I just found out that my Bose Lifesyle 5 requires that I have a powered subwoofer. I am pretty new to the Bose purchasing scene so I am starting out with the Lifestyle 5. I have an Acoustimass 5 sub, passive (see what I've learned), and the music center doesn't work. I tried the headphones and can hear sounds so i am assuming that I need the poered sub. My question is: Is there another way to utilize what i h ave to make the system work? Thanks

Welcome to the saloon, lsjdesigns. I'm afraid that Bose users are few and far between here (I owned an Acoustimass setup at one time, but upgraded my speakers to Paradigm back in 2001 and never looked back). My knee-jerk reaction to all things Bose is to cringe and steer people away, but I'll resist that for a moment. I'm basing my comments solely on the manual , but maybe it'll help.

From what I can tell, you must have the Acoustimass module that comes with the Lifestyle 5 - basically, the Lifestyle module appears to be a pre-amp only, while the Acoustimass unit has the amp channels for both itself and the two speakers. There's also a "system control" connection between the Lifestyle and Acoustimass, and I have no idea what the purpose of that is. If the Lifestyle unit really is just a CD player and a pre-amp, you could put a separate power amp between the Lifestyle module and your speakers, but there are two caveats to the. One is that if you want to use your Acoustimass 5 speakers with a power amp, you may have wiring issues - most of Bose's speaker stuff has been moving toward RCA connectors for the speaker connections, which nobody else does, so you'd have to cut the connectors off. (On the bright side, if you have the regular Acoustimass 5 package, I think the wires that go to the bass module will have the normal +/- leads on the ends that could be connected to an amp.) The second caveat is that a separate power amp will cost several hundred dollars that would be much better spent by replacing the Lifestyle unit with a proper receiver.

Does that help?

I'll finish with a wholly unsolicited suggestion: you will achieve much better sound from some less expensive equipment if you go with a brand other than Bose. There are some quite respectable receivers on the market for just a few hundred dollars, or you could even get Outlaw's RR2150 ($600) and have an exceptional stereo receiver capable of driving most speakers. Good bookshelf speakers (a little larger than Bose's cubes but worlds better sounding - I speak from having owned Bose cubes, by the way) can be had for as little $300 or $400. If you're just getting started, it might be worthwhile to do a little poking around into the alternatives. And if you do decide to switch away from Bose, you can thank their rather frightening marketing department for one favor: Bose stuff holds its value absurdly well, and you can get a significant percent of the original price by selling it on eBay.

I will second what Gonk said about Bose. Bose has a place in some peoples life but since you are here at the Outlaw forum, obviously you are looking for great sound at a great price and unfortunately Bose offers neither.

If you want small, give these a look... http://www.hsustore.com/vt12.html

I'd also like to echo gonk's comments. Back in my Navy days, I heard plenty of Bose systems and have to agree wholeheartedly with the sage advice gonk has put forth regarding seeking an alternative.

I stumbled across this thread earlier but couldn't think of a diplomatic way to express myself. Lucky for all of us forum users, gonk has a very good way of explaining the sometimes not so pretty reality without offending.

I think that the Bose systems that have music centers have powered subs that contain not only the amp but also the proccessing of the system. It appears that your system might be made up of two incompatable parts. I do know that the bose lifestyle 12 that I owned was this way. And yes like those who posted before me I must say that the 970/7125 combo with Polk speakers that I have now is light years ahead of the Bose in sound quality all though it is not as simple or compact.

From what I've read and my personal experience with Dr. Hsu's designs (specifically the LFM-1 that Outlaw developed with Hsu's involvement), I'd consider the Ventriloquist 12 to be a really good choice for a surround system that needs to have small speakers. For a stereo setup, there are a bunch of choices from online vendors ( Axiom\'s M2 or M3 bookshelves , a pair of SV Sound's SBS-01\'s , bookshelves from Aperion , AV123's X-LS or Ref 0.5 ). If you open the options up to speakers sold through dealers, the possibilities become nearly endless - ranging from speakers of scale similar to the Bose cubes (Gallo's Nucleus and A\'Diva come to mind) to a huge array of excellent bookshelves from the likes of Paradigm (a personal favorite), Klipsch, B&W, Boston Acoustics, Polk, M&K, and probably a dozen more good brands. Any of the ones that I've named will perform better than the Bose cubes, and most will cost less (the brands I mention cover a wide range of offerings ranging from "entry level" to "sticker shock," but even the entry level stuff will be superior).

If you decide to consider other electronics than the Lifestyle, let the folks here know your budget and you should be able to get a number of good suggestions.

Jamo is another good speaker maker that has been known to build smaller speakers that produce very good sound.

Also, I'd recommend that, if at all possible, you look at speakers that are at least as large as two large kleenex boxes stuck together. It's pretty much impossible or at least extremely difficult to get good sound out of a package smaller than that.

Just to add my .02.

I am a huge fan of the Gallos . I currently have Nucleus Micros, and hope to get a pair of A'Diva Tis this summer.

Since most of their products are spherical, if you get their wallflower stands and move them out from the wall, you have very little diffractive or reflective surfaces near the speakers. As such you get really great imaging.

They do require a heck of a lot of burn in time though. And for those out there that don't believe in burn in, the Gallo's really do need it as the S2 technology they are always talking about is a type of polyolefin flake filling material that gets packed down during shipping. Playing the speakers for 100 hours or so re-distributes that material.

Anyway, just IMHO.