Bose Acoustimass 5 - Speaker System, ideal for stereo or home theater use - Black
Review by D. W. Dallam "DW" : Look at each negative reply--Marketing blah blah

Don't be fooled by the naysayers on the Bose speaker systems, especially the Acoustimass satellite systems. These speakers will blow you away for their size. I bought a Lifestyle system when they first came out back in 1994. I was amazed, and everyone who has never heard a LS system from Bose, is completely blown away by the sound from such a small package. The LS systems are overpriced UNLESS you need and want all their features (and then probably still given you could build your own theather system cheaper with "different" sound, but not necessarily better sound). You're paying for the SMALLNESS, not necessarily the BEST equipment.

These speakers we are talking about for this review my friend purchased after I got my lifestyle system back in 1994. She hooked them to an Okyio (sp) with about 100WTS per channel. Completely blew everyone out of the house, which was about 2000 square foot two story.

If you don't have bass, then I would advised investing in a amplifier with more than 10 WTS per channel. If you want to test the naysayers, just pick a set up and plug them in. If you don't like them, take them back. You will see that 99% of the people who bad mouth Bose have more to say about "Bose marketing, you suck" blah blah than the speakers themselves. Those who say they bought a 35 dollar set of speakers that blew these away are so obviously writing from simply hating Bose it's pathetic. If anyone can show me a set of 35.00 speakers that sound better to any random majority of people than these speakers, I'll send you a 1,000,000 check. But whoever takes me up on this, the reverse is true. You owe me 1 million if your random test fails you--so don't bother me.

Bose prides itself on spartan, small systems with VERY good sound, especially when you look at the size. And the bass in any Bose speaker system will not sound like your local low rider with a 20" bazooka sub in the trunk playing "Taste the Bass" CDs. In other words, you never get "boomie" loose sounding base from a Bose. They are very tight sounding, and if the CD calls for a "sub" frequency, you will REALLY hear it and feel it. Bose isn't into cranking up the volume gains and playing with frequency responses to get unnatural boomie, booingie bass that distorts the original music into a overpowering (headache inducing) Shiitey, boomie, boing, boing, boing sound. The Bose bass feels like someone patting your chest very firmly--tight, thump, thump like, very fast base response. Try the The Prodigy with the song "Diesel Power" and tell me these speakers don't thump. Yeah, right.

Bose Acoustimass 5 - Speaker System, ideal for stereo or home theater use - Black
Review by falshami : AWESOME SPEAKERS when used correctly

i bought these and found them to be simply awesome. i know im not going to be believed when i say this but i literally have this system hooked up to a 2 watt per channel rms amplifier i removed from a crap pair of speakers and it gives me a great full sound. it even gets pretty loud so this tells me that these are VERY efficient speakers. again i realize i wont be believed but its true. i have hooked them up to other amps and they still sound amazing. i love these speakers and enjoy using them daily

Bose Acoustimass 5 - Speaker System, ideal for stereo or home theater use - Black
Review by Bobo : Go with a powered sub...

Nice mid range and highs however I quickly found that I will need an "extra" amp to power this sub to levels that seems decent

Bose Acoustimass 5 - Speaker System, ideal for stereo or home theater use - Black
Review by P Sybe "CAT" : A bit under-rated (an unbiased review)

Pros: High and mid-range sounds from the cubes are very crisp, especially during gaming. System has a good all-round sound for the xbox 360, dvds and for music but fall short of excellent. The cubes deliver an amazing sound volume for their size and look great on the top of the piano.

Cons: Bose should make it clear that the bass module is not a powered sub-woofer. It does not deliver any where near the lows of a powered sub. This did not matter to me because I planned to add a sub anyway. Bass module is not all that easy to hide.

Other Thoughts: I've read many negative reviews about these (positive as well). I would rate them an 8.5 to 9 on a scale of 10. I played with these quite a while during set-up. Wiring, placement and amp quality are huge variables with this system. If the buyer expects subwoofer lows from the bass module, it won't happen. The bass module is not easily driven, a weak, low current amp won't adequately drive it. I replaced inferior speaker wire with high quality Monster Cable and it made a significant improvement. Lastly, the bass module provides PLENTY of (non-sub) bass when wired and placed correctly.