Our Family Room
Joy and I enjoys watching movies. Currently our main viewing area would be the family room. Until our dedicated home theater room is finished, we will continue to use the family room to view blockbuster movies.
Our Family Room home theater setup
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Toshiba 65" HD, Yamaha speakers and the KLH subwoofer |
On the other side a single sofa will do |
Our equipments are enclosed in a closet, out of everyones view. The is also a Windows 2000 Advanced Server serving MP3 music for the Whole House Music installed in our home.
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A generic PC and an old Sony receiver powers the Whole House Music system. |
Whole House Music software running |
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Yamaha RX-V1500 |
Yamaha NS-333 main & NS-444 center |
Saumsung DVD, Toshiba VCR, Pioneer LD |
Recently, we upgraded our speaker system in the family room. Joy never liked the bulky speakers hanging on the walls. I must agree that they do sound good, but they DO NOT blend in with the decor, and hardly qualify as pleasing decorations. So we opt for smaller speakers with atleast decent quality and performance.
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During Easter of 2005, there was a sale at the Bose outlet in Camarillo, California. I listened to Bose and was literally in the store for two hours, listening, testing the speaker system with various movies, and music. Finally, we decided to get the Acoustimass 16 series II - white. The speaker size was perfect, the sound quality was prestine! It took me 6 hours to wire the Bose in our family room. I had to run wires behind the walls, drill holes for the receiver connectors -- but in the end, it was worth all the work. Movie dialogues are crisp and clear, effects are distinct, bass is deep and very well balanced. |
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What Bose takes pride in is the clarity of music and movies their speakers perform. For the longest time, I have been very skeptical of the performance of these tiny speakers, but after having them installed in our home, they are worth every penny spent. When playing music, you can literally hear every instrument, in movies, dialogues are not muffled --- you hear every word. You do not have to turn up the volume to hear people talking, then later on lower it because of the loud sound effects.
This Bose, model Acoustimass 16, is a 6.1 channel system. I hooked this up to my Yamaha RX-V1500, and all channels configured as (L)arge. Using YPAO (automatic speaker placement and calibration) on the Yamaha will detect the Bose speakers as being (L)arge speakers. The bass that the sub-woofer provides is adequate and perhaps perfect to normal listening conditions. It will rattle your walls and shake your couch. But if want deeper bass, I highly recommend getting a dedicated subwoofer.
What Bose gives you is the correct acoustic balance (bass/treble). And with this system, they have indeed accomplished that. I am totally sold on their product. Good job Bose! However, I did not get rid of my dedicated KLH sub. It is still connected to the receiver to supplement bass response. I however, lowered the cut-off frequency of the KLH so that it will only thump at low-low frequencies. I kept my KLH because I'm a bass affectionado --- i love deep and loud bass, that's the only reason why i decided to keep the extra sub -- it is not that Bose is lacking in bass, I just wanted more. :-)
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