They're small.

Their sound.

On an absolute level, the whole Am series are stinkers.
Bass is completely lacking in detail. Its very boomy and doesn't go very low. Mids, especially where vocals are concerned sound very sterile. Males voices are boomy due the subs high crossover and also lacking in body due to the pitiful satelites. High are NOT extended and Not airy. What's worse is that what highs that exist is extremely harsh and strident.

Basically these are low quality speakers. I have heard worse, But not much worse. If they sold for under $300 for the set, they would be competitive with the similar sounding speakers made for computers. As it stands, these have to be by far the worst value in speakers ever.

You don't have to spend a great deal of money significantly better these speakers. One can buy LX10's from Radio Shack of all places for about $200 on sale. These CHEAP speakers are MUCH better sounding than BOSE AM 15's

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The crappy speakers that come with computers.

Big sound out of a small package, cheaper cost than most other 5.1 channel speaker packages.

Doesn't sound quite as good as tower speakers, but then again, I don't have room for towers.

Indeed the Bose do not sound better than most tower speakers, but then again, in a 12x12 room, towers take up way too much space. I bought these speakers because they take up almost no space, and sound incredible. Paired with my Sony STR-DE935 receiver, movies and music sound great. Dolby Digital and DTS sounds awesome on these speakers. If you have a small room to put speakers in like me, I highly recommend these speakers.

I bought the Acoustimass 15 and it sounds great. Why all the Bose bashing? Bose makes great speakers. Obviously not good enough for some people. Buying Bose speakers is like buying a Mercedes Benz. They're expensive, not everyone likes them, they don't satisfy everyone's needs, and few can afford them, but hey, two words...Mercedez Benz.
p.s. You Bose bashers are probably the same people at the Macintosh bashing sites. Get a life.

Huge Sound from small speaks

The bass, sound dept from the cube speakers

I'm the type of guy that when I'm interested in buying something, I review as much as I can online before doing it. So here I am at the Bose website reading, printing information on their acoustimass speakers. Someone said in their review that Bose invested a lot of money in their advertisments. I must admit, he was right. When I saw the online scenery that Bose used to demonstrate how good the speakers would look in your home, I was extremely impressed. In fact my thoughts were "I got to have those speakers". It's now Teusday, I just finished doing overtime at work, why? So that I can buy those Bose speakers, that looked so good in the pictures on their web site (click product reviews once you're there). Moving along, I decided to go to the Bose store at the local mall to sample their acoustimass 6, 10 & 15 speaks. I must admit, I was not at all impressed. My expectations had dropped. There I was inside the store or the sound room for that matter,with a Bose representative, getting a demonstration of the three acoustimass speaks listed above. He played a sample of THE PERFECT STORM, the acoustimass 6 sound like Sh*t. Here played these loud cubed speakers with virtually no bass, the acoust. 10 had just a bit more bass than the 6, and the acoust.10 had the level of bass that you would expect to hear from the acoustimass 6. What I'm saying is, Bose hype their speakers up with all this talk about deeper bass, and spacious filled sounds, that the only things truly spacious is the air in anyone's head due to a lack of brains from purchasing such and expensive speaker system. Don't get me wrong, I was actually willing to buy these because I was so sold on what's written in Bose's advertisment, but when I heard theses speakers for myself, truthfully speaking, the price is not justified. Last words, I own a pair of Cambridge SoundWorks speaks for my computer connected to a SoundBlaster Live! audio card. Honestly, with nothing against Bose, I freely admit, that my computer speakers, especially the Subwoofer, sounds better than Bose, and they cost less than $125 dollars, after tax!!! Shame I can't use them as a home theature surround sound system. We (because I haven't purchased yet) as consumers really owe it to ourselves to listen to the competition. Bose is for the rich, not for the average user, when was the last time you heard someone rich go "Damn, those are some bangin speakers"? What do they know about good sound.

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Not an owner of anything, except some bangin soundwords speakers for my home computer.

Here's my second review after comparing with NHT(as someone sugguested-Thanks for that). My first impression, it(NHT) looks ugly. Uugh. Size and looks can't compete with AM15...I won't ruin my new living room with this ugly tank. Hey, but let's go check on sound quality. I want to listen to 5 star quality(while AM15 has one!). You know what, NHT does sound good and better base with superone. Honestly, however, AM15 is cleaner and clear. With my Kenwood VR3080, AM15 sounds more realistic to me. You can't go wrong with either speakers on sound quality, but personaly I woudn't hesitate choosing AM15 over SuperZero & SuperOne combo. But again, NHT IS GREAT SPEAKERS especially if you don't care about your decor. Happy come back home.

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NHT SuperZero & SuperOne

When I first Started looking for speakers I was going to the AM-15's, I almost bought them in the blind without hearing them. But instead my wife and I went to the Bose store in Huntley, Il. (yes the Bose store....nothing but Bose speakers here...I knew I was going home with at least some AM-15's)

Time to try them out. The salesman took into the sound room and put in a DVD it sounded pretty good, never hearing any other worth while surround system I was impressed. But now the sound test. How are these things with music? The salesman got one of his CD's to put in but I stopped him and said thank you but I have some of my own to try. Being very helpful he said ok and left us alone to sample the system.
First CD we put in and turned the volume up to a comfortable level on the high powered yamaha receiver. The song started and it sounded ok (it was just one guitar and vocals) but then the music kicked in and all the just garbled together. My wife looked at me and said that sounds terrible. We just drove about 2 hours and the whole time I was talking up Bose speakers, even though I never have heard them anywhere other than Best Buy and you can't go by that. So I put in another CD and another and another. I ended up thanking the salesman for his time and walked out shaking my head.

Yes I know this is long but....here's what happened when I started to looking for speakers. In a nutshell I went every where from Chicago, Naperville, Orland Park, to Streator and ALL in between. I brought the same 3 CD's I demoed the Bose with, these will be the only CD's I would use on ALL system's I heard. B&W's I liked the 604s2 alot,Snell nice but a bit to forward for me. Definitive were allright and many many others. no comparison with the Bose speakers. This was a whole seperate catagory????at about the same price range????

Any way I ended up moving up another step or so(after getting bite by the bug) and buying a bit more expensive system than I was going to initially. But I took my time, did research but did not take everything as whole truth, and I listened...alot. I ended up getting System Audio's 2070's which wow the sound they have is great, a bit light on the lower bass end) but nice detailed fast accurate and neutral sound.



any questions or comments welcome

your taste my not be mine
and mine not be yours, but enjoy your own taste

size

sound

I think Ted must be tone deaf (and I don't think anyone who gives an overall rating of 5 to Bose is an Audiophile).

At first listen, the Bose Speakers sound good, maybe even really good. But when compared to anything else, the Bose sound weak, and almost bad. I'm sure there are many Bose owners happy with their purchase - but I'm sure all of those Bose owners went to Circuit City and said "give me some of those cute little Bose speakers" without comparing anything else.

My moral - the Bose sound good, till you listen to anything else. If these speakers were half the price, I'd almost recommend them as budget speakers. But budget speakers are not their targeted market.

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Energy Take 5, Boston Acoustics Micro 90

None

Too much money

I see people defending BOSE purchases and talking about side by side listening at Best Buy and the like. This is not a good start. I am not going to beat up on the Bose AM's because that is a waste of time. I am going to offer some speaker buying tips so that you can figure it out for yourself.

*Do not buy from large chains or on line/catalog stores.

You can actually get better deals from real high fi shops. Good audio stores offer full value trade ins within one year of purchase, this means that there is a lot of nearly new used audio equipment at great prices in these stores.

Hi fi shops also occasionally offer "B-Stock" factory referbs. These are components that were damaged during manufacturing and can not be sold as new. They were repaired by the manufacturers techs, and are in the same working order as new. Again, you can get good deals on this stuff.

Good hi fi shops offer free in home demos, you can test the AM's vs other components and make your own decision.

The other thing is that serious audio shops carry lines that are not even available to chain stores. These lines are often much more reasonably priced than you might think.

Beyond that, if you take the time to get to know the sales staff at a good audio shop, and they determine that you will make several purchases over the years, they will give you good prices well below that of the sticker price. My guy calls me when they get discounted components from the manufacturer. An example of this is the NHT 1.5 model is being replaced and the factory is letting them go cheap, I got a call and a pair of speakers at a very low price.

If your frame of reference is chain store brands like Vega's,KLH,JBL etc, you might think that the Bose AM is the way to go. The problem you will face is that you will have no exposure to the other world of Audio where Audio files shop, and where serious audio manufacturers sell their wares.

I do not take Home theater as seriously as I do music, so I put together a very low budget system. Here is how:

I bought Paradigm 5SE(rated the best speaker under $1,000 that year by stereo review)B-stock for $250.00.

I purchased a 100 watt paradigm sub from the used room for $100.00(they threw in a pro logic surround processor for free because it didn't have a remote and wasn't very good, I use it with my computer)

My girlfriend gave me a pair of Paradigm Titans for surround speakers that she bought from my favorite salesman for $300.00

I got a cheap Sony DVD player from same shop for $129.00

Finally, I purchased a Marantz SR5000 DTS 5:1 surround reciever for $550.00

If you add it up, the whole system cost less than the Bose AM's. I gaurantee that the speakers sound better than any Bose in any room. It was kind of like getting a good amp and DVD for free and a two hundred dollar kick back.

The deals that mentioned are exceptional. Due to the fact that I had purchased many high end seperates from the same shop over the years, they treat me pretty well. But I am sure the shop did not lose a penny from any of this.

I was just hoping to demonstrate what can be done with a little research and patience.

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B&W,Paradigm,NHT,

Size, ok quality for novice music listeners.

Bose Acoustimass systems or Lifestyle is not for home theater...sorry.

Where to start....I have dealt with Bose systems for several years now. Meaning...installation. I too fell for the "trick" sound quality that these systems seem to have from the first 5 minutes of listening. But just keep listening. Like I have seen several people write in here (your ears get tired of them,)..the shrills seem to come out of the woodwork, you start to hear the limits of the small drivers on more and more movie soundtracks, you start to wonder why your tv speakers produce more bass and "dont forget" midbass, dont forget either, sub-frequencies than your supposed excuse for a bass module.
There is an article in Home Theater Magazine that has outlined the highs and lows of the Bose systems. (Lows, yea right) I read interesting facts about how the bass module utilizes light bulbs...yes, I said LIGHT BULBS to drain off the excess energy from the smaller drivers as to not blow the little guys out of their small cabinets and into your lap. I believe it was approximately 15 watts these drivers can handle. I also read from another audiophile that they are made in Mexico. He is correct, Mexico they are made, and yes....$7 dollar drivers also. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, you WILL NOT get close to the potential out of any movie soundtrack with Bose (how do they say it?) Acoustiturds.
In closing, I have been installing home theater systems for 6 years now. Where I work, we of course, do not deal in Bose. It is known fact that, to reproduce the full spectrum of sound in all satellites (which is needed in 5.1 reproduction) your going to need satellites that will handle the full spectrum. Easy enough. Well,.....Bose cubes cannot do this and will never do this. Bose hands off the bass, midbass, and even the lower part of the vocal band to the sub. This causes the sub to become localized, causes the satellites to sound tinny, and makes the sub handle more of the sound spectrum than it should, thus distortion is introduced into the room. Dont believe what they say about the bandpass enclosure filtering out distortion from the cone itself and leaving you with clean bass because when you turn the volume up on the sub to try to get the amount of sub output you need, it's unavoidable. Adding to the distortion, the cubes themselves suffering from any quality in crossover design from the bass module, start to break up, or a more fitting word for this is "gagging" on the amount of dynamics that the soundtrack is throwing at it.
Oh, was I closing? Now I am, yes these systems might sound good for the occasional easy listener that doesnt crank it up too far past snoring volume, but if you are any interested in a serious system for comparable money, please steer away from the Bose Marketing Machine. They might show up in a store near you.

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Everything else.

Small size, great sound using DVD's, Ease of setup,

Sound is directly to listening area, midrange is too laid back

First, the review, then, some gripes I have to some of you.

First things first - I am neither a BOSE Basher nor BOSE fanatic. I have too many other things in my daily life to be concerned with.

At first, I wasn't happy with the BOSE system for a number of reasons. I want to further say that I am extremely dissapointed that the speaker drivers are made of paper. I thought BOSE would use a more exotic material. The first reason is that it does not sound great out of the box. The subwoofer placement is critical. For optimum sound, it must be placed in the corner of a room, about 3 feet away. If it is placed anywhere else, the sound is dissapointing. The most dissapointing sound is if it's placed in a room next to no walls. Also, the pre amp/receiver settings greatly depend on the listening experience, also. For example, CD's typically sound good if they are listned through 2 channel stereo, rather than soundfield settings. e.g. Live, Hall. Also, good or poor performance is directly affected by the accostics of the listening area. In my listening enviorment, DVD sound is incredible. I was recently watching Mission Impossible 2. The opening scene with the jet plane was so real, it sounded like a plane was flying over my head. Other sound affects were also uncanninly real. I almost felt I was part of the movie. For the dissapointed people listening to plain music, I truly believe that this system is more scewed torward home theatre than plain music. If you want to experience superb 2 channel stereo, then get a speaker system by Infinity, JBL, Martin Logan, or any other speaker systems that are targeted at music reproduction. Overall, I find that the AM-15 is a great package.

Now, here are my gripes to some of you.

Rich, we appreciate the "information" on Rich's web site. Unfortunately, no matter how you look at it, Rich is biased against BOSE. So, no mater what "information" is being provided, it's going to be slanted to Rich's thinking. By the way, Rich, your mentality on this web site is intollerable. Get a life! Don't you know how to respond to critacism without using such words as dimwit, etc. How old are you? 12? By the way Rich, if you respond with another "review" the same way you did previously or via email, it will prove my point. Webmaster, we need reviews by people who are mature. I don't appreciate the way Rich addresses other people on the Internet. Please screen all his "reports".

As for you BOSE fanatics, once again, get a life! Also, when submitting a review, please don't copy and paste a previous review from Sound And Vision magazine, like some of you did. I find it much too insulting. If you don't believe me, look at the "review" that mentions about viewing the movie Twister. It was coppied directly from the magazine I mentioned previously.

To sum things up, is the BOSE AM-15 for everyone? NO!!!
Does the BOSE AM-15 sound great using 2 channel stereo? no!!!
Does the BOSE AM-15 sound great when viewing DVD movies? YES!!!

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Compaired the sound to Polk and JBL home theatre systems