BOSE Acoustimass 10 Series IV Home Entertainment Speaker System
 MSRP: $999 (check price) If you called up ten of your best friends and asked them to name a couple of speaker companies, nine times out of ten you would hear BOSE mentioned. Why is this? Is it a clever marketing campaign or are they actually a great speaker innovator? To figure this out we need to start at the beginning. Dr. Amar G. Bose founded Bose Corporation in 1964. At the time he was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). While a grad student in the 1950's, Dr. Bose purchased a new stereo system. He was disappointed to find that speakers with technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance. He started BOSE and built an empire on innovations in the audio industry. Through the years almost everyone has either owned BOSE speakers or experienced the sound whether it was in your own home, your neighbor's entertainment room or at a BOSE demonstration. With the long history of BOSE, it's easy to see why the name is so recognizable and widely marketed. They have been around for years and are sold in many electronics stores. You can't fault BOSE for delivering what they believe is a great product for a good price. Plus, they still come out with new innovations every year. Due to my familiarity with BOSE, I went back to them for my next entertainment system. For the last twenty years I have enjoyed the 901 and 301 series. I was looking for a reasonably priced system for my bedroom. The BOSE system is a little more expensive than some other systems in the same capability range, but I had the confidence it would handle my needs for this project. Once I unpacked the speakers and set them up with the stands, it took a couple of minutes to follow the directions and set up the wiring. The set up process went along without any major hiccups. Getting the right wires to the right speakers was a bit confusing since the wires are all incorporated into one cord that plugs into the Acoustimass module. I was powering the BOSE Acoustimass 10 Home Entertainment System with an Onkyo TX-SR504 receiver. The Acoustimass 10 speaker system features a powered Acoustimass module that fires two downward facing 5 1/4" drivers. You can put the module virtually anywhere in the room, but I would recommend placing it in the front facing the listener about a foot away from the wall. After moving the module around the room, I found this was the best placement. The five 6" speaker arrays can be placed in a standard 5.1 system layout. I would recommend separating the front stage at least eight feet apart. When I placed them any closer I found that the system didn't sound as good. The speaker arrays are very small, can be hidden anywhere and don't take up a lot of room. I attached the arrays to the BOSE stands for the front and rear sets. They are nice simple stands that run the wire down the back in a groove cut into the metal. When I powered the speakers up it was very apparent that the speakers have their limitations. After a couple of weeks and plenty of tuning the system, I believe I optimized their sound in my room. But the highs weren't as high as you would like them to be -- I guess that is what happens when you don't have a tweeter. The midrange was mostly not there, and the lack of a true subwoofer really hurt the whole system. But you really can't expect the world from such a small package. These speakers also need a decent amount of power to sound their best. If they are underpowered they will not sound as good as with a receiver with 75 watts or more per channel. They delivered a great performance for my spouse and friends. For those that don't demand audiophile speakers these definitely fit the bill. They are able to fit in small spaces and still fill the room with sound. As with any major purchase, you have to find the speakers that work for your needs, budget, space and listening pleasure. You also need to listen to the speakers to see what best fits you. Take them home, set them up in your house, and test them out. If they aren't what you are looking for, return them and find some that are going to fit your needs and sound great in your room. Some Audio/Video stores even offer trade ups within a year. You can bring the speakers back and buy new ones usually at the next level or two up - and just pay the difference. Chris Johnson Contributing Writer Editorial Disclosure: BOSE advertised on eCoustics.com from 11/1/04 - 12/31/04. BOSE is not a current advertiser, and has not planned any future advertising as of the publication date. |
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     New member Username: DamncrappyplasmaPost Number: 6 Registered: Jul-06 |
Hi Chris, Let me get this straight: You supposedly paid $1000 to own speakers with 'limitations', 'highs that weren't as high' as you would like them to be', 'midrange that was mostly not there' and a'lack of a true subwoofer' that 'really hurt the system'? Based on your statements I would have to say that you are either a fool or in Bose's pocket. You then go on to contradict yourself by concluding that the system gave 'a great performance' leading me to believe further that your suspiciously, middle-of-the-road review is total BS. Human flatulence can fit into a small space and can fill the room with sound too. |
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New member Username: LolyPost Number: 5 Registered: Oct-06 |
OK, we are in the market looking for Sorround Sound Theater System for our our HDTV, dvd, cd etc. of course my husband is a Bose and Sony man, because he likes the crisp sound, we saw the Bose Lifestyle Series in Sams this weekend and had it almost to the cash register but changed out minds to do some research first before buying, and glad we did now that i read the forums in here, for some reason everyone is not very king on Bose systems. Our budget is somewhere around $600 to $800, but we want something that we are going to be happy with, with the 4 small speakers sorround sound, the roomm it will be going in is not a very large room, but we want something that we are not going to regret later on, as we want to be able to attach all the other components to it, and maybe later on add more speakers. I am asking for help deciding as we don't know much about electronics, so we need help in which would be a great sounding system, the make or model, but something that would sound great like the Bose or better than the clean sound of the Bose. Any help or information you can give me would be greatly appreciated. dgonzalez8@cfl.rr.com......Tks |
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New member Username: EinsteinjbPhiladelphia, PA USA Post Number: 3 Registered: Sep-06 |
L, you made a very smart decision when you held off on buying that thing in order to research first. You need to visit www.avsforum.com or www.audioholics.com and search those forums for the word "bose". Or just google "bose sucks" and see what you find. It won't take you long to get an education and realize that you just saved yourself from tossing that money in the can. Then after you've crossed Bose off your shopping list for marketing hugely overpriced garbage, spend some time on the forums looking into inexpensive receivers and small speaker packages, if that's the form factor you're looking for. For the same money or less than you'll spend on ANY Bose product you will easily find many far better performing products. (Plus you'll get mostly unbiased opinions on the forums rather than getting sold on whatever the salesman can make the most money on!) |
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New member Username: MrhookupBaltimore, Maryland USA Post Number: 4 Registered: Nov-06 |
Wow, is there anything that I could say negative about Bose that hasn't already been said? I'll give it a shot. The people that have positive things to say about Bose, seem to resent it, yet they don't have anything great to say about Bose, either. Have you ever seen whats inside these Speakers? Lets start with the cubes. They have a $0.50 paper cone tweeter (If you want to call it a tweeter).No crossover network, no bracing. Thats it. Look inside the "Subwoofer" Not really a Subwoofer since by definition a Sub goes down below 35 hz. Any other Sub use 5 1/4" paper cone drivers? Nope. No bracing or crossover in there to speak of. So you like a proprietary system? (Doesn't work well with other brands of anything). Any other system connects the 5 speakers to the Subwoofer instead of to the Receiver? None. Worse yet they use a propriatary din connector. You can't use ordinary speaker wire (they want you to buy their exhorbitant speaker wire extenders. ( the the wires go from being too short to too long.) How about their Receivers? They combine the Receiver with their obsolete DVD player or changer. Same philosophy as a DVD/ VCR Combo. Bad idea & disposable when something breaks. Other manufacturers use Digital optical & digital coax cables. Bose has a better idea: ordinary RCA digital connections. The Bose receiver really looks like a Fisher Price item. Compare the inputs/ Outputs (rear panel) to the rear panel of a real Receiver. A joke, right? Ever go to a Bose store and sit thru their demo? Its a staged fraud & reported many times all over the internet. Bose tactics are a fraud. They like to sue everybody. They sued Consumer Reports Magazine years ago when CR had nothing good to say about the AccoustimEss system. They sued them and they lost. Later they sued Cedia saying Bose owned the name "Lifestyle" They lost that case also. How dare they bite the hand that feeds them? Cedia should have thrown them out. Bose is not stupid, however. They are a very successful Marketing Company. They are also an experienced advertiser. They have convinced the "silent majority" that this crap is actually very good stuff. They believe it. Somehow I don't believe that cubes (no matter how small) sticking out on the wall and calls attention to themselves looks good. I believe that In Wall or In ceiling speakers look & sound better. The Bose 3-2-1-0 system sounds lousy. The Yamaha YSP 1000 is a hundred times better if you don't want rear speakers, etc. Ever notice that Bose does not ever provide specs like frequency response? They refuse to give anyone this vital info. (They would be embarrassed if they did.) The frequency is worse then a ride at Hershey Park. No low end, dips & peaks, spotty midrange, everything coming out of the "Sub" but what is supposed to come out. They purposely make their system play loud. (people mistake the loudest system as the best (far from the truth). Their tweeter does a terrible job but they are smart enough to over equalize the system to cover up its deficiencies to some extent. Considering what crap is inside the cheap boxes, this stuff is outragiously expensive. B etter O ff S elling it on E bay. Also, Bose store displays are isolated away from everything else (a Bose requirement). }}} |
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New member Username: KamagongManila Philippines Post Number: 3 Registered: Aug-07 |
anyone who can help me out with the schematics of bose acoustimass 10 series II |
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New member Username: VluquePost Number: 1 Registered: Feb-09 |
Anyone have the schematic of wiring conection of subwoofer and satelites of Acoustimass 9. user manual. I need help TX |
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Bronze Member Username: RainnaunsequePost Number: 21 Registered: Dec-08 |
no need |
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