bose acoustimass 10

[Carl567iw]

Just listened to these spekers in local shop today and thought they sounded excellent especially for their size,but im pretty much a newbie and was just looking for some general advice/opinions on these speakers.Its a small room I am going to be using so I thought these would be a good option.

Many thanks
Carl

[jasmit]

When you listened to them, how large was the room and how were they mounted? If you listened to them at one of those mini set-ups at the end of an aisle in a big box store, they probably didn't sound too bad. Take those same speakers and put them in any decent size room and they simply cannot put out good sound across a broad frequency response. Among those who know speakers well, they are viewed as not well made and very overpriced. Also, I think that any speaker company which refuses to publish the specifications, i.e., sensitivity, frequency response, etc., of their speakers should be suspect.

I think, Carl, that if you just do a search on this and other audio fora, you'll find that Bose speakers are not highly thought of by many. They seem to be fairly popular among the masses, largely due to Bose's aggressive and clever marketing. If many of those same people took the time to do some research and listen to other speakers, they might have some reservations about Bose.

Read the contents of the following link in its entirety for one opinon: Bose

Better yet, go back and listen to the Bose speakers again; then immediately go to a couple of good audio stores and listen to as many speakers as you can. Then form your own opinion.

BTW, welcome to the forum!

[JohnMichael]

Welcome to the forum. One thing I learned early on is the speaker that was the most exciting and called attention to itself a lot of times ended up being the most colored and tiresome. As jasmit said listen to the Bose and go directly to another audio store while the memory of the sound is fresh in your mind. Also make sure you bring music with which you are familiar. You need to listen to the same music on the different speakers to really know which you prefer. If a dealer will only let you listen to his music be suspicious. Good luck and happy shopping.

[jrflanne]

As a former owner of AM-10's I can tell you that you will tire of them. They are pretty cool and small, fitting well in a small apartment. However, they are extremely expensive for what you are getting, and they have many flaws when it comes to music. After short listening periods, they just GRIND on you (i.e. very fatiguing). They do work OK for movies in an apartment setting (read, not too loud). I'm sure the folks here can help to direct you something of higher quality. Personally, I like PSB's and I think you get a lot of quality for the money.

[N. Abstentia]

Welcome to the forum. Bose sucks. Carry on.

[paul_pci]

Welcome to the forum. Bose sucks. Carry on.

What he said.

[davidb]

The other day as we were remodelling our soundroom at work (Circuit City) I was taking down a Bose AM15 Series II system off of our walls, and one of the little "Jewelcube" speakers fell as soon as I started to loosen the screw. This was, of course, the fault of myself and the mount, not the speaker. Anyway, the thing fell a couple of feet, hit a step on my ladder, and then fell another 5 feet or so to the carpeted floor. Thing was SHOT. The two halves seperated from each other, the top half was cracked open, and I got a rare look inside of a Bose speaker. In short, I would guess that the speaker cost abourt $5-10 to make. Thin plastic cabinet, cheap driver, and (the part I didn't see coming) stuffed with synthetic wool. It looked like somebody down at Bose got into a pillowfight (with cheap, uncomfortable pillows) and hid the evidence in the speaker. If that doesn't kill any leftover notions of buying the Bose system for you, know this- my store has 5 open box Bose products right now, two 321's and three AM15's. Two of them are there just for being out of program, two were defective, and one was returned when the customer got it home, listened to it, and realized he'd spent $1300 on crap against my advice.

Speaking of the soundroom remodel - This is not what you expect to see at a "big box" CC/BB type store. Six seperate surround sound systems, three sat/sub, three full sized. Three Onkyo, three Harman. Three Infinity, two Polk Audio, one Bose.
In order of expense (whole system):
1. AVR635, Infinity Beta 50 FL/R, Beta C250 center, Beta 20 SL/R, OWS1 SBL/R, PS8 (X2) subs
2. TXSR702, Polk Monitor 70 FL/R, CS1 center, Monitor 40 SL/R, Monitor 30 SBL/R, SW12 sub
3/4. TXSR602, Bose AM10 Series III
3/4. AVR235, Infinity Primus 250 FL/R, Primus C250 center, Primus 150 SL/R, not sure which sub it's hooked to now, previously a Velodyne model we no longer carry.
5. TXSR503, Infinity TSS750 plus two additional sats for SBL/R
6. AVR135, Polk RM6800

All systems are hooked up directly from recievers to speakers, with no crappy selector switches involved. Wires are terminated with banana plugs. An Onkyo DVCP702 and an HK DVD22 supply sound to all recivers via digital outputs. Display duties are handled (beautifully, I might add) by a Pioneer PDP5050HD (50" HD plasma - for the record, the only plasma that has ever made me wish I owned it). Said TV is wallmounted on an Omnimount tiltmount over a red velvet curtain in such a way that it looks like the TV is floating there without touching anything. Also connected to the TV and surround sound systems are an Xbox (with Need for Speed II) and a computer (via DVI to HDMI, with Half Life 2 installed and outputting discrete 7.1 channel sound through multichannel analog).

Four of my managers and myself did it in one night. The Bose system, of course, is destroyed by the rest of them, whether you take price into consideration or not.

[Florian]

I have to put some + points towards the BOSE system. It is easy to setup, easy to place and has a good wall mounting mechanism. The sound is not exactly worse than those cheap speakers you find at Circuit City or Best Buy and the Good Guys. In general people just dont like BOSE since they are overprized and overhyped. But i could tell you the margin on B&W speakers and then youd see that they make just as much money on their speakers as BOSE. The complete systems come with their own decoders onboard and cd-changers. If you buy a decent receiver, dvd-player, speaker cables, interconnect, 6 speakers etc.. your not too far away from the BOSE system price. I am not saying they sound great, god knows i wouldnt have spends 10th of thousands on my current system if BOSE was the end but for someone who occasionally listens to some tunes and watches movies with the kids and has a critical wife, the system aint all that bad.

-Flo

[N. Abstentia]

I can see what Florian is saying, the Bose system is going to sound somewhat similar to one of those systems that cost $199 for everything. Problem is the Bose system is $1500!!

[Timn8ter]

No 2" driver in a satellite is going to be able to go low enough to blend well with a bass unit. The bass unit is crossed too high resulting in a muddled lower mid-range and directionality from the sub rather than the satellites. Unless you absolutely must have "mini" speakers avoid them all, regardless of brand.
http://www.alegriaaudio.com

[Florian]

Well i dont think that we are discussing the sound quality of these systems. All is relative and those so called fullrange systems from mainstream companys are hardly fullrange or present a good even frequency response either. And a 1" dome tweeter with a 8" midrange/bass driver will be anything but clear :-) They are definetly overprized, but they have a high WAF and have many options and a good warranty support.

-Flo

[N. Abstentia]

Yeah but anybody who has to have permission from the wife just to buy speakers does not deserve 'real' speakers in the first place

[thekid]

I would be wary of the Brand Bashers but as an owner of some Bose speakers I can say if you want to go that route you can build (in my opinion) a Bose system (subwoofer will have to be bought separately) for less than their packages and I don't think you will see a big drop off in performance. Some of the other comments here make sense-listen to as many different speakers as you can in the same/similar environments and judge for yourself. Most sales people have their own agendas (i.e commision structures-incentives-personal preferences) so be careful there. Make your decision based on what you like and then cost won't be such a concern. Good Luck on your new buying adventure!

[Yonettes]

Food for thought:

I've heard that Bose products are on the lower end as far as cost to build. They are definately a lifesyle product, delivering marginal sound at best. If you think about it, one pays alot of money for a product that costs very little to build, which means the following:

If a producer of a product wishes to make more money, he has to take it from either research and development, product materials, or marketing. Everyone knows that Bose has a large engineering department, and their marketing is probably one of the best models in the world. (Anyone who says advertising doesn't work, look at Bose.) So that leaves the least amount of money one spends for Bose going to product materials. NOT GOOD!!!

Bose is very good at attaching postive qualities to negative attributes (a list too large to mention unless anyone is interested), and one should think about their advocates. When a company chooses Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh as its two largest advocates - you should think about that...One guy is in his eighties, and his hearing probably suffers, and Limbaugh LOST his hearing...(clearing proving that sound is NOT the key selling factor...it's the cool factor - Small product, BIG albiet inacurate sound)

Also, when you listen to Bose in a reatail environment consider the following...It never sits in close proximity to ANYTHING ELSE. This is mandate from Bose corporate. They don't want you to compare it directly to its competitors. It would lose nearly every time.

Bottom line : If you like it - Buy it...But there are products twice as good for the same or less money.

[thekid]

Food for thought???

Sounds like leftovers....Same criticisms of Bose that have been out there for years. If there business model was as described above you have to wonder why others in the business would'nt have copied it. I guess there are alot of companies in the audio business for purely altruistic reasons....

But you are right about the bottom line......If you like it- Buy it!!
Don't get hung on brand names or criticism based on perceptions/biases of certain brands