I've had this system since the late 1980's. Driven by my Yamaha receiver the sound is pristine!

Placement is very important; not really a weakness but it needs attention when setting up.

I've read some of the other reviews. What are you guys driving yours with anyway?? I blow people away with this system. The speakers deliver crystal clear sound and booming base. Hey, place that Acoustimass module aimed at a wall at a distance of 2-3 inches and you won't believe your ears! The soundstage is very wide and very definitely places you right in the middle of a concert...or a movie, since I use these as the front speakers for home theater as well. Every time I visit audio stores I audition other speakers. So far, these Bose far, far, far outperform the speakers I've listened to, at least up to and including Klipsch. I listen and then go home and enjoy my Bose. I highly, highly recommend these speakers. Just pay attention to placement, OK?

BOSE (the name), Room filling bass, clear highs, Looks

Lacks a bit of midrange

I dont know why some people hate bose so much.. Personally i like their sound a lot. They lack a bit of bass and thats why i give them a four star. But defenately these speakers dont deserve a 1 star. Is this all because they are expensive or what? I've seen much worse speakers than bose that were rated much better. I dunno what the fuss is all about. Can you bose bashers decide on what you want to criticize bose? Some say their bass is terrible, some say they are too expensive, some say that they lack mids and can't go high. This is a clear indication that those bose bashers out there never even listened to bose products before they posted their review...

Similar Products Used:

Jamo, Celestion

Size, cute, nice conversation piece

Sound when compaired with a real set of speakers

I can't really endorse these speakers to anyone (unless you only listen to backround music). I had an urge to "go small", so I sold my lumbering AR Towers and my huge Infins. I auditioned the Bose speakers in the "canned" Bose enviornment, and they sound good. Bought them, took them home, hooked them up,low SPL, sloppy bass, poor highs, ARRGGHHHH! I experimented with the placement for 2 days! Through much pain, I achieved a sound I could live with (at least I thought I could). I tried to convience myself that these speakers were not that bad. Then my wife came and said "Baby - I love you but, those speakers sound horrible!" I knew my worst fears had come to life. I quickly sold the speakers to someone who liked the cute theme. Took the money and bought a real set of towers again. Never again will I be deceived by this marketing scam. The best speaker that Bose has ever made is the 301, other than that, they come up with zeros.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 301, Bose 501, Bose AM7, Infinity, Polk Audio, Klipsch, VPMS, Acoustic Research

Volume off.

Volume on.

Where to begin?

First of all, I want everyone to know this URL
http://www.geocities.com/trustnoho/boseframes.html
which has some interesting info on these speaker's
freq. response that Bose won't publish.

I've had a lot of exposure to these but have never written
a review. Howerver, I have warned many people to stay
away from Bose and to *listen* to *any* other speaker in
the store before buying. Had one guy (who also owns a pair
of Bose 901s, BTW) go to an AV store to buy these for a
home theater setup because "Bose is the finest speaker in
the world", but after taking my advice he bought a pair of
Boston Acoustic speakers at a fraction of the cost instead
("They sounded much better, no comparison.") The salesman
told him that he would make more money by selling the Bose,
but encouraged him to listen to other speakers and make up
his own mind-- and he did...this was NOW Audio/Video, BTW.
I guess the Bose marketing gestapo's will now decend on
NOW, but that's OK, they should NOT be selling Bose in a
Hi-Fi shop anyway (they are the local Martin Logan dealers
for heaven's sake!)

As for my own experiences, these speakers truly sould like
clock radio speakers when compared to any other speaker.
Back when Best Buy had a speaker room with a console set up
in the middle that allowed you to select different speakers
by *number* I was switching through each of the 20 or so
speakers one by one-- I had NO idea which speaker I was
listening to. When I was done, I hunted down which ones
sounded "best" and "worst". The "best" turned out to be
a KLH $30/pair, the worst? You guessed it, a Bose AM5 at
$899/pair! No lie. At the time I hadn't been exposed to
the Bose's marketing propaganda machine so I had no
preconceived ideas about Bose either good nor bad. I just
figured anyone could tell they sucked (no other word for
it).

I learned about Bose's marketing machine by listening to
the infected people (like the guy above who owned the 901's
and was going to buy these audio turds solely because of
Bose's reputation). I know another guy who bought these
triumphs in audio research technology at Sam's Club. He
too was buying based on "reputation". After he got them
all set up, I had the misfortune to hear Jurassic Park on
them. It sounded like you'd expect-- shrill little clock
radio speakers hanging on the wall with a warm, muddy,
"room filling" bass that was clearly coming from the
"bass module". He didn't understand why this Bose miracle
wasn't producing the lows that he'd heard on the Kenwood
SW300 powered sub I've got in my setup. The reason is
because this bass module doesn't play any bass-- it only
goes down to 40Hz (see the URL above for actual frequency
response curves which Bose won't even publish). The bass
module is too busy filling in the mid range that the
cubes can't produce to be worried about bass.

Recently I was at Sam's Club and the had the Bose display
setup with the AM5 and the little silver lifestyle thing
setup with it. You know, the one with the "arms" going
behind you with the surround speakers on them. There was a
TV built into the display and you could push buttons to
hear a Bose marketing geek indoctrinate you right there on
the spot. What I found strange was when I pushed the
button to play "music", it actually sounded pretty good.
Nothing like I've heard from the setups I've seen at Best
Buy or at NOW Audio/Video or at Circuit City or at
people's home who own these. I tried to follow the signal
to see what was driving these speakers, but the case was
locked! There was no way to see what was actually driving
these speakers or if the signal was being EQed in some way
to make these sound passable. I've read of similar
experiences on this site stating that someone went to a
Bose outlet and heard a home theater setup that actually
sounded decent but when he asked the guy behind the
counter, he was told that the system was "tweaked" beyond
any semblance of what you as a consumer would receive if
you bought Bose speakers/system for yourself. There is
definitely something funny going on. BEWARE OF CANNED
BOSE DEMOS.

Similar Products Used:

One of those Mattel "see and say" toys where your kid pulls the handle and it plays animal sounds...

strong highs and exelent imaging and timber and very clear.

bass, only good if in stalled

These speakers have a great sence of depth and a sence of you are there. But it is lacking lots of low end responce but with a care ful purchace you can fix this up. When its all set up corectley this system sounds better than Energy and some B&W A real contender when set up to its fullest.

Similar Products Used:

bose,KLH,Energy ect.......

Vocals, bass, design of the cubes.

The placement of the subwoofer needs great attention.

Before my Acc. 5-III, I owned a Jamo SW3 subwoofer system. Two months ago I blew up one of the midrange speakers and had to decide to let it repair or buy a new system. Because I wasn't completely satisfied by its sound, I decided to buy the Bose's. I had great expectations, but they sounded a bit disappointing when I turned the music on. I could easily locate the bass module, while Bose says in their advertisements it is impossible. Now I've placed the sub so that is hardly impossible to locate him: almost in the middle of the cubes.
The bass is deep; very deep. Especially when watching dvd the sound is great! When listening to music vocals sounds very warm and clear. It is a sensation to hear the voice of Loreena McKennith out of the cubes!
Well, that's it. Great sound, but the price is a little bit too high.

Similar Products Used:

Jamo SW3

size

sound

I would like to thank all of you on this board for your help in making my purchase this morning. I have read with great interest all you have written about the Bose Acoustimass speakers. My wife and I were blown away when we forst heard them before Christmas and then again when we visited a demonstration last month in California. Prior to our purchase we decided to check out other small speakers available at several stores and none could compare in sound even when close to the small size. My wife wants the speakers to be almost invisable hence her interest in the Bose line.

I was directed by a friend to check out this chat board and in one note someone had written about the AE Aegis One speaker as being superior and costing $299. I went to the AE website and found only one dealer here in Connecticut who has them. On Friday afternoon we went to Bristol CT to here the speakers. We were impressed with the sound but disappointed in the book shelf size. We were then shown the NEW Aego2 and it was instant satisfaction. The speakers are the size of the bose cube but the sound is incredible. We picked them up today for $600 which includes the self powered woofer.

I would recommend the AE Aego2 to anyone who is considering the Bose Acoustimass speakers. They are just as cute, have better sound range and a fraction of the cost.

DavID

Similar Products Used:

Aego2

Tiny size makes them inconspicous

Poor build quality, sound is shrill and weezy

I came *this close* to buying the Accoustimass 5 at the Bose showroom in a big expensive mall. They were on sale the previous week for $550, but now they were back up to $600 and the salesperson wouldn't give me the lower price. A blessing in disguise.

Next to my 15 year-old Polk bookshelfs, the Bose sounded pretty good. I didn't want to clutter up my living room with speakers, and some of the truly rabid anti-Bose sentiment here made me want to buy them out of spite. I mean, really, some people use their audio systems as phallic extensions. It's about the music, not the technology.

I give Bose credit for taking into account the psychology of hearing and some of the creative ideas for "reflecting" sound.

But having been put off by the Bose salesperson's refusal to honor the previous weeks price, I decided to look around while I waited three months for the next sale. Who could possibly create a smaller system better than the renowned Bose for the same money?

Plenty of folks, actually.

If you look around, you'll find you can get an exponentially better sat/sub system for the same money. And people, the speakers aren't much bigger than the combined size of the stacked Bose Cubes, and the subwoofers are all *powered*.

As brilliant as Dr. Bose may be, there's no getting around the fact that you need tweeters for highs, woofers for the midranges, and a big ol' subwoofer if you want real bass. It's a fact.

Before you buy Bose, do yourelf a favor and hear these small sat/sub systems:

Paradigm Atom with any 8" powered Sub
Paradigm Mini-Monitor with any 8" powered Sub
NHT SuperZero with 8" powered Sub
NHT SuperOne with 8" powered Sub
Hell, even look at Cambridge Soundworks

I was intruiged by reviews for the EdgeAudio Internet-direct speakers. For $700, the small shoe-box sized speakers arrived with an 8" powered sub. All made of real wood -- no pressobard, no plastic like Bose. The tweeter and midrange are made by Vifa, a Danish company. I put on a half dozen familiar CDs and heard sounds I've never heard before. Such detail.

If the Bose were $300 and size was the paramount consideration, the might be a viable choice. But you owe it to yourself to look around and see what your $500-$700 will get you.

Remember, your music matters.

Similar Products Used:

Polk, Edge Audio 502d, Paradigm Mini Monitor, NHT SuperOne

small satts good mid,clear,nutural sound,

need to be seated in front of a wall to get any bass responce

the only beef I have with the system is the seating for the sub I tryed every thing and was about to sell them is when
I stood in front of a wall[sub was left of left cube]and my eyes just opened up there was so much bass I thought
I was dreaming.So I moved my couch in front of a wallwhere I was standing and rearanged room to the speakers.try it
you will get good results.

Similar Products Used:

all brands

WARNING!!!
If you are not an ardent BOSE proponent, and you have posted a negative review of a bose product, you may be subjected to the wrath of an individual who goes by the moniker "Mr. Bose". He will come to you in stealth, with a foul tongue and an equally lacking vocabulary totally void of any degree of usefull coherency. This person is evidently either retarted or perhaps a crack adict.

Mr. BOSE: We know your out there, however your cowardice is evident in the fact that you don't give anyone the opportunity to respond to you maniacal ravings. This will not be tolerated. At least When I write a to reviewer I give them a chance to retort. Mr. Bose, it is well that you are devoted to your cause, nevertheless, it is unfortunate that you lack the intelligence to convey your ignorant beliefs. It is advisable that you consult a dictionary which, just in case you weren't aware, is a book which may bestow upon you startling revalations about the mechanics of intelligent expression. I await your response.