Bose? Lifestyle? 35 Home Entertainment System (White) (LS-35WHITE)

Rating:
Summary: A great system
Review: After conducting research into home theater systems, and checking out various speakers, receivers, pre-amplfiers, amplifers, and reading the trade magazines, I finally concluded that the Bose Lifestyle 35 is what I wanted, and after listening to it now for several weeks, I am very happy I got it. The home theater surround sound is awesome -- I have a large room with high ceilings, and the sound completely fills the room with no distortion. My audio CDs have never sounded better.

I chose the system primarily because of the ease of use, the small jewel cube speakers don't overwhelm my room, and the sound they produce is great. The fact that the DVD player is not a progressive player is not significant -- current progressive DVD players do not improve the picture noticeably. If you really want true high definition, even from a progressive DVD player, you really need a line doubler, which will run you $3,000. As for the lack of Pro Logic, that it old technology -- Dolby/DTS 5.1 is the future of surround sound, and in any event, the Bose system will convert any movie into surround sound, so Pro Logic isn't necessary.

Rating:
Summary: Stay far...far....away!
Review: First of all I am not a very big audio file. But I know good sound when I hear it. When I tested the Bose Lifestyle 35 I thought "hey it's Bose...it has to be good". And it was...to a certain point. The Lifestyle uses the Accoustimast(sp?) speakers and subwoofer, with a built in DVD player/CD player/mp3/AM FM Tuner all built into one system that is upgradeable for life. Sounds like a good thing right? Well yes and no. First off I do give it semi-high marks on producing good movie surround sound. Maybe 3.5 stars. But this system does not have Dolby Pro Logic, or Pro Logic 2. It does use DTS and Dolby Digital, but I did not realize that it was missing these two surround options. Why is this a big deal? Well most if not all A/V recievers have both of these options. (For a fraction of the price)

Now why does my 3.5 stars get dragged down to 1? Because the music produced through these speakers absolutely stinks! It is so terrible that I wanted to cry. Some of my best CD's were ruined when playing it through this system! (The sound that is) I saved long and hard for this system and I personally failed myself in not testing this system musically when I bought it. The speakers DO NOT produce any bass effects at all. It all is transferred through the subwoofer. A very bad idea on Bose's part.

Trust me you can spend literally 1000 dollars less and get a system that totally kicks this Bose system to smitherines. I ended up taking this back and getting Polk Audio LSi7 main speakers(700 dollars), Polks RT 25i rear speakers(150), Polks CS245i Center Channel(250), Polk PS350 subwoofer(350), Yamaha RX-V620 receiver (500), and a Yamaha CD-685 5 disk cd player(150). Total Spent 2200 after tax. And I could have scaled this down more to fit an even tighter budget. Search the web a little to find more on Bose. I wish I would have researched a bit more before causing myself this headache.

Rating:
Summary: Bose [problems]
Review: I bought a system in Hawaii and the tuner kept giving me trouble. After two replacements, it ran well for about 3 years. Then it started becoming unreliable - it would play for a while, then shut off after a while... ...I am now abandoning it and looking for a new system..my recommendation, buy bose components but dont buy the whole system..its also not easily replaced piece by piece with other products..

Rating:
Summary: Lifestyle Sucks
Review: I bought one of these in Hawaii and it kept giving me problems..I changed the tuner twice. After I moved to Atlanta, it had to be repaired every 2 years..Often it would not play in my house but would play ok in the store..Very strange..I dont think I will buy overpriced Bose stuff again..Now I have a JBL unit which works wonderfully..

Rating:
Summary: A great system with one big flaw.
Review: The sound produced is wonderful, the system is well thought through and delivers a full rich sound, by taking the bass out of the individual speakers and bringing it all from the "acoustimass" module Bose is able to bring amazing sound from very small speakers and the bass does not sound like it is coming from one source, but rather the bass comes at you from all over. Those of you like me, with small children in the house will appreciate the clarity of sound at lower volumes as well, another feature Bose attributes to the small speakers and separate bass.

But I mentioned a flaw:

The DVD player is not good enough for the system. For this money and for people who are looking to build a top notch home theater, not including a progressive scan DVD player is nearly unforgiveable.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: This is a fantastic system. It sounds great, and my wife loves the small compact size of the speakers, the all-in-one media center with DVD, the universal remote--everything. So we both got what we wanted.