With a NAD amp and Arcam CD....

Wife-compromise forced exchange of bookshelf speakers and active sub for Bose 5 III. The sound was awful (no bass, no punch, no nothing) so I had a row with the wife, then read this board and then I tried a bit of fiddling around.

Now I am quite happy, thanks.

Bass unit is reversed to face the back wall from about 4", tight in a corner. Satellites about 6' up, 3" in from side walls and pointing down a few degrees; bottom cubes point into room and top cubes towards side walls. Room is 15' square and all walls are brick.

It's going to come down to your amp, wall material, room dimensions, furnishings, drapes, position of bass unit, angle of satellites, original recording production and personal taste.

I don't think the bass is muddy, though it can boom a little. I'm a bassist and think that these speakers are replaying the bass as it was played rather than amplifying all the bass frequencies as in an active sub. In order to punch threw at large gigs, I often used a lead guitar top amp through 4x12" cabinets.

Now I can hear the bass as a distinct instrument, rather than a sub-sonic weapon. Try "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, the original bass is really not that aggressive.

Another bonus is that with the active sub, I was constantly adjusting the levels. Now, if there is little bass it's because there is little in the original.

Hope this helps.

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Celestion

very clean sound.

not enough power for bass.

This Speaker is good and i can enjoy music as i do in AR and JBL.The Clarity is much more better then jbl.
I love these spk ............

Similar Products Used:

AR and JBL

Good, clean sound, SIZE (duh)

Bass module is *very* position sensitive, OEM satilites don't really cut it

This is an update to my review in January. I visited this review board yesterday, and really got to thinking about the sound of my system, so I really listened to where all the sound was. The 101's I replaced the OEM sats with are still great (and I don't care WHAT the Bose bashers say, at $110/pair new, these make GREAT sats for any 3 piece system)
Now the sub is a different story. I actually walked around the room (which is in my opinion a BAD room for acoustics) And noticed that there was a bass "hole" right at and in front of my couch! Bass was still there, but the bottom 150 hz or so was just gone.

I moved the Bass box to every area in the same quadrant of the room where it had been sitting with little effect. Tried at the wall, ceiling, up diagonal, here, there, nothing worked. But I found out the bass is at least predictable. Next it went onto the top of my entertainment center. That helped a little on my couch, but there was an even worse "hole" right in the center of the room.

Finally I moved it to the opposite side of the room and I have good sound pretty much everywhere, but I wouldn't call it outstanding. Better than spending at least $600 to upgrade that's for sure.

P.S. can someone please explain "listening fatugue" for me and what it's supposedly caused by?

Reciever is a Sony STR-D2020 w/ a Kenwood Center channel amp.

Overall I give it a 3.5 out of 5. If and one can offer me ideas on a better overall pair of speakers for under $450 new, please mail me, and I'll take a listen.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 101 (used as sats for this system), 2.2 (surrounds), Yamaha 635's(center), old-assed Warfdales(gone)

size...wife acceptance factor

sound...

these were originally purchased for my main speakers...as i became a better listener and sampled more and more speakers from other companies, i realized that i had made a mistake. i am not here to bash bose, but looking back i really feel that i paid way too much for the sound that i got from this speaker system.

for about $200 this system would have been o.k., but not for the $800 i paid.

i am a musician as well as an avid listener and there are too many really good speakers out there for the price bose is asking......

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klh, boston, klipsch, advent

size, styling, ability to play quite loud

Not very accurate (especially in the shrill high end)
Poor Value

I bought a pair of the original AM5's around 1995 when subsats were just becoming popular and admit I was hooked by the way the product was packaged, they were replacing huge old floorstanding BICS and seemed to sound too good for so small a package. I liked them at first but after a while began to notice lots of harshness in the upper end, the midrange is pretty good and the bass is better than most people seem to think although they seemingly peak around 80hz--very loudly, a trick it would seem to get the listener to think they extend farther than they do. There also seems to be a gap in the upper bass between the bass unit and satellites, noticeable on male voices (sometimes sound a bit hollow).
Despite my misgivings I did use them until 1998 (for music and home theater) when I sold the house they were attached to (ceiling mounted more or less permanently). I then decided to shop other brands to replace them and found much better performers had become available in the sub/sat area, the first time I listened to NHT super zeros I was amazed at how much more balanced the sound especially on acoustic music and movie dialogue. I also liked Definative and M&K subsats better than AM5's, I listened to the newer version and they didn't sound markedly diferent than my old ones.
My conclusion is these might be worth buying used or closeout (Bose never lets their stuff get discounted though) but for the same price you can do better (maybe even get a whole 5-piece system)

Similar Products Used:

NHT super zero

Size.

Unbalanced. Has anyone else had a balance problem? I get more from the right than the left (it's not the receiver)

The size is great (kids can't reach them), but I have a balance problem. I always get more out of the right channel, no matter what source I use. I have a brand new Sony 675 receiver, so it's not that. When I use the balance control on the receiver, I can balance them, but then it sounds muffled. Has anyone else had this problem?

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JBL Towers, Cerwin Vega Floor Standing

Sound quality

None

Better sound through research.

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CSW

They suck.

They suck.

These are the suckiest speakers I ever heard. Because they suck.

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They suck.

Size,size,size....did I mention size?

Sound and value.

Simply put, the AM 5 is the most overpriced and under-performing(for the cost) speaker out on the market.Let's be honest, if Bose slashed the price of these things in half then it(along with the rest of the AM line) wouldn't receive as much abuse on this board.Case in point, I purchased my dbx Soundfield 3x2 sub/sat system from DAK in 1990 for $225 shipped. Shortly thereafter the folks at DAK performed a double blind test with over two hundred paticipants. The competitors were the dbx,Bose,CSW,Polk, and Yamaha sub/sat systems.The dbx blew away the field wih over 60% of the first place votes with the Yamaha system a distant second with 20%. Polk was third, CSW was fourth, and you guessed it...the Bose AM-5 was dead last. The ironic thing was the fact that the dbx was over $50% cheaper than the others(with Bose costing the most) and it sounded SO much better. Remember, the participants never knew which system they were listening to at any given time...they let their ears and minds decide. IMO, the AM-5 would receive much better treatment on this board if it retailed $250. Alas, we know that's never gonna happen so it will continue to get flogged. The Bose AM series deserves the heading of "buyer beware"....don't be duped by their relentless ads in the magazines.

Similar Products Used:

Aura LSW-828M's(three pairs),Aura LSB-627M's,Aura LSB-527M's(three pairs), and my old(but still great-sounding) dbx Soundfield 3x2 sub/sat system.