Mittman

I am still looking to upgrade the audio half of my home theater, and I wandered into a Bose store yesterday.

I know 99% of you hate Bose, but I was bored, and I wanted to demo their product. The Lifestyle all in one systems ($1,999-$3,999) seemed pretty impressive, though overpriced. The one feature I really did like was the Auto Calibration one. They placed the speakers into small bookcases to distort the sound, and sure enough, the auto calibration fixed the problem when it was turned on. They even had an array in a awkward setup (angled walls, glass and drywall, and not much space to work with) and the system sounded pretty good. I must say that living in an apartment, where my living room floorplan is far from ideal, this feature could prove useful.

However, I know that a big chunk of my $ is going to marketing. Does anyone have the Lifestyle system, and is it worth it for the ADAPTiQ technology? Or can someone point me in another direction to better equipment for less $?

Sdallnct

Some of the H/K receivers have a self set up feature, but I'm not sure you can't do pretty much the same thing with a $40 audio meter from RS...

VR 340
7 x 55W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver
(All channels operating at full power)

Tune up your room; no tools required. Thanks to EzSet/EQ™, the AVR 340 not only establishes all system speaker parameters, it measures how the speakers "sound" in your room and equalizes their output to compensate for any room-based acoustic situation. Add a wide range of convenience features such as video cross conversion, component output for simplified connectivity, A-BUS/READY® multiroom capability, and compatibility with The Bridge™, and you’ll be enjoying movies and music quicker than ever

Brian Shannon

I disagree.

I dislike the way Bose (or any other company for that matter) tries to disguise their product specifications, restrict the manner in which true comparisons against other products can be done and generally try to "market" their product by inventing new words to describe what it does.

If you like it buy it. Of course it sounded good in their demo area. What was it being compared to? What other speakers have you listened to?

Yes but that will require you to actually go and listen to other speakers and make valid comparisons. What is your budget for the audio portion and what do you need to get?

BobDole42

I agree with what Brian said, but would add that Bose is, IMO, alone in the egregiousness of its deceptive marketing and overpricing. Bose conceals its specs, mandates that stores place the Bose demonstration areas away from all other gear and relies on marketing to obfuscate and conceal the fact that it is selling, at best, entry level gear for outrageous prices. At ANY price range, almost any decent system (receiver + speakers) will kick the crap out of a Bose system. Hell, a $500 receiver (HD, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, etc.) paired with a $1000 Paradigm, NHT, etc. speaker system will be considerably better than the $4000 Lifestyle system. If you have $2000-$4000 to spend, find a local high-fi shop and check out some Paradigm and NHT speakers.

XavierMike

I agree with Bob on this one. You should steer clear of Bose. Pardigm are great, so are NHT, and I love my Infinity's.

Matt.train

I too would agree with Bob, but would add that I love my Energy speakers.

drmoze

Many sub-$500 receivers will equalize the speakers. You can't do this with an audio meter, though. That only lets you balance sound levels. The self-balancing receivers also equalize the spectrum, which does make a difference. I have 4 identical NHTs in the corners and they sound noticeably different with a white noise balance signal fed to each.

Thumbs down to Bose on many levels. In addition to the negative and true comments above, you may notice (if you check) that their "bass module" is NOT a subwoofer. And it's a real problem acoustically. It's not just a question of how low it goes, but how *high* it does. The trendy and spiffy small bose speakers means that have no bass response at all. So the bass module goes up to 250+ hz. And it is important for subs to NOT reproduce frequencies above about 100 hz (standard crossover is around 80-85 hz for most ht receivers or systems). Why? because higher frequencies are *directional* and if they are produced by a sub, you lose the soundstage and muddy up the imaging. You can't tell where lower frequencies are coming from so it doesn't matter that it's not coming from the sub insted of the main speakers (or center, or surrounds). Bose ignores this basic acoustical fact/rule of thumb to keep their speakers tiny.

mrhan

More insightful info for the OP on Bose:

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

mikeford

I've been to a time share condo presentation as well as a Bose, and I don't know which was worse. Actually very similar come to think of it.