Having used some Acoustimass in the past, I'd lean toward putting a speaker upgrade before stepping up to separates. Keep in mind that the AM4 that daniel's using is passive only. I believe that's it closely related to the AM3 system with a third cube added as a center channel. He'd need to get the amp(s) at the same time he gets the 950 (or try to use an old receiver as an amp, which would be a pain -- especially if the old receiver lacks a 5.1 analog input). Besides, as revealing as the 1050 is of the Bose weaknesses (see these two links for details of the Acoustimass design), I'd shudder to think what a 950 would do for them. Like I said, I owned the Acoustimass 7 system (similar to the AM4 but with double-cube satellites instead of the single cubes) for four years, from early '97 to early '01. They sounded pretty decent to me when driven by a Yamaha pro-logic receiver, but when I upgraded to the 1050 in mid-2000, I found that even though the system sounded better than it had when driven by the Yamaha, it was also much more apparent that there were weaknesses in the speakers. It didn't help that I'd had the chance to do a bit of listening to a very nice two-channel system in 2000 (Audio Research CD player and an older EAD CD player connected to a Classe pre-amp and amps driving KEF Reference speakers)...

------------------
gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited January 24, 2003).]