I’m tentatively thinking about buying some Bose Acoustimass speakers and I want to get some opinions. All I know at the moment is that their size makes them convenient but I’m not sure if the quality of the sound is any good.
Does anyone know of a good site for stereo/hi-fi gear that might have a review? Or maybe someone has had personal experience with them?
I have the acoustimass 15 (one powered subwoofer, and 5 cube arrays with 200 watt speakers). They sound outstanding. Truly terrific, with one caveat…
The theory is that you can put the subwoofer anywhere since bass is omnidirectional. The reality is that if you are very close to the subwoofer (I put mine behind a chair), you can tell that the bass isn’t coming from the tiny cube speakers. So, I’d buy the acoustimass system if:
You may want to check out epinions.com and do a search on the acoustimass system you are interested in. Here is one link: http://www.epinions.com/search.html?search=bose+acoustimass&rollover=1
Disclaimer: I have no personal experience of Bose products. This is just what I have gleaned online.
Bose in general has a poor rep amongst ‘true’ audiophiles. General consensus being that Bose are better at marketing than building speakers.
Reviews of almost all things audio can be found at audioreview.com and specifically Acoustimass 15 here
Bose FAQ is fairly enlightening on the background to the pro/anti Bose bunfight, though contains little factual info on Bose products and leans very much towards the anti- camp.
I used to repair them, or try to anyway. I hated working on the subwoofer unit because you basically have to pry it apart with a crow bar, sometimes damaging the enclosure. The internal design makes it a royal pain in the ass to work on. The tweeters frequently came back in to service multiple times. I don’t know if my customers were overdriving them or if the replacement parts from Bose were just junk but even with 100% all new parts, the damn things just didn’t want to stay fixed.
My customers told me that they sounded great, but pray to god that they’ll never need to be serviced.
Audioreview.com and epinions.com are already mentioned: they’re great sites. The first is the audiophile viewpoint, and the second is the avergage consumer (if there is such a thing) viewpoint.
Personally, I think a horny Cape Buffalo with pneumonia produces a more pleasing sound than any Bose speaker. But then, I suppose I’m one of them “audiophiles” 
I have them too.
I personally do think they sound great. However the “subwoofer” is really more of a base module than a true subwoofer.
I use a 12 in. sub with my system. Adjusting the crossover frequency will help delocalize the very low frequencies and add extra base for movie soundtracks.
Also, my wife likes them because they don’t take up our whole living room.
Get yourself 5 NHT Superzeroes and a decent subwoofer.
You can thank me later 
Thanks for the information everybody.
But, I can’t believe that opinion on these things is so polarised. People either love or hate Bose. Does anybody know why that is? It seems strange that audiophiles and “non-audiophiles” could listen to the same thing and hear something so completely different.
I guess I’ll have to listen and compare for myself. As I have a small apartment that I don’t want to clutter up I really want to get something small but good. Unfortunately I don’t know of any other brands that sell similar small type speakers. (Except NHT Superzeroes. Thanks frogstein! I’ll check them out :)) Can anybody recommend something I should compare the Bose with?
And thanks again for all the advice - it’s very much appreciated.
I’d say that the polarity is due to Bose actually being the best speakers sold in a standard Best Buy/Circuit City kind of store. A non-audiophile goes there to test-listen to speakers, and the Bose is obviously the best. And it’s pricey, which subconciously reinforces the feeling of the audio quality.
In constrast, an audiophile will go to a specialized home audio store, where many of the speakers cost more EACH than a whole Bose Acoustimass set. The Bose might be the lowest quality set sold there. The important detail is that it isn’t the cheapest one. So an audiophile will see the Bose as a mediocre system that isn’t even the best buy for the money. So you get two completely different views of the same speakers.
BTW, the Energy Take-5 system is pretty small, and will run around $800. Not as small as the Bose perhaps, but much nicer.
I’m with you, brother. Bose sucks.
How typically modest. Most people probably don’t know Coldfire lives where the worlds finest loudspeakers are made. Go ahead Coldie. Tell them.
And I second frogstein’s suggestion on NHT superzeros with the subwoofer of your choice. At $125 each MSRP, they are a steal. And they sound incredibly beautiful. I bought my mom a pair.
Start with two and a sub, and add a 3rd later for center channel. When you get a 4th, put it and the 3rd one in the rear for surround. And get a 5th one last to do center channel duty again.
The FAQ referenced earlier is very thorough in its critique of Bose products.
To summarize though, Bose speakers rely on a lot of little tricks that still don’t make up for their lack of performance.
With the acoustimass series, each little set of cubes consists of a pair of tiny plastic 2.5" drivers that can be independantly aimed.
Drivers this small have big problems reproducing frequencies below about 300Hz. And they certainly won’t go much higher than about 10kHz before severe conebreakup (distortion) starts to happen.
On the plus side, with 10 speakers in a (5/1 sat/sub setup) making most of the noise, they’re very efficient. They can produce a whole lot of sound. The biggest drawback to having that many elements firing every which way is that it makes for a very confusing and smeared image of the music.
Even if the music (or sound effect for home theater) is discretely coming from a single channel, it’s hard to localize the source, simply from having the two drivers aimed in different directions. And it very quickly gets worse as sounds on the recording are mixed from left to right.
And the subwoofer. They are usually little 6" or 8" drivers in bandpass boxes. They don’t extend very far into the “bottom octave” 20-40Hz region, so the label “subwoofer” is used pretty loosely. But they can be built quite easily so they produce a very large response peak centered around 60Hz to give the impression they’re producing a good bit of bass.
A really good example of what 60Hz sounds like is Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. Pretty much the whole thing was mastered with the 60Hz equalizer slider maxxed out. It gives a good impression of bass, but the bass really isn’t there. Similar to a small man walking around with his chest puffed out. On first glance, he looks bigger and maybe more intimidating, but he doesn’t fool you for long. Sooner or later he lets out his breath.
And the (non)directionality of bass is another selling point they push really hard, implying that you can hide the little subwoofer under potted plants on the end table or something, and nobody will figure how all the little speakers all around can make so much bass. It’s true that very low bass is difficult to localize, but this effect happens at about 60Hz and down in my system. Playing with the crossover between my sub and the mains, at 72Hz I can distinctly hear the subwoofer, but down at 60Hz it makes a seamless transition. However; it’s true that humans don’t typically pick up sound localization cues from such low frequencies, and Bose cites this IIRC. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t hear where it’s coming from.
Now remember, the little Bose modules are only good down to around 250Hz, so the "sub"woofer has to take over from that point downward. My only theory, is that the rest of the system does such a fabulous job of warping the image and making the rest of the sound so confusing, you’re not likely to complain about a couple octaves near the low end.
Just my opinion.
Thanks for asking.
Another fine resource for the budget minded is http://www.goodsound.com - concise, thorough list of equipment for anyone spending from $600 to a few grand on a system ( which in my biased opinion is as much a system as most folks need ). They too, are not Bose fans.
Nor am I. I don’t hate Bose. But relative to quality they are badly overpriced IMHO.
And I’ll also agree with the folks praising the NHT’s. Nice little bookshelf units. But there are other good choices as well, many of them listed by goodsound. Try their advice on previewing equipment - it’s sound. Especially as different brands of speakers most definitely have different sounds. And it isn’t always related to quality - I’m fond of some the B&W’s because they tend to sound “warm”. Others can’t stand them for the same reason. Some folks love he MiniMonitors as bookshelf speakers becauser of the strong bass. But non-rockers might find them too “boomy”. etc. Shop around - it’s an expensive investment. Might as well get what you like .
The only Dutch speaker brand I can think of is BNS, which is indeed pretty good (too “warm” for my taste though). Or are there more manufacturers here that I’m unaware of?
I have Tannoy Mercury M3’s, myself (built in Scotland).
Er…I realize I was talking about the raw drivers that speaker manufacturers use. Vifa, Skanning, Peerless, Dynaudio (they make their own), Scan Speak and others.
Sorry for the slight confusion.
Thanks again all, and thanks for the technical info about Bose, honkytonkwillie. I will be more aware of what to listen for now. BTW, are you in the industry , or are you just a well informed enthusiast?
People seem to rave about the Superzeros on just about every site I looked at. For the price, they almost seem too good to be true. There aren’t many dealers around here that stock them but it seems like it is worth tracking them down for a listen.
I’m going to audition a few brands on the weekend. Bose, NHT, Gallo, and anything else I can find.
Of course, if anyone has any more info/advice/recommendations, you can keep them coming.
Every time I listen to the Superzeroes I’m blown away by how good they sound…I don’t own any at them moment, but when I set up my formal home theater I will likely use them or the Superones (which can be used without a sub - not if you need really deep bass, but good for most music listening).
From what I hear on the radio, Paul Harvey likes them.
And now you know…
The Rest of the Story
I have a Bose Lifestyle 30 system, and happen to like it a lot. So, if the only question is, do we who HAVE Bose systems like them, I can give mine a ringing endorsement.
I am NOT, mind you, a serious audiophile- I know serious audiophiles (the type of nuts who’d gladly shell out a few grand for a single phonograph needle) who insist my system is crap, and that theirs (a lot more expensive) are infinitely better.
Having heard some such systems, I can only say that, while they are superior to Bose in SOME ways when used to play SOME movies or albums, none struck me as worth the extra money. That’s a matter of individual preference, obviously.
No matter what system you choose, it stands to reason that something better (though more expensive) exists or WILL exist in the near future. At some point, you have to ask whether what you’ve chosen is good enough for your purposes. If it is, screw the purists!
I used to spend an enormous percentage of my income on hifi gear. (I had Klipschorns in my LR and Magnepans in my BR fer Chrissakes:))
I now have a puny Wave radio CD but it fills my BR extremely well and I’m happy with it. I am less interested with having to reinforce my floor to eliminate vibrations from my phonograph (in another room!), than good clean sound in an attractive package.
I also got it for free so thats a huge bonus.
When I get a “real” stereo again, I will look at the Bose systems, but may end up with another set of components
I have the Bose little cube speakers with the unpowered subwoofer. I like them and think they sound great.
You should try not to pay much attention to audiophiles. They will try to sell you $20 per foot tripple braided speaker cable despite the fact that they cannot tell the difference between that and cheap lamp cord cable in a double blind listening test.
A slight hijack.
I went into the Bang Olafuson (sp ?) store to see what they had. They had 5 wires going to the speakers. I asked the sales guy what the extra 3 did and was basically told they did stuff that other stereos don’t have because they are cheap and not what a man of true quality would get.
It’s Bang & Olufsen, and any serious audiophile will tell you that it’s the biggest scam ever. It just looks good. Most of the interior components are cheap-ass Philips things (Philips is a major shareholder). I can understand someone buying a B&O TV (because they look good, and Philips tubes ARE good), but anyone who pays USD 3000 for a B&O stereo set is out of his mind, and deserves to be ripped off. B&O sounds no better than your average off-the-rack USD 300 Sony mini set.