Great sound from the 5 cubes; great design

Unpowered subwoofer is utterly pathetic

The five cubes that comprise this system are great. However, the unpowered subwoofer that comes with it is a joke. It provides some bass, but not nearly enough to make a difference. And you don't actually get true 5.1 sound with the system because the subwoofer is not directly connected to the receiver. I moved the sub all over the room - in corners, near walls, behind a chair - but eventually I found the right place for it - in the trash! I replaced the crappy unpowered subwoofer with a powered Polk model. Now the system really sounds great. Movies - I tried the "new" system with the Matrix and Heat. It rocked the room. Music - I listened to everything from Metallica to Beethoven - everything sounded good. It's just unfortunate that I had to spend extra money to get it right. However, I liked the sound and design of the cubes. So it was worth it for me. And replacing the unpowered subwoofer is easy - and it alters the sound dramatically.

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Kenwood VR-509 A/V Receiver

Doesn't take space
Sounds Great!

Expensive

I've read alot of bad reviews about the bass on these speakers, but after hooking them up to my onkyo receiver, I find myself having to turn everything down because I'm afraid to wake the neighbors. It leads me to wonder what kind of cheap receivers these people are hooking these awesome speakers up to...and then wonder why there's no bass. Don't buy these speakers if you're going with some cheap receiver.

small size, clean sound

passive subwoofer!!!!!!!!!!

I am talking about Bose AM -6II home theater set. ($599 Best Buy)
OVER-overpriced for the value.
Almost no bass from the passive sub- cannot be used with a receiver with a separate subwoofer output. Cannot regulate bass output. Sucks.

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JBL SCS125a

FOR THE SIZE THE ARE GREAT THEY MAY BE LITTLE BUT THE HAVE BIG SOUND LIKE BOOKSHELF SPEAKER THE ARE NEARLY INVISIBLE THEY SIZE IS GOOD FOR A SMALL LIVING ROON LIKE MY APATRMENT I LIKE THEN BETTER THEN MY OLD TECHNICS SPEAKER BECOUSE THEY ARE SMALL WITH HIG QUALITY SOUND THEY SRE REAL GREAT FOR HOME THEATER AND MUST TYPE OF MUSIC THE CLEARITY ON THIS SPEAKER ARE GREAT IF YOU LOOKING FOR QUALITY AUDIO THAT CAN FIT ANY WHERE THE BOSE ACOUSTIMASS AM 6 SHOULD BE YOU ONLY CHOICE...

YOU NEED TO GET BRAKET FOR WALL MOUNTING OR STANDS TO PLACE THIS SPEAKER ON YOU LIVING ROOM BECOUSE THEY DON'T COME IN THE PACKAGE BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS GOOD ABOUT THEN...

THE BOSE ACOUSTIMASS AM 6 ARE HIGH QUALITY AUDIO AND CLEARITY FOR SMALL SPEAKERS IS GREAT AND THEY ARE SO SMALL THAT WILL FIT ANYWHERE ON YOUR HOME PR APARTMENT WHEN YOU HAVE LIMITED IN SPACE ON YOUR LIVING ROOM OR BEDROOM THEY ARE A WORK OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH I LOVE THEN...

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TECHNICS, YAMAHA, KENWOOD, RCA...

Everything it is just fantastic!Bass from module is rich and full sounding while cubes engulfe you in even greater sound!

The speakers are to small so my friends don't immediatly know how great these are.

Each cube fits perfectly into the corners of the room so they aren't too obtrusive. The sound once I turn on my reciever was overtaking but was immediatly hushed once I turned it down. The speakers don't fuzz like others when they're turned up real high.These speakers are for anyone that is able to afford them. They're a true investment.

CLEAR SOUND, NO BASS DISTORTION, COMPACT SIZE, GREAT QUALITY SOUND FOR HOME THEARTER AND 5 YEAR WARRENTY.

FOR $600 THIS SHOULD COME WITH SPEAKER BRACKETTS.

AFTER SEEING THE REVIEWS OF THIS SISTEM IT APPEARS THAT SOME PEOPLE WHO WROTE NEGATIVE REVIEWS DO NOT KNOW NOTHING ABOUT A SISTEM FOR MUSIC NOR HOME THEATER. YOU CAN NOT COMPARE THE SISTEM FOR LISTENING MUSIC AND THE SISTEM FOR HOME THEARTER, EACH SISTEM IS DIFFERENT, AND ALSO DEPENDS OF WHICH RECEIVER YOU ARE USING,PEOPLE SAY THAT THIS SISTEM DOES NOT PRODUCE ENOUGH BASS, REMEMBER THIS IS BASS REFLECT MODULE, YOU HAVE TO PUT THIS NEAR A CORMER OR FACING A WALL. I HAVE BEEN USING THIS SISTEM FOR FIVE MONTHS NOW AND I AM VERY PLEASED WITH THE PERFORMANCE AND I DO NOT HAVE ANY COMPLAITS OF IT. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A HOME THEARTER SISTEM THIS IS THE ONE, YOU CAN BUY IT WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED. BUT IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A MUSIC SISTEM THIS IS NOT THE ONE FOR YOU.

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BOSE 901 AND BOSE 301

Ability to be unobtrusive, crisp sound, strong sound when using a good receiver, Excellent corporate support

Lack of included mounting rigs (strange for speakers so obviously designed to be mounted on walls or ceilings), mediocre center chanel quality, minor mistakes in bass module design, not enough cable

Let me begin by saying that this is much more of a 'long term road test' review. I've had this set of speakers for over three years and they were originally purchased as factory refurbished. Over the course of the three years, I have yet to be disappointed in the quality and versatility of these speakers. At the time of purchase, my goal was to build a moderate-quality system that would allow me to listen to music and movies with a good sense of 'spacious' sound that accurately reproduced the original intent of the artist (it should also be noted that, while I appreciate good bass in movies, most of my music does not benefit from 'thumping' bass or really high volume), all for under $1500, not including the television. Of this $1500, I was prepared to spend up to half on the speaker system alone (but didn't need to, with the cost of this system).

I find many of the negative reviews on this site to be puzzling for several reasons:

- I'll be the first to admit, that when purchasing this (my first) stereo system, I was caught up in the Bose advertising blitz. I spent several days at the Bose Outlet store listening to their demo's (which of course use the best $3000 speaker system they can produce) prior to searching out the best price at all surrounding stereo dealers. The hype that the Bose Corporation generally produces can be overwhelming, but one cannot fail to be impressed by sitting in a small room (about the size of the room in which my stereo would end up) and enjoying the clarity of their system. I had to have one! After having used it for over 3 years, I am still convinced that Bose makes a high quality product and are more than willing to provide immediate help whenever asked.

- As I've mentioned, bass was not really all that important for me as I live in an apartment building and must be contentious of my neighbors (who usually work 3rd shift). After setting it up in my apartment, I found that the bass was very strong and the balance had to be recalibrated on my receiver to 'tone it down'. The trick to making the bass module produce louder base is to place the bass output next to a wall. Any separate subwoofer system is designed so the speaker is facing the floor at a distance of about 2 - 3 inches - this is not done to 'transfer the bass into the floor', but to insure that the bass speaker has something off which to resonate. Bose made a mistake in designing the bass module for this system by having the 'bass hole' (I can think of no better thing to call it) pointing out into thin air. By simply sliding this 'hole' to within about 2 inches of a wall immediately makes the bass much stronger.

- Several have commented on the 'weak sound' provided by this system, and the need to purchase a separate subwoofer to support their HT. I've found that the largest difference in the quality of sound in these speakers can be made by purchasing a competent receiver. NOTE: If you are planning to drop $700 on this speaker system, be prepared to spend at least $350 on a receiver that can run them. My Sony receiver has 100 watts per channel, more than enough to power these speakers (although, I believe they are rated to at least 100 watts, but even at that you can only turn the volume to about halfway). With a good receiver and good placement of the bass module, you can get great, high quality sound from this system without the need for a separate subwoofer.

I see no need to write a list of reasons I still like the system - it does its job after three years, and I expect to get at least 10 out of it. I am also planning to upgrade my receiver to handle internal DTS and Dolby Digital encoding and expect that these speakers would sound even better. I can give it no better praise than the fact that I haven't replaced it.

There are several things that new buyers should know about prior to purchasing this system, though:

- Many people have mentioned the cost of the mounting brackets for these speakers. I'll admit that they look cool, but for $25 a piece (you may be able to barter them down to $15 from BestBuy if you're willing to buy their 4 year replacement plan), they add about a $100 hardware cost to the total cost of the system. These speakers can't really just be left sitting on a bookshelf (then, they look REALLY small), so Bose should consider packaging them with the speakers and offer an automatic cost-upgrade to those who want to purchase the speaker stands (about $50, I think).

- Such a small set of speakers really leaves the center channel of this system wanting. (A single white cube looks silly sitting on top of a 32" color television.) Bose produces a competent center channel speaker in the VCS-10 that really should be added to this system. The VCS-10 gives better direction for speaking parts in movies and should be turned off when listening to music anyway.

- As mentioned above, the Bass Module would work even better if it's speaker were facing the floor like a normal subwoofer. Also, since all five of the surround sound speakers actually are wired through the bass module (a huge block of wires go from the receiver to the bass module where the bass is stripped off the sound and then sent out to each individual speaker), it would be helpful to have a direct subwoofer output for the bass module alone. This way, you wouldn't loose one of the channels when using a 5+1 input and send all the bass to a module that is not being effectively used anyway (I think you could get a lot more power out of the bass module, but it is simply being restricted by the amount of bass your receiver is sending to the main speakers).

- These speakers have an RCA-like cable connection from the bass module, so it is much more difficult to use standard wiring cable to connect them. With that in mind, Bose could have packaged longer lengths of wire in this speaker system. By running the wire along the ceiling (I can't run the wires through the wall or ceiling because they have such a big plug-end), I barely had enough to wire the rear speakers in my 16' x 12' room. Also, since the bass module should be kept as far from the television as possible, you actually need more cable just to get to the far-side main speaker, too.

Taking everything into account, I'm still very pleased with the speakers and it is important to note that none of my complaints actually deal with the overall sound quality of the system (although I still think the center channel should be upgraded). I'll give 4 stars for both the Value and Overall ratings.

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Sony 5 CD changer
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None

Everything

These speakers are ridiculously overpriced, use the cheapest materials, and have flimsy sound. They use paper cones, have limited frequency response (why do you think they don't post the frequency response?), and rely on market hype. Every other speaker in it's price range sound infinitly better.

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B&W, Polk, NHT,

small size

inaccurate highs, poor lower midrange, "bass module" was very poor.

Wow, this was a mismatch. I took home both systems to get past all of the hype both pro and con. I tried the Bose system first and thought it was loud, but sort of thin. Once I plugged in the Energy system, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The Take 5s were a whole league above Bose. Music and voices are far more full and natural. The bass sounded rumbly through the Bose base module, but the base was deaper, louder, "cleaner", and had *far* more texture with the 8" Energy powered subwoofer. Predator seemed to almost overload the Bose setup, but I nearly jumped out of my seat when I played the machine gun scene with the Take 5s.

The Energys are a little bigger than the cubes, but my wife thought they were "cute". Both systems were $600. I took the Bose system back, but no one is getting the Take 5 out of my family room. When I went to pay the balance on the Take 5s, I got the usual sales hype about how "no one who takes both systems home brings the Take 5 back". That might be a stretch because people have different tastes, but it was an easy decision for me. If the Energys cost $600, the Bose system would have to be priced less than $400 to even get my attention.

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Energy Take 5

Volume off.

Volume on.

I originally posted this to the Acoustiturd 5 board,
but these Acoustiturds are all the same:

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.

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