Price Paid:  $100.00 from Best buy

Summary:
This was my first surround system I bought . With limited money it is a alright system the sound that it produces is average at best, Would recomend for begginer but if you can buy a little more expensive do so.

Strengths:
Good price for a begginer

Weaknesses:
Sub is passive (no amp) so you need a reciever that has alot of power if you want to get anything out of it which in the end is still not very much. Speakers have alright mid, not much high and with the sub you are missing the low.

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
This was my first system used into the foray
of Home Theater. It did perform well, although the passive sub blew out one of the
5 1/4" woofers inside, which I replaced with a Radioshack Optimus OEM woofer. Like some other reviews of this product, it doesn't really shine unless you ditch the sub and invest another 100$ (more as of 12/1/2004 due to inflation) for the KLH
9250B or 9912 12" 3-way speakers to really
do these some justice. They also seem to have inactively un-sensitive peizo tweeeters- they hould have used the kind used in their budget towers instead. Keep the center and satellites so you can upgrade to a budget DTS-ES, Neo6/Dolby Prologic, II, IIx/ 5.1/6.1/7.1 reciever and keep some bank in your pocket at the same time without needing a powered sub. One
piece of advice though: The center channel has more SPL than the rest of the system, so you should lower its output acoordingly. I enjoy this system even now, and it outperforms all Bose Acoustimass systems (I would know, I owned
an AM-10 I converted to an AM-15) when paired up with some robust vaule towers.
A great deal at a great price!

Strengths:
Great sound for the money, great satellites/center package for next-gen budget 5.1/6.1/7.1 HT systems, a real bang-for-the-buck package.

Weaknesses:
Passive subwoofer not worth using,
Center speaker not timbre matched volume wise, tweeters for system are almost silent.

Similar Products Used:
-Bose AM-10,15
-Bose 171
-more junk I can't recall

Price Paid:  $15.00 from Swap Meet

Summary:
These are ok speakers. Not the best not the worst. Great buy for the money. Get a pair of KLH 9912 Floorspeakers for better sound for just a little bit more.

Strengths:
Bandpass Subwoofer

Weaknesses:
Bad Treble, Muddy Mids.

Similar Products Used:
Bose Acousticmass 5 Series 2 System

Price Paid:  $99.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I have used these for about 3 years. The speakers have performed very nice and sound good. I have mounted them on the wall with brackets. I disposed of the passive subwoofer and replaced it with the equivalent to the KLH BBII 50watt powered subwoofer with the Hitachi name plate for 50 bucks. This added a lot of dynamics to the system when watching movies like Jurrasic Park. The t-rex really comes into the house. If your interested in specs check out klhaudio.com

Strengths:
Good sound reproduction

Weaknesses:
Passive subwoofer I suggest to dump and get powered sub. Speakers do only have a frequency range of 80hz to 20khz. So adding a powered subwoofer will get you down to the mid 40hz or below for that ground thumping bass.

Similar Products Used:
Digital Dynamics, Tandy, and others.

Price Paid:  $100.00 from target

Summary:
These system really sux!!!
it has no out power, no bass, dirty treble, etc. I´m very dissapointed of those "crap boxes" (honestly I can´t call them speakers). Recently I got a pair of bose floor speakers which easly kicked so hard klh speaker´s ass.

Strengths:
price (clue: I suggest save money for something better)

Weaknesses:
need more?

Similar Products Used:
Onkyo SKSHT500