alright, don't shoot - I moved into a house this week that has an old bose acoustimass system in the living room. I cannot seem to get it to work. is it worth trying? cables distribute from the woofer through the walls to these little speakers mounted around the ceiling... I have no idea how that would sound when it works. anyone with experience or ideas, please let me know what your advice might be: use the cabling and replace all the speakers? fix the bose system? call bose and find someone who can get it to work? rip it all out?

you should definitely get the bose working.  Everyone knows they are the best.

The only problem with Bose is that they're overpriced.  Since you didn't pay for it, by all means, get it working.

The only problem with Bose is that they're overpriced.  Since you didn't pay for it, by all means, get it working.

Agreed. For the price of free you can judge for yourself if the Bose sound is for you.

I dunno... the Bose I've heard had more problems than just the price; this includes the 901s...

well, there's also the problem that it has no bass and no treble, but that's true of a lot of music too.

It sounds like maybe it was set up for home theater with speakers in the ceiling and all in which case it may not be that bad for it's intended purpose.  If it can be repaired for cheap then it would be worth keeping for a while.

Yeah, for home theater and free, why not?

 

Are the connections to the subwoofer on these things just passthroughs (for a home theater receiver/amp) or are these powered systems (line level signal in)? Being Bose I would think maybe the latter, but I don't know...

well, there's also the problem that it has no bass and no treble, but that's true of a lot of music too.

 

No highs, no lows, it must be Bose.

My first decent approach to what Hifi could be, about 35 years ago, was listening to a Bose 901 based system powered by Harman Kardon amps. That was pretty enlightening, good enough to get me engaged to this hobby. Of course I hadn't listened to any higher quality system before, so memory's tendency to embellish the recalls and the lack of perspective make for a beautiful wrong impression, but I still keep some respect for their older stuff. I haven't listened to a Bose system in years.