Bose AM10III-BK Home Theater Speaker System Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a former BOSE Acustimass 10 owner. When i got into Home theater, I was a newbie and pretty much bought into the marketing power of BOSE. They had the nice little Demonstration stands at Best Buy and at Fry's Electronics, they have the Soundroom that is tweaked to make the Bose sound incredible. Problem is, that room costs hundreds of thousands of dollars of technology to make the BOSE Accoutimass speakers sound that good. I don't have $$$,$$$.$$ to spend on a room. You need to see the EQ equiptment in that room.
Safe to say, I was slightly dissappointed then these speakers did not sound as good in my house as in the store. Still un-deterred, I figured it was my room (of course, it can't be as good as THAT sound room) and they still sound better then some other satellites speakers (though not by much) is why i justifying paying a much higher price.
Little unknown fact: These little cubes cost BOSE about $35.00 to make each double cube speaker. (5x35 = 175.00 plus probably 75 for the bassmodule = $250. This means on a $1000.00 system,the retailer and BOSE is pocketing $750.00 of your dollars)
You can buy replacement drivers on the web for about $35.00 per pair. They are paper cones and plastic casing. http://layneaudio.hypermart.net/specials.htm
The most important thing is, if you have a decent A/V Receiver, you should be able to select "Source Direct" which means the Reciever acts as a pass through, adding no EQ to the music, and just supplies power to the speakers. When playing anything in "Source Direct" mode, these BOSE speakers were the same as a cheap clock radio or the TV speakers. Actually, the TV speakers on my Sony Vega was better. Only if you use EQ, like Jazz Club, or Stereo or something like that did the speakers a little better. This is for music.
I am glad for 1 thing. I was not duped into getting a Bose Lifestyle system. My AVR and DVD separates are much better then the lifestyle box. I mean.. come on BOSE, can't you put a Progressive Scan DVD player in it?
For HT, the accoustimass is slightly better. since they do play squeakly noises good, you are able to get pretty good glass breaking sounds. This is because BOSE has almost no lower midrange sounds to speak of. This way, the sqeaky highs are of course going to sound more defined. The Bass module is way underpowered. You will never get the feel like a real subwoofer. Thats a little dissappointing with the movies and no "boom" effect during explosions. Almost everyone who keeps the AM system will get 1 or 2 subwoofers. (250 to 500 a piece). At that point, you are already almost in 1500.00 area. That puts you direct against some "reference" lines of Klipsch and Polk Audio.
Still, i was not so upset to return the system. I pretty much decided that all speaker systems sound good at the store, but will lose something at the house. It wasn't until recently when I started to learn more about speakers like Polk Audio and Klipsch did I realize what I was missing out on. I bought a new speaker system and sold this BOSE system on EBAY. I am happy that BOSE has good re-sell value due to their extensive marketing. I have a new klipsch system which forced me to re-listen to every music CD that I had to see what i have been missing all this time. Its truly incredible. I had to re-watch my movies on DVD and they all seem more alive and exciting. Much more like the theater. To say the least, if you only listen to BOSE or the stuff at Best Buy, you have little to compare with. The better audio stuff is only a few dollars more, are more flexible and deliver superior performance for the dollar. I guess BOSE will sound better then those cheap 200.00 systems, but only marginally better. I bought a cheap kenwood 206 system for my mother. It under $250.00 and it was very comparable to this Bose system for $999.99 and it came with a A/V Receiver!!! What are you paying for? I guess the rights to those 4 letters... B-O-S-E. For my money... BOSE is not much different from WOES.

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