Quick question about Bose speakers and A/V receiver

[hugepiece]

ive currently got a SONY receiver with a set of BOSE acoustimass 5 speakers (the 5.1 cube ones). I'm thinking of replacing the amp with one that handles HDMI and has a 2nd zone outlet. Was thinking about the Camridge Audio 540R or the Pioneer equivelant (cant remember the model). any views?

Also was thinking of taking the BOSE sub out of the equasion and then plugging each cube speaker into the relevant output and then buy a new seperate amplified sub - is this recommended or a no no?

Although the speakers are good they are not great with my current setup.

Would welcome and comments or suggestions. I don't really want to spend any more than 400 quid on an amp. It's only really for music, movies and ps3.

[Marf]

I've got an acoustimass setup too, I didnt think you could run the speakers without the sub? On mine the amp feeds the sub then the sub splits out to the speakers

[Plotloss]

If you want to retain the Bose speakers you're stuck with the Bose sub/amp as it will have the crossover specifically set for those speakers and I would suggest that it will be difficult to find an amp with a crossover setting in the same ballpark.

My advice would be to bite the bullet, ditch the lot and replace with new.

Mixing and matching rarely works well when it comes to AV.

[Road2Ruin]

hugepiece said:

ive currently got a SONY receiver with a set of BOSE acoustimass 5 speakers (the 5.1 cube ones). I'm thinking of replacing the amp with one that handles HDMI and has a 2nd zone outlet. Was thinking about the Camridge Audio 540R or the Pioneer equivelant (cant remember the model). any views?

Also was thinking of taking the BOSE sub out of the equasion and then plugging each cube speaker into the relevant output and then buy a new seperate amplified sub - is this recommended or a no no?

Although the speakers are good they are not great with my current setup.

Would welcome and comments or suggestions. I don't really want to spend any more than 400 quid on an amp. It's only really for music, movies and ps3.

I think you should get out more.

[hugepiece]

Marf said:

I've got an acoustimass setup too, I didnt think you could run the speakers without the sub? On mine the amp feeds the sub then the sub splits out to the speakers

I did think this was the case. I just think that for the money they really don't sound too great especially for music. Hopefully a new amp will help somewhat! thanks

[hugepiece]

Road2Ruin said:

hugepiece said:

ive currently got a SONY receiver with a set of BOSE acoustimass 5 speakers (the 5.1 cube ones). I'm thinking of replacing the amp with one that handles HDMI and has a 2nd zone outlet. Was thinking about the Camridge Audio 540R or the Pioneer equivelant (cant remember the model). any views?

Also was thinking of taking the BOSE sub out of the equasion and then plugging each cube speaker into the relevant output and then buy a new seperate amplified sub - is this recommended or a no no?

Although the speakers are good they are not great with my current setup.

Would welcome and comments or suggestions. I don't really want to spend any more than 400 quid on an amp. It's only really for music, movies and ps3.

I think you should get out more.

how very helpful and constructive.....

[Tino]

If need be, you might be able to remove the crossover system from the sub, so you are running them through this.
I had acoustimas 5's, and felt that they sounded best with Yamaha amps. I had tried Pioneer, Sony, arcam and NAD.

[Garett]

The Bose 'bass module' has crossovers in it for the specific frequencies the cube speakers deal with, so you could potentially damage the cubes by playing low frequencies through them, I think they this would only happen if you played it loud though.
I imagine you could run a separate sub with the Bose set up as the 'bass module' isn't strictly speaking a sub, most AV amps have a mono pre-out to connect to an active sub.

[Graham E]

you COULD do that, if you do the following:

buy decent AV receiver
set all speakers to small
set crossover freq. to 200hz (MAYBE 150 or 120, i'm not guaranteeing, and Bose won't ever say what is correct).
Plug sub in.

Overall, I'd expect that most subs (average sub handles 100hz + below) would be a very bad match, so you had top and bottom, and v. little mid.

On the other hand, BOSE has a great brand name, so does well on fleabay. If you can get 200 quid for them, you could buy the Infinity Oreus from the seller on there for 200 quid - and it'll blow you away. I'm sure there are other decent deals out there,if those aren't the look you're after (silver finish devalued them from 800 quid, lol)

Have fun

G

[Garett]

They do fetch good money on ebay, I bought my Acoustimass 3s for £90 and sold them for £135 12 months later.

[cjs]

The Bose Bass Module/amp not only has a X over for the cubes but also adds a lot of EQ to them, this is why they sound ...ok. If you run the cubes straight off a regular flat amp you may not get the desired sound. I would suggest giving it a go first, borrow a HI-Fi amp and see what the cubes sound like on their own. They may be ok for surround.

[miniman]

I've been toying with the idea of getting an Acoustimass setup, with the arrival of a small speaker-prodding human my TDLs have already suffered a dented driver cover so the ability to stash the cubes somewhere out of the way is quite appealing. How good is the sound quality? They seem to get mixed reviews.