Rating: 
Summary: Junk System
Review: I bought one from circuit city and hooked up in my home. In Store, it sounded great, but in home it is not really. What I realized is because of the selective clips, it sounded great in stores.In the Bose Outlet Stores, they will show a demo in a soundproof room with proper speaker adjustment. It requires a kind of closed rectangle shape room. In real life, not all the apartments will be having this kind of living room. That is why you wont find any bose stores in town. Many of the remote control functions are missing in the system including Closed Caption, Slow, XX Frame forwarding, eject and etc. All these are there in $35 DVD Player. Overall I dont recommend this system. I had Panasonic scht900, paid about $500. Definately there is diffrence between the panasonic one and bose one, but I dont feel its worth for that money. Dont go for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great System
Review: I heard this system in a store and it sounded great so i brought it home and hooked it up... it still sounded great. U can make a really exaggerated bass or bass that just picks up when it needs to. I went through probably 5 different setups with the speakers and to be honest it totally changed the sound quality. So anyone who gave up on their system and said it sounded bad, should have tried rearranging their speakers a little. all in all, great system
Rating: 
Summary: Really fine product.
Review: I listened to the system before I bought it. The systen is easy to install. For someone like me, who can barely change a lightbulb, I actually ENJOYED the set-up process. Bose makes it idiot proof and entertaining. The sound is just great and it is easy to use. I haven't left my couch in 3 days. If you want a good ststem to play CD's and DVD's and want to watch television and movies in surround sound, this system is a great choice. It wasn't the cheapest product available, but the sound is great and the equipment is so unobstrusive, it is nearly invisible in my family room. No hype, just good sound. Go for it. No regrets here....
Rating:
Summary: Great hype, but missing some features
Review: I picked up the lifestyle 28 system about a year ago, before I knew much, if anything about audio and speakers; I really should have shopped around. This system looked OK in the store, although I was still skeptical, as in the Bose stores, there is no place to try out the systems in quiet, with your own music, as everyone should do when buying speakers. I got home with the system, and set it up; I have to give them credit for one thing-the setup is relatively easy. Unfortunately, to use component video, one needs to use the adapter. I am using the adapter, but the use of component video doesn't help all that much over s-video, as the DVD player is a cheap, non progressive scan player. If you spent the money on a high definition television, as I did, to get progressive scan dvd, one needs to buy an extra dvd player. Also, there is only one video input, and it has to be the same format as the output (i.e. both component, both s-video, etc). Any other system in this price range has multiple video inputs. This means that if you have a vcr, and want to switch from your vcr to the dvd player, you would have to change the bose system to dvd, and change you tv to the bose input. If your tv doesn't have multiple inputs, you would have to either buy an a/v switch, or physically switch the cables. I do give bose credit for including coax digital input for all audio channels, but there is only one toslink optical in. That shouldn't be a huge problem, unless you have lots of external audio components, which most people buying this system will not. One other problem I've encountered is that the bass module is not a subwoofer, just some more midrange drivers designed to output lower frequencies, and they don't accomplish this very well. The bose system is not terrible if you don't need any of the extra features of non-bose systems, and you only use it for video games and movies. With music, no feature like "range compression," as bose calls it, or any other equalization on the system can make it sound real. The goal of reproduction of music is to make one feel like they actually there, and the bose system just doesn't accomplish this. The sound from the system does not do a very good job of filling any relatively large room; the directions that bose gives you for placement of speakers is exactly what any audiophile will tell you not to do-you don't want first order reflections in your home theater. (you can google search for better tips on placement). When the volume on the system is turned up over about 60% (which is usually needs to be at, since the amp is not very powerful) there is noise in the system. It goes "click-click-beep, click-click-beep." This is not noticeable if you have something player through the speakers, unless you listen very carefully. I first thought this might be a result of unclean power going to the unit, but I have a monster brand surge protector that does a pretty good job of providing clean power. It is evident that the bass response is lumpy, possibly because bose sugests that you place the bass module on a wall, which is known to create standing waves. The soundstage is rather large, but sound noticably drops off in certain places around the room. Good luck in your search for a good system, and the best advice anyone could give is this: go listen to the systems, with your own material, and compare! Make sure you shop around. There are endless possibilities in home theater now.
Rating:
Summary: This is simply amazing.
Review: I'm really not sure what to say about the bad reviews of this product. I can't imagine why anyone would not be impressed by the sound coming from these tiny cube speakers. As they did not mention it in their reviews, I can only assume that the people who were unhappy with their products did not read the instructions (it is fairly simple to figure out) and play the setup DVD that came with it. Before running the AdaptIQ program, the system sounds decent. Then I ran the software and the system literally came alive and adjusted itself perfectly to my room (it's an odd "L" shape and I was getting an unbalanced sound at first). In terms of music listening, I have not heard anything that matched the spaciousness in this price range. I listened to a lot of products and the Lifestyle system blew me away. Its music processing changed a regular stereo CD into a surround sound experience which was 20 times better than a traditional dolby processing in a traditional receiver. This also works well with TV and radio. If you are looking for a great sounding product with an elegant appearance and a simple setup, then go with a Bose Lifestyle system. Just run the setup software. :P
Rating:
Summary: Bose, only for real people.
Review: OK, having read such mixed reviews, I felt I had to get to the bottom of things, so I visited a number of dealers, some who sold Bose and some who did not.
I could not believe what a difference in attitude there was between the Bose believers and the Bose haters. So, why is this?
I can only assume it's a lack of understanding or fear of the unknown. Almost every one agrees that if space, operational issues, cable and time were no problem, you can do better than Bose for the money, but for normal people who have little space and time and no inclination to create a pile of mismatched electronics that look ... odd (to say the least) the Bose is a superb option.
What about sound? When a Bose comes out of the box, it sounds Ok in most rooms, but when you use the adaptIQ it really sorts out, even strange shaped rooms like mine where the TV is in the corner and the speakers are impeded by curtains and book shelves.
What about the strange sounding music reported in another review? Sure one or two pieces did not seem to like the Bose 5 speaker experience, but I just pressed the 2 speaker button on my remote and the sound was true and stereo and no where near the TV. For most music however, band and classic especially, the Bose 5 speaker sound is superb, to my ears. I do sometimes turn the centre down a little if there is a strong vocal presence mind you; this spreads it out to a more normal stereo sound stage, but keeping the band and ambiance all around me.
My advice is don't take advice, listen and decide your self. Brands like Bose and B&O did not get to be huge by conning people, they did it by making what people want and it is only people who don't want Bose or B&O solutions who seem intent on bad mouthing them? I've got a Bose and it's great, more people in the world own Bose speakers than any other brand and I guess they think they are great, I hope your choice, what ever it is, works as well for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Overpriced junk
Review: Okay, maybe the word "junk" might be too strong, but they are definately overpriced. Seriously, there is no logical reason whatsoever to pay such huge amount of money for this system or anything made by Bose. Why? Well, first of all, the quality: I have looked at it in person, and I did do some disassembling of speaker components. Come on people, the encasings of the speakers are made out of cheap plastic (which is the worst material to use for speaker encasing...and the cheapest), the kind you can see on similar surroung systems made by different manufacturers but sold at much, MUCH lesser price (about 4-5 times less) here at Amazon.com.The speaker cones are made out of cheap paper (worst material to use for speaker cones...and the cheapest, of course) which is not coated or impregnated with any material to improve the acoustic response of this paper. There is no "secret miracle device" in this system which could make it sound good. Just your basic regular DVD player, cheap low-quality amplifier and basic equalizer to make the system's sound somewhat pleasant (but still far, FAR from natural sound), and a set of speakers with most basic design which use the cheapest materials and components possible. That is it. You can get a similar quality of materials in MUCH cheaper system. And, of course, you can get a much better quality of build and design (and looks) from other speaker manufacturers such as Klipsch, Infiniti, even JBL. Same with the quality of sound. Now I know it's pretty subjective, but you can do your own tests if you want to, and I am sure that you will find out you can get a better quality of music from speaker systems from Klipsch, JBL, Polk Audio, Acoustic Research, etc. for the same or slightly cheaper price, or you can even get the same quality of sound from systems similar to this which cost 5 times less. People who will tell you otherwise ("the Bose sounds better than anything else for the same price") are either musically deaf, haven't tried enough similar speaker systems manufactured by other manufacturers, or are simply in denial since they feel guilty that they spent thousand dollars for something that has a build quality and sounds like the built-in TV speakers in your TV set. Oh, and to the person requesting the detailed technical specifications of this speaker system: there is no official data from Bose, you won't get it even if you'll send your request directly to Bose. The reason is simple: the real technical specifications (frequency response and such) are too inferior compared to the systems of similar or cheaper price made by other manufacturers. Bose cannot lie and make the technical specifications look better on paper because if someone will find that out, they can be sued for false information. Therefore, Bose decided to not release any technical specifications for EVERY of their products and instead use some fancy words (which do not mean anything) for marketing purposes. That is the FACT, and that is why you won't find out any data on, for example, the frequency response of the speakers and the crossover cut-off frequency. Everything said in my review applies to EVERY Bose manufactured product, from their headphones to their speaker systems that you can find in cars like Porsche.
Rating:
Summary: INFO REQUEST
Review: PLEASE COULD YOU EMAIL ME THE TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF THE BOSE 28 SERIES IM INTERESTED IN THIS PRODUCT THERES NO OTHER INFO IN YOUR SITE
THANKS
TOME
Rating: 
Summary: Don't get if you need Closed Captioning (CC)
Review: The Bose line of DVD players seems to have some sort of filter that removes the closed caption signal. Even if a DVD is encoded with it, you won't be able to access it on your television. This has turned into a very expensive mistake for me. The sound is fabulous; deep bass and great spacing. Video is good -> great. But for those of us who need CC, it's a poor choice. (Note: CC is different from subtitles; if a DVD has subtitles -- such as "English for the Hearing Impaired" as a choice -- you will be able to use that.)
Rating:
Summary: Bose LifeStyle 28
Review: The system came well documented with everything needed for a complete set-up. This made assembly and dis-assembly very easy. We watched 10 DVD's. It "hung" on two DVD's. The power of the system was very disappointing. We had the volume control near maximum to hear well. The bass was very weak. The highs and surround sound feeling were pretty good. We did have a problem with customer service that was a show stopper. We returned the system believing we could find something comparable at a lower price with better customer service.
|
