Size. But my alarm clock sounds similar

Sound

Bose are not good speakers. If you say they are good for the size, that is not saying much because they are tiny. If you truly care about music you don't buy Bose. Why do you think it has never receiver THX Certification.

Similar Products Used:

Klipsch KLF 30's Klipsch RF-5's

good sound compared to similar products easy to set up

sound is pretty lousy compared to similar priced set up over priced

Read the reviews, here is my 2 cents. 1. in the manual, it says 25mkII has Dolby Digital decoder built in and uses that fancy bose chip for 2 channel sources. 2. I agree its way overpriced, but it is the best sounding "mini" system compared to other offerings. 3. wouldnt have bought it if my room have decent space. 4. mid range is unclear. 5. good for movies 6. I end up listening to CD in surround mode all the time since I dont get quality music reproduction in stereo anyways ... 7. good remote, nothing to tinker around 8. strong bass

Similar Products Used:

Several Pioneer, Denon receivers.

good sound compared to similar products easy to set up

sound is pretty lousy compared to similar priced set up over priced

Read the reviews, here is my 2 cents. 1. in the manual, it says 25mkII has Dolby Digital decoder built in and uses that fancy bose chip for 2 channel sources. 2. I agree its way overpriced, but it is the best sounding "mini" system compared to other offerings. 3. wouldnt have bought it if my room have decent space. 4. mid range is unclear. 5. good for movies 6. I end up listening to CD in surround mode all the time since I dont get quality music reproduction in stereo anyways ... 7. good remote, nothing to tinker around 8. strong bass

Similar Products Used:

Several Pioneer, Denon receivers.

Movie experience was very good.

Everything else sounds like crap. Get a "normal" Home Theater setup. You will be much happier.

Ok first off I want to say that I am here writing a honest review. It seems to me that half of the posts here are from one or two individuals. I bought the Bose Lifestyle 25 because I liked the way they souded at my local audio store. (No not BB or CC) Anyways I was torn between the Bose and a Polk Audio setup I was looking at. When it came time for the decision I went with the Bose. First off let me say that the setup was fairly easy. Slapped in a movie and enjoyed what I heard. Then came time for some music. Thats when this system hits rock bottom. It was such a muddy mess I thought I hooked it up wrong. Went through the wiring again, played another CD, and was so shocked at the lack of sound I wanted to cry. Here I spent 2500 dollars for a system and it can't get music right? Well needless to say I was not going to pay 2500 dollars for a system that sounds like dog doo. Promptly packed up the system took it back, and went with Polk. Never been happier in my life. And never again will I purchase Bose.

GREAT ASTHETICS, and much better sound than a lot of products

WAY OVER PRICED, lacks VOLUME ,NOT ARTICULATE BASS and lacks a little, and and lacks TREBLE USE YOUR EARS, DONT BE SOLD on the NAME BOSE SHOULD NOT BE A BENCHMARK for ANYONE

Most people who write a review for bose HATE IT, or LOVE IT, the LOVE ITS acuse the "audiofiles of not using their ears" and HATE ITS say "you people dont know a damn thing IM A PERSON WHO HATES BOTH here is as unbiased as i can be: it has great sound for the size of the sattilite speakers, low bass for their size, BUT it laks treble and volume great range of bass BUT NOT ARTICULATE and WEAK yes i know BIGGER DOESN MEAN BETTER, BUT they LACK VOLUME LACK VOLUME and lack PUNCH BOSE IS a good product but WAY OVER PRICED you can get WAY BETTER FOR LESS WHY DOES IT SELL? the marketing is too good GREAT asthetics and they talk like they know what they are talking about, but they ARE NOT INNOVATORS, its OLD TECHNOLOGY, more of RENOVATORS IF SOMEONE DID THEIR HWK THAT TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN OUT SINCE THE SIXTIES ALMOST 3 DECADES USE YOUR EARS USE YOUR EARS

Similar Products Used:

POLK, INFINITY, BW, ONKYO, DCM*, KLIPSH, ENERGY,

Looks great. Easy to blend into decor. Sound is good for coming from such small speakers. Good choice IF you are willing to put up with mediocre sound in exchange for size and appearance. Great remote.

Sounds terrible when compared to alternatives available at equal or even lower cost. Not a good choice at all for listening to music. Way, way overpriced for what you get.

This is about a Lifestyle 12, but I think our experience is illustrative of how Bose's slick marketing and packaging makes it easy to overlook the mediocre quality. I saw a Bose demo in a large electonics store. About 20 customers at a time were taken into a dark theater-like room and treated to a video and music demonstration, with the highlight being when the speakers were uncovered to reveal just how small they were and how easy they were to hide. During the demo, the salesperson said they would sound even better in your home because that's where they were meant to be heard. Yeah, right! I'm sure they are going to build a demo theater with accoustics that are not even as good as the average living room. Unfortunately, I was still so impressed by the demo that I thought I had to have the system. After hearing it at home, I was so embarrased that for a long time I could not admit even to myself how lousy the system sounded. There is excessive treble, but a lot of these high-frequency sounds just blend together in a kind of mush. The bass is similar. It's almost like listening through a wall. There is a lot of bass, but it's just bass for the sake of having bass because it is muddy as well. The proprietary pseudo-surround sound does surround you with sound, but it does not necessarily come from the direction it was meant to. For music, the system sounds terrible compared to much less expensive alternatives. If the price were much lower, it would be a decent system, but for the money you can do so much better. It is easy to fall in love with this system if you don't compare it to others in the same price range. I was recently told by a dealer that Bose does not allow their dealers to display Bose systems in a manner that enables them to be directly compared to competing products. This speaks for itself. This dealer is buying a Bose Lifestyle system from another retailer at full retail price so they can "legally" put it in their new showroom to allow customers to directly compare it to competing products and hear just how lousy it sounds compared to them.

Very diverse by giving discrete surround from any source, great with both movies and music!!

Could use one or two more inputs/outputs.

I had made many trips to various audio stores. I don't think once I ever got the same story about this product. I was not only shopping for Bose. I have a liking for many different products out there. Finally, I ran into a sales person who could tell me many differences between the products that I was comparing. On top of his info, I gathered info from web sites, chat rooms, etc..If you are looking for a system that is easy to use, does not take up much space at all, gives you great sound for both music and movies and gives you multi source and multi zone operation"great feature",this may be worth checking out. On top of being able to deliver Dolby Digital, it is also giving me discrete 5 channel surround with other sources like VHS, old classic movies (non 5.1) DVD's and sports broadcast that used to only come out of my center speaker most of the time. The radio frequency remote control is a bigger deal to my wife than it is to me.If you are shopping for Home Theater equipment (1) good luck in finding someone who knows what there talking about(2) take some time and really find out what the products can and can not do. I heard some excellent products at the various stores I visited. This system happened to fit the bill for what I was looking for as mentioned above. The other systems similar to the Bose Lifestyle system I felt had limitations that made them inferior. I did like the Polk sytem somewhat..+'s= nice design, sounded great with movies. -'s= Bass heavy, the music sounded like some kids bass heavy car stereo, even though it does have Dolby Digital, it did not have the more advanced processing that the Bose had.JBL, I did not think compared to Bose or Polk.The same for Yamaha.

Similar Products Used:

JBL, Yamaha, Polk, Pioneer and B&O systems.

Appearance - Level of Integration - Sound Quality - No worries

Weak bass - highs roll off - muddy midrange

When I was ready to move into Dolby Digital 5.1 channel home theater, I really had not spent much time listening to REAL GOOD audio systems. I was using the original Bose AM5's on my old department-store "hi fi" rack and they were SUCH an improvement over the original speakers that I just assumed that all Bose products were the ultimate. The original AM5's were noticably better than current versions of the product.

I needed something quick because I had just purchased a larger television and a DVD player and I was eager to enjoy digital sound from movies. There were so many good receivers and speaker combinations in my price range that I was getting burned out trying to evaluate then all. When a Lifestyle 25 Mk II became available to me for a good price, I figured I would buy it but keep researching my options with an eye towards selling the Bose when I had decided what I really wanted. After living with the system for almost a year, I am not so sure I want to give it up.

I have to admit that a major feature of this system is its size and the minimal impact it makes on my living space. The Music Center module of the L25MkII has the equivalent of my entire department store rack (minus the cassette deck, but, you know, I just don't use cassettes much any more) and minus the graphic equalizer (since I got the Bose AM5's ages ago, I took it offline, anyway.) So this one little module the size of a laptop computer drives the whole system. And all the speakers simply fade into my walls. The installation is clean and great-looking.

But we're talking about sound here so let's get down to it. My bottom line on the sound is that it is "OK" which is to say, it's not fantastic, but it certainly is not garbage. My complaints are the same as everybody elses: the bass is not very strong and it peaks at certain frequencies, the midrange is not as crystal clear as I remember my old AM5's, and the highs roll off somewhere still well within my range of hearing. I moved the Acoustimass module around until I found a good compromise location that optimized bass distribution without intruding too much into the room. And the front speakers cleared up a lot as I moved them out into the room more and away from the walls. I've aimed the cubes so they cover the listening area as directly as possible and avoided using them in a "reflecting" mode, but the treble is still not as crisp as I'd like. But the bottom line is that the system sounds good. When guests come over and watch a DVD they all comment in a positive way about the sound. Granted, most of them are used to listening to TV audio coming out of the TV's built-in speakers, so of course they are going to be impressed. But other people who know what good surround can sound like still comment positively about the system. And *I* like it. I listen to it every day and it doesn't irritate me.

I don't give it 5-stars because I could do better for the same amount of money -- actually, a LOT better. But the overall looks and ease of use add a lot to the positive experience and the sound is absolutely acceptable.

Similar Products Used:

Bose AM5 (originals)

Sound, simplicity

This system replaced my old mix-and-match with big floor speakers. I heard it in 3 stores, and thought it sounded pretty good, but the store offered a home-trial, so I did it. I left my old system hooked up, and literally placed these little cubes ontop of my tower speakers, then played them both for movies and CDs. Was I ever shocked!!! The Bose blew my old system out of the water, especially for music. It had about the same bass, but was much clearer, sounded as if the room just sort of opened up. The surround effects were MUCH more impactful, also. It is so simple, even my wife will pick up the remote and use it - I love coming home and she's just rockin' the house!

Similar Products Used:

Sony and Denon HT system

Looks nice and sophisticated for those into superficial looks.

All aspects of sound quality are horrible. Sounds equivalent to a cheap $500 home theater system from any of the big stereo companies. This particular unit was defective in that it produced loud hiss, but otherwise poor sound quality of this unit was the same as on any other Bose Lifestyle 30 system.

This review is for the Bose Lifestyle 30 system, which includes built-in DVD player and smaller cube satellite speakers, but otherwise is similar to the Lifestyle 25.

My dad bought this unit as a Christmas present for himself and my mom last December. After two minutes of listening, I told him to take it back. The sound of this unit was total junk. The sound was too bright, with excess treble. It also could not reach genuine high notes. Bass was boomy but couldn't reach true low levels. Notwithstanding the pseudo-authorities' claims about not needing real speakers as long as there is a subwoofer for the small satellites, the small cube speaker units sounded like what they were - 2" paper cone, universal ranged (i.e. can't accurately reproduce highs, mids or lows)contained in small plastic boxes. As a result, imaging was poor and I could hear that the low notes were coming from the bass unit (with 2" drivers on all the other speakers, the bass unit had to reproduce a lot of mid-range sound, so it clearly wasn't a subwoofer). Accuracy of the system was laughable - instruments did not sound at all like the real thing. The system played fairly loud, but clearly ran out of steam at higher levels like any cheap, low-current receiver from Aiwa, Technics, JVC, etc.... On top of it all, there was a very loud and distinct hiss produced by the unit (the system was defective, but other than the hiss, the sound was identical with two non-defective 30 systems I heard).

Who should buy this unit? Someone with a lot of money, a vain desire to show off a cute, high-tech looking new toy, and who cares nothing at all about sound quality.

Ever wonder why Bose product info (magazine ads, Crutchfield catalog displays, Bose literature and box labels, etc...) will never give any genuine, useful specs for Bose products? Have you noticed that Bose will never disclose its speakers' frequency responses (most likely 60hz-17,000hz for the Accoustimass speakers in this Lifestyle 30 system) or its amplifiers' power rating (watts, current output or otherwise?) The reason is that Bose relies on cheap gimmicks to create an impression of a lot of sound coming from a speaker. However, that sound will be heard by anyone with a mildly appreciative ear as being inaccurate and displeasing across the entire audio spectrum.

My dad returned this unit and went to a good audio store that carried Bose products (which they strongly discourage customers from purchasing) as well as a lot of mid to high end equipment. My dad has a substantial hearing problem - tinitus - and cannot hear high frequency sounds. After the first several minutes, of hearing a separates system, he turned to me and said "Wow, you're right, that Bose system was crap. I really can hear a differnce." For $200 less than the Bose 30 system, he bought a Yamaha (second from top-of-the-line) Dolby 7.1 receiver and a five piece system from Definitive (two multidirectional tower speakers with twin, powered 10" subwoofers; center speaker with built in powered 8" subwoofer; and rear, multidirectional surround speakers with twin mid-bass units and high quality domed tweaters). He kept the Onkyo 5-DVD changer that he bought as a special with the Bose unit (only $199 - how could you go wrong on that?). The new system sounds excellent with both cd's and as a DVD-based home theater system. True highs and lows, deep bass, accurate reproduction, very distinct imaging, incredible detail, high power that does not fade or sound thin when the volume is cranked - essentially the opposite of the Bose system.

Don't buy the Bose Lifestyle 30 system (or any other Bose product except perhaps the 901 speakers if you want a really loud speaker) . You will be buying $500 worth of sound at seven times that price.