BOSE(R) Lifestyle 28-II DVD Home Entertainment System
From BOSE
The Lifestyle 28 Series II DVD system adds thrilling sound to your movies and music with the combination of performance, elegance and simplicity you expect from Bose. It customizes sound to your room with the innovative ADAPTiQ audio calibration system. The stylish media center features a progressive scan DVD/CD player and AM/FM tuner. Direct/Reflecting cube speaker arrays fill your room with spacious surround sound. And now, all Lifestyle DVD systems feature Bose link home networking technology to connect compatible Bose products for a whole-home entertainment solution.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #100351 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Bose
- Model: 28 Series II
Great Sound, but expensive and put together poorly with weird connectors
I installed this sytem for a friend who owns this system with a second system that ties into it for another room--that later has a second woofer and two larger wall mount speakers.
THE GOOD:
Overall the sound quality was excellent for music and 5.1 broadcasts. I like the look of the speakers and the ability to point the top half of the speakers in a different direction. This is helpful if you want to focus the sound in a specific direction while keeping good sound in other parts of the room. Its particularlly useful when the focus on your home entertainment system is in a corner instead of a wall.
The woofer sounds decent. Her system is white and I think the looks are nice.
AcCESSORIES:
Bose stands and wall mounting brackets are very good quality, and include any possible hardware you might need to mount on any wall surface. Wires hide unobtrusively in brackets.
CONTROLS: The unit has a CD player--who uses these any more? Also a tape input that can be used for an iPod and interfaces for video hookups to multiple video sources. Bose seems to think their system should be the heart of a home entertainment system, yet they don't partner with any TV manufacturers to fully integrate into a home theater system. Which should be dominant? The TV or the stereo? I feel the trend is shifting towards the TV providing the controls because it offers a display that can be seen at a distance.
THE BAD:
The woofer, if placed too close to your TV will distort the picture. All stereo wires run to the woofer first and are then distributed to the speakers. I find this to be a nuisance. The reason for this is woofer for the main system has an amplifier attached--built into it. Her second system has an external amp separate from the woofer. The second system does not have the proprietary wires. Speaker wires were color coded which made hooking them up somewhat easy.
The control wires to each amp are special cables. This means that you have to keep the woofer somewhat close to the TV, and for the satellite system she has, the amp had to be located.
The small speakers used on the main 5.1 system have proprietary connectors at the speaker end, and RCA connectors at the amplifier. There are funky DIN connectors between the control head to the woofer. This means you have to use this wire, or else cut and splice and use these connectors if you have a tight fit going through a wall. Note the second system that hooks into this control head uses normal post and wire connectors for all connectors, or spring clip type, except for the connection between the control head and the satellite amplifier which uses that funky DIN connector. It is enough to make you curse Bose Systems. Why did they do this? While it makes in easy for a non-techie to wire it all, with easy to configure color coding, the trade off is less flexibility for those who want a more professional installation with wires hidden in walls. If your house is prewired for speakers, be prepared to do a lot of cutting and splicing, or better yet, take it back.
5.1 Surround Sound: I was disappointed with the sound in 5.1 mode during some TV broadcasting. The background speakers would be either too loud or too soft. It did not seem to adjustable with the remote control. I'd raise the surround sound only to find it too loud and have to change in back. For TV this was such a pain that I found myself in stereo only mode to avoid this headache for general viewing.
Speaker Mounts: I also found that the speaker mount designed for the larger speakers would not fit with the small speakers without modification. The screws were not interchangeable, and they were metric which took time to sort out and a trip to Home Depot. I can't figure out why BOSE can't engineer the simple stuff like making screws interchangeable between the various stands and mounts, unless it is an excuse to sell you an expensive mounting kit. I made the mount work, but the back covers would not fit, again because the proprietary speaker connectors on the smaller speakers got in the way--this was not the case in the larger speakers with spring type terminals.
To hook up the second room satellite system I had to run an extra set of wires back out of the room because the satellite speakers had to feed off the woofer. Wring had to be from the source (amplifier) in the room to the woofer, back out again into the wall, and then up inside the walls on the far side to the wall mounted speakers. It worked but I didn't like all the extra wire on the floor. It would have been a cleaner installation if I could have run three pairs of wire up the walls, instead of four. These larger size speakers were set with the more normal type spring tensioned speaker terminals. Apparently these are no longer made by Bose--I very much liked these larger speakers over the ones included in this system. NOTE: I checked and these speakers do seem to be available but require the purchase of a woofer.
The Remote: This system had two, one for the main system one for the second room system. These do not use infa-red control signals. They use radio frequencies to control the system. This is the modern trend in sophisticated systems. I liked the fact you didn't need to point at anything to make it work. Great idea, ahead of it's time, but poorly implemented. You need a second remote anyway, since the universal remotes will not work with this system. By the way, the second remote would constantly turn the mute on. What a headache! Obviously the control head was broken. I was able to work around it by turning the second system off by changing to an unused source, or turning the volume down. That is better then getting screwed by Bose for a replacement main unit, and not too much of a hassle.
The cost is I feel ridiculous. I like the look of the Bose speakers, and I'm tempted to buy them, but I would never buy the controller. My choice would be a Sony surround stereo with a trio of Sonos ZP80's and Polk RM6900 speakers. It might be worth it as time goes on and more TV is broadcast in 5.1, or for those who use the system for music only. While the speakers do allow for some directional adjustment, this cannot overcome poor speaker placement. It seems silly to purchase a system like this and not put the speakers in the best possible location. That means hiding the wiring in the walls. Since this is very difficult to do with this BOSE system, I can't recommend them. Look for a TV with media type controls. While I very much like Bose satellite speakers, I would avoid their woofers, amplifiers, and control heads.
UPDATE: The remote is failing on the satellite speakers, which means having to walk to the main unit to cycle the source or an other keys randomly to get it to work. Also, radio interference is turning the system on randomly. I thought the radio idea was good, but either the internal controller is bad, or else some external source can key it on. Either way it implies a bad design. Don't spend a lot of money on this system and see it fail in a few short years.
