The compact size

There are no clear highs or lows. The satallites are mids and the passive sub does not get enough power for strong bass output.

I returned the speakers a week later. They are not great music speakers and do decent for TV. Before you buy, listen to a good pair of bookshelf speakers, or a tower speaker. There are noticable differences in music and tone quality that the bose system does not produce. I feel that bose did make and alright speaker system, but it is definitly not the best. For sound the speakers are mediocre do 3 stars.
Speaker size makes it easy to place the speakers anywhere, but that is the only positive thing about the speakers. Look into small book shelf speakers and a subwoofer. It will be about the same cost and you should be happier, becuase the speakers will produce a sound range needed for both home theather and music. I give value 2 stars.

Small

Price,sound

If you bought some you were

a) suckered by a salesman
b) don't know anything about home audio
c) thought they were cute
d) thought they produced bass when in fact there was a hidden sub at the show room and think you can fool your guest the same way you were fooled at the BOSE showroom.
e) told by your wife that you weren't allowed to have
full size speakers in the living room.
f) convinced the high price meant quality thus thinking the
sorry ass sound coming out of the speakers was actually music.
g) convinced by a friend who own them and don't want to be the only fool who dropped $$$$$ for them.
h) impressed by the demo movie in an aucoustically designed room which you don't have.

GET MY DRIFT? these speakers are a $cam! If space is a factor, go check out CAMBRIDGE SPEAKERS..they are about
1/4 the price and they sound ALOT BETTER!

I was very serious about purchasing this bose system. Browsing around circuit city auditioning the mini systems, I came across the bose. I was very impressed at first with the sound quality and had almost decided to purchase them, until I left the mini system section and ventured over to the "real" speaker system. The sound I heard from almost any of the speakers (even in Circuit City) blew away the bose.At least I owe the research I am doing now to my experience with bose. Instead of just jumping into some dressed up speaker with smoke and mirrors I am making an educated decision.

Satellite/subwoofer loudspeaker systems have grown ever more popular in the consumer audio market since this type of system was first introduced by Bose Corporation in 1987. Many hi-fi enthusiasts and audiophiles have openly criticized such a design paradigm and have cited many scientific and subjective problems in the implementation and use of these systems. These problems include poor frequency response, loudspeaker directivity (beaming), inadequate crossover design, and large amounts of intermodulation distortion. Despite these criticisms, sales of satellite/subwoofer systems continue to increase and more companies are introducing these types of systems into the highly saturated consumer audio market. The Bose Acoustimass system continues to be one of the best selling, though competitors such as Cambridge SoundWorks with their Ensemble Series of loudspeakers are boasting record profits this past year. Many purchasers report that the main selling points of these systems are the relatively small space requirements, the reputation of the companies that produce them, and surprisingly last - the quality of the sound.
Using a combination of the Techron TEF (r) Analyzer and real world listening, I will present a critical scientific and subjective analysis of the Bose Acoustimass-5/7 system. In a highly suspect policy, Bose does not publish any audio specifications on their systems aside from power handling and impedance.

While not as radical as some of their other designs, the Bose Acoustimass system nevertheless employs some rather unusual qualities. The shielded cube arrays are housed in such a way that one driver can be rotated approximately 180° in either direction with respect to the other driver. Bose calls this feature Direct/Reflecting speaker technology. The individual drivers are designed to be rotated so that much more indirect sound is produced than would otherwise be the case with conventional speakers. This practice reveals some interesting frequency response data.

The effective response of the cube array is very narrow, ranging from 1.5kHz to approximately 19kHz. The response is anything but flat, with severe peaks at 3.5kHz, 11.5kHz, and 18kHz ranging from 4dB to 6dB greater amplitude. With one driver 180° off axis, the response curve remains essentially the same, with an expected output approximately 3dB greater overall. At a one driver 45° offset from center, the response peaks were even greater. Only with one driver 90° off axis did the one of the peaks, at 3kHz, diminish slightly. Both cube arrays and their four drivers exhibited an almost identical poor response pattern, so it logical to assume that Bose has purposely designed these speakers to have this kind of response. Why would the manufacturer do this?

Close examinations of the measurements reveal an interesting parallel between the Bose response curves and the Fletcher-Munson equal loudness contours. These contours show that the human ear itself does not have a flat frequency response and that the ear is most sensitive to frequencies around 3.5kHz and 11.5kHz - the very same frequencies highly over emphasized in the Bose drivers. It has often been demonstrated that a typical consumer upon performing an A/B comparison of two speaker systems will prefer the louder of the two systems even if the difference in volume is very slight. With this kind of frequency response, the Bose speakers will seem louder to the listener even at lower sound pressure levels.

Subjective listening at longer duration confirmed what would be expected with speakers having this frequency response pattern: greatly increased listening fatigue. The cubes seem overly shrill and bright to the point that the listener wants to angle one of the drivers off axis if only to reduce the harshness. In practice, this approach worked for the short term, but after many minutes of listening, fatigue still set in.

At 30° off axis, the cube exhibits a steady roll off from about 12kHz. At 45° off axis the roll off is much steeper and begins at around 4kHz. This type of off axis response is indicative of loudspeakers that are highly directional in nature. A contour map of the cube generated from multiple frequency response measurements taken through 180° in 5° increments reveals that the drivers start beaming at around 5kHz and continue to do so up to their effective response limit. A cylinder polar plot gave yet another view of the highly directional characteristics of the Bose satellites.

With the Bose cube arrays being extremely directional, proper room positioning becomes extremely important in subjective listening tests. The ability to aim multiple drivers within the cubes does provide slightly more flexibility in room placement but not much. The Bose low frequency enclosure also exhibits highly directional properties. The very idea for using a satellite/subwoofer design is that low frequencies tend to be omnidirectional in nature thus the subwoofer enclosure can go just about anywhere in the room, with the smaller enclosures handling all of the imaging. The listener then is "tricked" in that all of the sound seems to be coming from the smaller enclosures. In properly tuned systems this design does work, and with certain types of program material, particularly less bass dependent material, the Bose system does exhibit this characteristic. However, with the use of any program material that has any substantial low frequency content at all, as do many of today's modern recordings, it becomes evident that the low frequency enclosure is directional and very much so. Directivity of the low frequency enclosure is almost certainly due to an abnormally high crossover frequency. This directivity of all three enclosures in the Bose system results in far fewer options in room placement than the manufacturer suggests, and it negates one of main selling points of this type of loudspeaker system design, that being flexibility in placement.

Small satellite/subwoofer designs have inherently poor sonic quality and the Bose AM-5/AM-7 seem to be one of the worst of the lot. It is my firm belief that these systems should be avoided if possible. There are many small bookshelf subwoofer combo's that deliver vastly superior performance at around the same or slighly greater price. Sound is important. It is an investment. Good speakers will always be good. Spend the money on quality and be proud that you went in armed with facts not hype. If quality is what you want, I recommend auditioning N.E.A.R., Jamo, Paradigm, and the like. Take this for what it's worth.

-Wayne Boyd

I purchased the Bose system and returned them due to the lack of quality. I, like many peple buy products based on name reconition. I replaced this system with a JBL Bass 20 for the same money and received a full range speaker system for the same money. The JBL surpassed my Klipsch KG3's and DCM center while the Bose sounded like my clock radio. Sorry Bose, I think it is time you Boston companies realize your not the best.

I finally heard the sound of this "cute,little cube" in action several months ago and thought, "hey, a lot of sound is coming from such a small cube!" It must have been an initial thrill. But that's all I can say about it. It's just loud, that's all. Forget about the sound quality, this baby sucks. And you're paying almost 700 hundred bucks for it's "cute,appealing size"? I wouldn't even pay a fraction of the cost. In fact, I visited Bose's booth on a local mall last year where a lot of people gathered watching and (hearing) a home theather demo and said to myself, my ears are literally blown away by the sound, and I got an aching eardrum. To my relief, I visited the smaller Wharfedale booth and my ears thanked me a lot. Can I just give Bose a negative one?

Well,well,well,How's the bose ?
You know,in fact I'm afraid to tell my friends this.I actually owned a boseAM3 series 2 speakers.That was years ago when I just started on audio.
I am still wondering how I got to buy this speaker?The only reason I can think of
probably I was just earning my first few bucks and the first impression of the sound was quite good.They were playing pop music at that time.
When I've got it home and I more I listen to it .The more i hate it.
I think I used it for a month or 2 and now It is gathering dust somewhere.I can't
get rid of it.It takes something out of your conscious to actualy sell it to someone.
i totally agree with the other reader.
BOSE IS DAYLIGHT ROBBERY.
PLEASE DO NOT CON ANYMORE.
0 STAR IF THERE IS ONE.

I was on vaction in Destin Fl during Memorial Day weekend and visited the Bose Factory Store. I heard a display with the Acoustimass-5 speaker system and was impressed. The speakers were on sale for $399 so I figured that this was a steal.
Unfortunately the sound in my home is not what I heard at the store. Especially disapointing is the lack of bass response, even though I have carefully followed the instructions regarding the placement of the Acoustimass unit.

Bottom line about 10% of my music collection sounds great with good bass response. The rest has none. At this point I wonder if I could return these speakers for a refund. Anyone with experience in this matter?

My other option is using the one year upgrade feature in which Bose will give me my purchase price as a trade in against other Bose equipment. If I take this option what would you recommend?

Obviously I wish I had found this Web site before I made my purchase.

Bose in genral are really not a good way to go for speakers. As a former audio salesman, we had a good and
very truthfull saying "NO HIGHS NO LOWS MUST BE BOSE".

OK so the general consensus is that the Acoustimass 5 suck. I've never heard them but from seeing them, it looks like they could be made for REAL CHEAP. In fact they've got REAL CHEAP written all over them as do all the current bose. Bose currently does a great job making their entire current line LOOK appealing (IE real cheap). What about some 1977 bose 601 series II. Are these considered decent speakers? I think they are (so I suppose nothing else matters) but I know JACK S*** about stereo equipment.