CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[IWantMyHD]

I am taking out my Bose Lifestyle 50 system in my home theatre and replacing with something that 1) is IR controllable, 2) sounds better with richer theatre sounds and 3) will drive my current Bose speakers until I can upgrade those in the future.

I am looking at Onkyo and Denon and Sony and just want to start with a system that will give me better tones than the Bose but will be compatible with the speaker and woofer until I can afford to upgrade these as well. I am looking for something under $500 that has HDMI support as I have a PS3, Comcast motoraola box and DVD upconverer box.

Any suggestions?

[Curt Palme]

Check the specs, but I believe that the Bose receiver has an output that is equalized to the speakers. you will most likely need to change everything at once, as a standard receiver with the sub/sat speakers will sound even worse than the original Bose system.

Check Bose pricing though on ebay, you'd be surprised how much you'll get for that system for those that don't know better. Put what you get for the system towards the speakers.

[Curt Palme]

Check the specs, but I believe that the Bose receiver has an output that is equalized to the speakers. you will most likely need to change everything at once, as a standard receiver with the sub/sat speakers will sound even worse than the original Bose system.

Check Bose pricing though on ebay, you'd be surprised how much you'll get for that system for those that don't know better. Put what you get for the system towards the speakers.

[jarseneau]

As Curt says, the Bose speakers are built to work as a package.

If you are looking for something that will give you reasonable surround sound in a limited space [I use them our 12x18 family room] at about the lowest cost, you could consider the Logitech Z-5500's for $200. They are IR controlled and have built in Dolby Digital processing and will even do Dobly Prologic II for stereo sources. For inputs it can handle OPTICAL (like from the PS3) or COAX digital (your DVD player would have that), or 5.1 channel analog.

[rabies_70]

I think he has caught upgraditis What's your budget? 500, you should be able to find something to fit the bill easily on Craigslist...with a little research and hunting you can score big time. For the price range you're in, you could get a decent receiver, speakers and a Monoprice hdmi switch so you dont have to limit you budget choices to the newer HDMI receivers. Its what I did, being the cheap bastard I am. Just for the living room, HK-AV140, 100.00 Polk Front, 35.00 ProCinema Center 25.00, Blose Rear cubes (free), KLH powered sub 30.00, Toshiba HD-A2 50.00, TiVo HD (santa brought it last year), mono price switch, and oh yeah, Pronto tsu6000 55.00, Under 500.00 and a decent downstairs living room surround setup. Not high end or state of the art but less than 500. Happy hunting

[emdawgz1]

a sound upgrade from a bose sys???

How bout a pair of Aluminum cans and a length of high grade copper wire????


it'd be an upgrade.

[ecrabb]

Ouch! Bose isn't quite that bad! Not a lot better, but not that bad.

Seriously, my dad has a Lifestyle system in his living room and is pretty nice for that type off application - where a traditional system would have a pretty big aesthetic impact on the room. As it is, you barely see the little cubes on the knick-knack shelves. Sounds decent enough considering it's practically invisible. Of course, like all Bose stuff, it was horribly overpriced, but that's another story.

If I were on a tight budget, I'd look for nice used stuff for sure. That's exactly what I did in fact. You can get high-end receivers that were once over a grand for a few hundred bucks - they're like computers and luxury cars - the high-end stuff takes a bigger hit than the lower-end stuff as it ages. Speaker systems that were several thousand dollars can be bought for less than half that. Subs that were originally $1000 can be bought for under half that - especially if they're a little older. I put together an audio system that would have cost north of $5000 for about half that by buying used and refurb. It sounds AWESOME.

Be patient, it might take you 6 months or even a year (depending on your standards), but you can collect some used gear that's FAR superior to what you could buy walking into Best Buy on a budget. Then, Curt's right: Sell the Bose on fleabay (people eat that stuff up). Craigslist and fleabay are a gold mine if you're willing to buy older gear.

SC