I think that for the price consumers pay for Bose products, they can afford to give us better quality product and sound. I would recommand it but not for the price I paid for it.

I bought my Bose Acoustimass speakers at Circuit City 20 years ago. My speaker bias is towards clean, clear sound, not a lot of mid-range and no overbearing bass. Bose speakers are super clear and sharp sounding. If you don't like that and prefer a 'Hi-Fi' sound, don't buy Bose. Pricey? Yes...but I don't regret the purchase. I also currently have a 7.1 JBL system in my media room and the Bose upstairs in the living room. If you want a Movie-Surround experience, the JBLs and large sub-woofer are really a great way to go and put out a lot more 'full' volume than the Bose, but for pure music listening it seems artificially colored in my opinion. Great sound,love listening to it, but if I want to hear and enjoy all the fine nuances in a recording, I'll listen in the living room on the Bose. I'm a professional musician, not an audiophile geek and am much more into the music than than the hardware!! One (very honest) negative about the Bose. When I first got it, the bass just literally made the floor shake! It used to have really clean and not "boomy" bass, but over the years, the bass has gotten so weak as to be non existent. I have all the speakers attached as per instructions but wired in a separate powered sub-woofer. But hey...20 years?! Still happy with Bose! :-)

i had my bose am5 for about 7 years in a small room. had a few issues with right channel so looked into bookshelf alternatives. bought a pair of wharfedale diamond 9.1 and sound is far superior to bose and at quarter of the price. bose bass is strong but not a good enough frequency range and mid range and vocals can be weak. great levels of volume though.

even though its expensive,but for me,it is worth,you can hear watch the recording company had recorded,soft to ear, not like other speaker loud but its irritating

i will never recommend anyone to own any of the bose products. they are just waste of your money. may be it will sound amazing to some people who never heard any other quality systems. take an example of their wave radio. i can challenge that i have made a radio with philips speaker and pioneer electronics which sounds 200% better than their wave radio. and most of their home theater has minimum options for extra connections or something like that. i don understand why people are running after that brand

I own the life style 48. I have had high end audio system in the past and was curious to find out if its a myth or truth about Bose. I have had it for about 6 months now. It stopped working due to hard drive problem. Upon talking to their tech i was asked to send it for repair. These guys are cheap even though they charge a abnormal amount for their system, they use standard surface UPS shipping. It took me 20 days to get it back. Excited as I was, hooked up the system to test it, with in half hour the same problem. Cannot turn the system off, cannot access any stored music from the so called 340 hours of music hard drive. Called the Tech again and asked them if these guys really look into the problem. I am sending it again for repairs. after that if problem still exist I will throw it in the Garbage.
The jewel speakers are tiny and look good, sound is not bad. For that price I could get a very high end, durable system. Only thing I liked was the simplicity, less wires , sleek. Not suitable for any open Room. Good for a enclosed small space. Will not sound anything like the demo, as your house is not acoustically designed.Drastically lacks the mid range, don't like the Bass at all. The sound is nothing but 7 channel stereo all the processing is done in the sub. I get way better quality out of Harmon Kardon AVR 245 with Polk speakers.
Final word DON'T WASTE YOR MONEY. "OWNERS FATE NEIGHBORS ENVY"

poor sound, and the bass quality very dissapointing

Owned the the Bose Acoustimass system for more than 3 years. I'm not and wasn't an Anti-Bose advocate but I don't recommend Bose although everybody has different taste and reference. I have owned high end systems prior, but was persuaded by the sound at the shop, the small size and the unheard of price I got them for when in the Military Overseas. When I installed them in my apartment, it was a different story and sound. I had a great A/V receiver BTW. I was always moving furniture and pictures/wall coverings around to get any decent sound as it was very bright, the mids were missing and I had to hide (suffocate) the subwoofer behind a large cabinet in a corner to get any bass. I incorporated a non-Bose centre channel to fill in the blanks left by the Bose for music. It was a mess. I used them for about a year but boxed them for a cheaper and better system with towers. I sold them to a friend of a friend who was extremely keen to buy them and he seems quite happy with them. I don't know for sure but perhaps it's because he has an absolutely huge living room so it must dampen the highs before it reaches his ears. I don't know how he deals with the mids or lows though.

although these speakers are attractive looking and simple to use, the sound quality is shocking! There is no mid range and the bass is muddy with no definition. for the money you can get a basic hifi such as cambridge audio and i promise you will be much happier!

the best part of Bose AM 5 is that you get to hear both the speakers equally no matter where I sit in my living room.. Its just mind blowing any song you play is just awesome
I think People who value good quality music and unerstand quality should only buy Bose coz they understand the is Bose

The Bose Accoustimass is a great Buy for sure, Just hear them for 30 mins before you buy them and you will simply fall in love with them.

Bose Accoustimass has brilliant sound quality, brilliant sound staging...ive never heard anything so surreal...obviously the yamaha a/v amp ive got contributes but honestly the sound system is beyond belief. yamaha and bose make a true to lofe combination. I would recommend them over anything in its class

Bose's research on audio, and open real explanation of the hidden reality of nature, and how scientific audio reproduction has been achieved through painstaking research is a commendable practical feat to experience for mankind in the privacy of their homes through bose audio systems. Produces deep bass without distortion and booming. Gives the listener real stereo effects. Sound seems to come from small speakers. Speakers are lasting. Fit and forget, cleaning is the only maintainence. Suits the decor. Worth its price. Makes more friends. Enjoy good music and audio without fatigue. Makes you feel like listening more and more. Feel the beats. Makes you dance. Relaxes the stiff body and limbs. Very pleasing way of passing time. Full fills your desire of listening to rich music.

I have owned a set of AC5's for a few years now and reading through some of the earlier comments on here just makes me laugh.

If you read back some of the criticism's you will find that they tend to contradict one another. For example, how many negative reviews have said that there is no bass yet there are plenty of negative reviews also saying the bass is boomy or uncontrolled? See what I mean, they both can't be right, is there bass or isn't there? One of them must be wrong. Do the alarm bells start going off yet?

Okay, first thing's first, the AC's are too expensive for what the are? Well here's the problem, you want a big sound but you haven't got room/ don't want big speakers. This is what Bose give you. Are they going to be the same price as those similar sounding speakers that are five times the size? No of course they aren't, of course you're going to pay more. Can you get better for the same money? Yes you most deffinately can but they are a much bigger speaker and if you haven't got the right space for them then they are useless to you.

As for sound quality, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these speakers. I keep hearing that there is a lack of mid range on these speakers , well I'm not really sure exactly how that works being as I haven't ever noticed this myself (again just to clarify we are talking about the AC5's not the AC3's). What I can hear is a crisp, clear sound with plenty of bass when it is needed. I read earlier that you can tell the sound is coming out of the speakers.....total nonsense!!! The sound staging is as good as any other speaker I have heard. An example being Dire Straits "Love Over Gold". The guitar leaps out at you from one side of the room yet Mark Knopflers vocals come from directly ahead. The Xylophone at the end starts one side of the room (above the speakers) and slowly works it's way round to the other side. Whoever claims that there is no sound staging at all have clearly no idea what they are talking about.

All in all if you want a compact rather than bulky set up with a great sound then these are great speakers. Yes you do get a great hi-fi sound as long as you are using them with the right equipment i.e. a decent amp (you'd need one of those to make those audiophile's dream speakers sound good aswell). Give them a try, you'll be surprised.

Go listen to a live concert and then come back to compare speakers while your ears can still remember what live music sounds like...Even better,listen to live piano and then compare...Not too many speakers on the market can recreate similar sound and none under 3000.00$. Stop comparing speakers like pioneer,Sony,Panasonic and all the like...they all sound the same and they sound crappy. First,you need an excellent source and everything else after that,all the way to the speakers. Good luck.