size,appearance

bass module

attractive, compact, easy to hang with discrete brackets, good sound in a small room, disappointing bass, unpretentious.

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n/a

I would only recommend these speakers for those individuals only worried about the cosmetic appeal of speakers. The performance does not warrant the price. Bass is severly lacking and a powered sub must really be added to give it worthwhile movie sound. And if you are one to play it loud, please avoid because they are extremely bright, I mean ear piercing at higher volumes. Sure they look nice but that is about all they have going for them. Use your money towards some nice bookshelf speakers and build up your system over time. Very rarely do you get good preformance from a complete solution setup, some thing is usually skrimped upon, in this case midranges and highs are limited and bass is lacking. Remember a name is just that and nothing else. 1 1/2 stars for cosmetc apperance and for the easy setup.

Size, design, good sound (I didn't say excellent)

Hgh end is 'bright' at high volume levels, not enough low end bass. A bit pricey.

I agree with the most of the positive reviews for this product. These speakers do a fine job for home theater purposes. They are clear and have good separation. If you are in an average size room they sound fine. They do however lack in the low end. I 'fixed' this by adding a 120 watt powered sub. Also, the high end is bright when you crank it up. But for average listening levels they sound fine. I do agree with another review on this page that they are better suited for watching movies, rather than music. When I want to listen to a music CD or vinyl, I use another system that utilizes traditional tower speakers. I know a lot of 'audiophiles' bash Bose in general, but the AM6 system is a pretty well rounded package. If you own a set already try adding a powered sub to the mix, you will be impressed.

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Lots of mid-priced speakers throughout the years, EPI, JBL, Advent, Marantz (original)

Small size

To many to list

All of the guys that give these things good reviews obviously don't know what a good stereo sounds like. Why would anyone want to buy an overpriced piece of sh*t that uses paper cones for the drivers, plastic for the enclosures, and won't even play above 15hz?

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None are this terrible

Size...ability to overcome spouse objection to Home theater especially if mounted high on white wall and if white in color.

Price

Let the snobs hoot, but for the size these guys offer great performance for a home theater. I know there are other options but none are this unobtrusive. Properly placed, the sub does well if you can keep your kids from filling up the port with Beanie Babies. If you like Rap music, I'd look elsewhere for bass, but I found it more than adequate. Paid $599 on sale for mine, in white.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 100, Bose 301, Bose 501, Bose V-100, Sonus Faber, Time Windows

compact size, good 5.1 imaging, wall mounting, excellent home theater speakers

some directionality of bass, sub location

This is an update to a review I did last year. I see a lot of folks pissed off at lack of bass and poor imaging. Frankly, I just don't see it.

Here's an example. I turned on the first track of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and cranked up my little Technics receiver to about half volume. Then I went upstairs to my bedroom and in a few seconds I hear thump thump thump coming thru the floor. Then I went outside through my living room to my patio. There, I hear it again....thump thump thump. So much for the bass problem.

I moved the CD to track 5, Money, sat in the center of the soundstage, about 8 feet from the center surround speaker, and closed my eyes. I could pick out every instrument on the soundstage, from bass to percussion to each guitar and keyboard and finally the sax. Midrange wasn't colored or muddy, high end wasn't too shrill, bass was not lacking.h

When watching The Matrix on DVD, in the scene where Neo and Trinity attempt to rescue Morpheus with a 50-caliber machine gun and a Bell helicopter...the whole house shook. Bullets were falling all over the place, and I felt like one was going drop right into my lap!

I also checked out Steely Dan's Two Against Nature DVD. Now that was incredible. Excellent test DVD. Trust me on this.

The only problem I still see is that the bass module can provide directionality to bass if it's not placed relatively close to the center of the soundstage. And in some cases, that's not possible. If you can't accommodate this issue, then this system is not for you.

So what's going on here? You'd think after 18 months of this I'd hear something I don't like.

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Klipsch Quintet, Energy Take 5

Well....they didn't break...

Bass production, incomplete sound, PRICE

The price of these below average speakers is absolutely outragous. They simply do not compare to cheaper setups from lesser known companies. I live in a very small one room apartment. I never saw the big deal in having tiny speakers that are hard to see. My Energy Take 5 satelite speakers are set up nicely in the corner. It doesn't make any difference between the two sizes. The Bose setup without the sub sounds like absolute crap. The lower frequency sounds with the sub, often sound like they are coming from the center of the room, when it is supposed to be the right or left. In other words, DON'T BUY THIS!! It is a terrible ripoff. Do yourself a favor and shop around for the Energy Take 5 ($500-600) or a Klipsch Quintet (600-700, shop around.)

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Energy Take 5, Klipsch Quintet,

Size, available in black or white.

Ludicrously overpriced, passive sub, proprietary cabling (out of luck if you want to use better cable), mounts for these things are $30 a pop (you heard it right, $30 for EACH cube).

For a company that prides themselves as being quality engineers making superior products, I find many of their speakers to be short on delivery and always about 100% overpriced. At work (Best Buy), I can't keep a straight face selling anything Bose makes to anymore but the older folks who have sold themselves out to Bose advertising propaganda years ago. Now, for the test:

At first glance, most buyers are turned on (especially those with naggy control-freak wives) by the compact size of the Acoustimass series in general (oh yeah, and they can get them in white!). They look at the price and say "OK, it's expensive, but I'm getting the Bose quality that I've heard so much about." In the speaker demo room, this setup appears to sound great and takes many people by surprise. At this point, I lure customers over to the JBL demo room to hear the similarly-priced NSP-1 set coupled with an optional powered sub. It's then when most of them immediately notice the difference in the bass output, where the JBL set definitely reigns superior (after all, bass is a very important part of home theatre). Some people are still not convinced that they actually like the JBL set better at this point. So, they end up purchasing the Bose AM6-II along with $150 worth of those damn speaker brackets they need.

For argument's sake, I actually took a set of AM6-IIs home myself to try them out for about a week. Here are my observations:

1) Bass leaves tons to be desired. Even the most powerful of receivers can't really produce acceptable bass response out of this set. The 1-way cubes can through out tons of midrange, but that's about all you'll hear; this leads to poor imaging (see below).

2) The cubes sounded much better in the demo room. They have poor imaging when set up in larger rooms (in general, the further away from each other I placed them, the worse they sounded). You can't really notice this before you buy them because the speaker demo room at my store has very tight dimensions to begin with.

3) The JBL NSP-1 set (4 N24s plus an N-Center) matched with a powered sub costs about the same, and produces MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more sound and higher-quality imaging for your money. You're also not hindered by having to stick with the proprietary speaker wiring that plugs into the 5.1 channel inputs on your receiver. The JBL's are larger, but for the vast difference in sound, who the heck cares? I rather have a powered sub with a REAL center channel (you know, one that actually has a TWEETER).

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OK, now this is a little off-topic, but I also really hate Bose's company policies. Prices at resellers HAVE to match Bose's MSRPs (meaning that you'll never be able to get a decent deal on Bose) and they don't allow stores to sell their products as "open items" (meaning that someone returned a product for whatever reason and the store resells them, assuming they work okay, for a discounted price). Sounds like an ego trip to me. What do you guys think?

Similar Products Used:

JBL NSP-1, Yamaha CLS-150

Size and weight, design

passive subwoofer

I purchased the Bose because (as so many others) I have a lack of space. I bought the Bose AM6 after carefull listening at the shop. I knew the reviews weren't that good but I was pleased with the sound I was hearing.

Of course after installing the Bose at my house I noticed the lack of bass out of the subwoofer. I did some experiments with placing the passive subwoofer and the best situation for me was to put in the corner. Still not so much bass sounds.

Luckily my A/V receiver (Pioneer 709RDS) has a lot of setups and I have managed to get a terrific sound (to my ears) for homemovie entertainment.

Thus the Bose has indeed a lack of bass but with a good A/V receiver you can adjust that to a higher level and now I have enough bass to vibrate out of your chair.

Johan (Netherlands).
(I hope my English is good enough to understand)

Similar Products Used:

JVC stereo hifi-system

Size/Invisibility; Sound Separation; Design; Ability to Mount

Power

First I'd like to thank all of the reviews, positive and negative, which willing audio enthusiasts post. This site has been my most essential tool in purchasing - or not.

Also we should note those who realistically make reviews, not based upon angst. We live in a highly technological world - witness this forum, for example. Many lay the blame for a not-necessarily poor product in the lap of the corporate manufacturer. The system exists as it does. We are the consumer of high fidelity equipment - speakers, receivers, players. Every year it gets more complicated and R&D departments make more advances in circuitry so that we get sound that blows us away. It costs money, which costs us money, and someone is making a profit. Boo-hoo. Stop crying. Audiophilism is a luxurious condition. Count yourself lucky. No one is forcing you to buy anything. Work the system. The tools are on your desktop, and you just have to pick the right internet door to "make a deal."

To the speakers:

My friend has the AM5 for his stereo system, not including a video setup. They sound great in his small apartment. They don't take up a lot of room, and it's impressive to mount speakers from above. He chose the Bose wisely for his living situation, and for listening to his CD and vinyl collection. I liked them for these reasons, but I wanted to have a home theater setup in my NYC apt. I found the Bose AM6 online for $148 less than the next best price. I also looked into buying a refurbished set at the Bose factory. Point is, I found them for less than many are complaining about. (Try www.tatumelectronics.com for good deals.) The white ones I bought with matching brackets cannot easily be seen up on the walls, and the cube can be moved left, right, up, and down in increments of 7 1/2 degrees. These are only minor adjustments that at the right setting can produce nice bounce effects. Mine are mounted almost 7.5 feet up. The ceiling is a little short of 9 feet, the room about 19x12. I don't have a lot of furniture, and I have hardwood floors, so the sound stays in the room, bouncing off the walls. The subwoofer rocks in my situation, and it is in a corner. There is no carpet to absorb anything, and only the couch sucks in the sound. It's great because that is where you watch a movie from, surrounded by these waves of sound vibrating around you. Apollo 13 just ended, and I know my downstairs neighbor is either complaining or enjoying the movie himself. My receiver allows me to adjust for small or large speakers, and even on the "large" setting, I get no distortion out of the Boses. For their compactness, I'm in love with the system. The cones don't vibrate when transmitting highly trebled sound, and there is good separation in highs and lows. The system channels nicely, too. I tossed out the bundled cable, and if you call Bose, they'll send you adapters so you can choose your own cable. I used Monster XP. I think it was $70 for 100 feet, but well worth it. Got it in white, also, but it deserves whiter paint. Bose should package the system with these adapters. I bought the wall-mount brackets for $18 each after haggling with the J&R guy who wanted $25. Everything has melded into my walls in triple white. They are unobtrusively decorative. My friends can't believe the sound I get, coupled with my receiver and CD player. Though primarily this is for home theater, I get very good sounds on my music. The subwoofer doesn't disappoint on classical percussion or rap. Jazz sounds fantastic, but only comes out of the front three channels. I am happy with the system according to how it fits into my living space and my life. It sounds impressive, and if you can find it, it looks good.

My System
Receiver: Sony STR-DE835
Speakers: Bose AM6
Wire: Monster XP (Navajo White)
DVD: Panasonic A120U [opt. input; RF converter]
VCR: Mitsubishi HS-U580
CD: JVC XL-FZ258
Turntable: Gemini XL 400II
TV: 27" RCA (biggest weakness)

Similar Products Used:

JBL Powered Subwoofer; Harmon Karden