I currently have an Bose Accoustimass 7 system which is the 3 pairs of cube speakers and bass module. I've been looking to get some rear channel speakers for my setup. I had been researching when all of a sudden I came accross Axiom. I had never heard of Axiom but couldn't resist all the reviews. I then decided I would instead buy a pair of Axiom M40's...a week later I bumped up my budget for a pair of M50's...and now, you guessed it, I'm going to get a pair of Outlet M60's. I just couldn't resist all of the great reviews. Anyway, if I get the M60's there is no way my wife will be approving a budget that includes speakers for some time to come. I would like to somehow configure my 5.1 with the Axiom's as my mains and the cubes as center, rear left, and rear right. I was just wondering if anyone had any knowledge of Bose Accoustimass and what would happen if I hooked them up in this fashion...would the bass from the bass module suffer? Would it damage my speakers or reciever? Would it just sound like crap?
thanks
In reply to:
Would it just sound like crap?
YES!
And that's all I'll say about Bose because I don't need the aggrevation of a lawsuit for slander.
P.S regarding a certian someone not approving the budget for speakers for sometime to come, the standard reply on this board is: "Grow a sack" and tell her how it's gonna be
.
Buy M22's instead. Then you'll have (almost) enough money left over for a VP100 and a pair of QS4's. That would be far preferable to M60's and the Bose cubes.
Mark
My 2 cents...if you are getting front L/R Axioms, you still need a proper centre channel. Dont sacrifice on that if you need a proper 5.1 system. I am not sure if the Bose cube can do a good job for a center.
I moved from Bose 301 front speakers to Axiom M22's and M60's so I can definitely vouch for the huge difference.
I have had my centre speaker for the last 12 years and it is not great (nor is it timbre matched) but it does a good job in my setup. I once tried to put a simple 2 way SONY hifi speaker in its place (Center channel) and I didnt like the result that much.
For surrounds, it is much easier to live with Bose or other speakers although a bipole/dipole/quadpole design gives you very good dispersion (surround sound).
Cheers!
MWC I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post but as for me "growing a sack"?!? I don't need your insults. I'm not going to sit here and lecture you for such a childish statement but I believe "having a sack" means putting your family first.
Dude, I don't think that's the standard thing to say on this board at any time, nor should it be. Jeezus, what kind of marriages do you think we all have?
As a reply to all of you, what's wrong with going away from 5.1 for a time back to 2 until the budget can fit for the rest? If it's so bad, then, well, use the Bose stuff for a little bit; just for watching movies.
I think people are not truly answering your questions, so I will try myself:
Yes, you could use your Bose speakers for the center and surrounds. Just understand, the sound is going to be so inferior to the Axioms, you will be itching in your pants to get the rest of the speakers as Axioms. But, it will still work and if that is all that matters, than you will be fine.
About the acoustimass stuff, do you have the acoustimass reciever? If so, it may not work with the Axiom M60's. That reciever is made for a speaker with very poor frequency response, I believe it cuts off around 200hz. The Axiom M60 goes down way below 200Hz all the way to 37Hz. I know your budget will be hurting, but you really should go buy a new reciever.
About your current Bose sub, because of the poor frequency response of the satellite speakers, the sub needs to produce the sounds from 200Hz all the way down to about 60 Hz. Since the M60s go lower than that, the sub will be rendered useless and you will want a new sub to reach down to 20Hz.
I am sorry to report this, but Bose are extremely poor speakers with the only redeeming value being their asthetic value, especially with the wife.
Oh, and about the "growing balls" comment, it might be my fault, I said that to someone else on this forum and mwc was jokingly repeating what I had said.
rdwarn,
My sincere apology
. I meant it in jest(see smiley face in post) and I can see where one might take offense. The "grow a sack" phrase was started here a long time ago and its been sort of a running joke anytime someone mentions something like getting permision for audio gear. I guess I overlooked the fact that you are fairly new to this board and wouldn't have known about it. I whole heartedly agree that family should come first before anything.
P.S. Snippy, thanks for recognizing the that my post was meant light heartedly.
rdwarn: I am sorry that you took offence to MWC comment. I do not think he meant that in offence and he just took it out of context to some members on this board that had that running joke long time ago. I apologize for his sake and I apologize because I think I was around when that "supposed" joke started. I thought that was long and buried.
That joke was a reply to me by Semi_On when I tried to pry the remote from my fiancee as she was listening to her music or watching TV on my newly bought M22 and Rotel receiver last year. As I tried to pry the remote she threw a couple of empty CD cases at me (or was it the remote) while I cowered and ran form the living room. At that point of time after some jokes Semi_On said I had to "grow a sack" and stand my ground. My fiancee is 5'0" petite and I am 5'10" and 130 lbs heavier than her.
Again I apologize because there are some here who do remember that joke and it was just out of context in this situation.
Lets just bury this and let it slide. Sorry.......
Saturn - cowering Axiom member for long time now
I stand corrected. It was actually started even before that and was a comment to another individual to stand his ground and show his wife who is the boss. But is was all in jest.
Saturn
ps:We really know who is the boss
rdwarn, don't go away mad, or go away at all. We're nice.
The receiver issue is huge. Like Snippy said, what you're driving the speakers with could be an issue, not only from the Bose proprietary perspective, but also regarding center channel functionality. For instance, if you've got a modern, Dolby Digital receiver, you will almost certainly be able to run a phantom center channel with the M60's. Depending upon your room and tastes, you might find that option much more satisfying than using the Bose in the middle.
I don't have a good understanding of how the Bose system works; are the cubes powered by or crossed-over by the sub or something? Or can you just wire them up to standard outputs like regular speakers?
I love my Axioms. You'll be absolutely delighted with the difference you hear compared to the Bose.
I too am suffering in Boseland, and am planning to replace the 5.1 setup with a 7.1 Axiom setup. Getting Axiom L/R mains would be a great enhancement to the sound, but you are going to have major problems with bass.
When I got my Denon 4802, I was surprised to find that little or no bass was coming out of the "bass module." I found later that the receiver's crossover was on, filtering out all sound below 80 Hz and sending it to the LFE output, except there was no real subwoofer in the system, and all the low bass was being lost. What the Acoustimass system does is having the speakers plug into the bass module first, which filters out the LFE, and then there's an output from the bass module to the receiver. By having Axiom L/R speakers, you need to set them to Large in the receiver settings, or else bass from the left and right channels will go nowhere. The best solution would be to get an SVS or HSU subwoofer, throw out the bass module, and wire all the speakers directly to the receiver.
I hope this all makes sense, and best of luck.
Steve
P.S. - This is assuming you have a non-Bose receiver. If you have a Bose receiver, there's no way around the bass loss.
In reply to:
If you have a Bose receiver, there's no way around the bass loss.
I could have sworn I read "Bose deceiver." I was laughing out loud, but it was all in my head.
I'd second the "please don't leave" comment. It's an unfortunate reality (depending on how you look at it) that any forum related to electronics and frequented by men breeds a somewhat "animal house-like" environment.
However, I assure you of all the corners of the web that I've rummaged for help since starting my home theater research, this has been the most helpful, interesting, informative place to come. And that's saying a lot because I've met a TON of helpful people all over the net.
My two cents is limited to about a ha-penny right now because you don't even want to know what my rig is...but I have heard a family members Bose, and I've read a lot about them all over the internet and I wouldn't recommend you mix them with anything.
-Nick
I think I'll have a little Office Space revenge when I finally get rid of these cubes.
I apologize to all...sorry I'm new here (as if you couldn't tell). I over reacted. Won't happen again. Anyway, let me get down to the business of why we are all here...quality speakers. To answer the question about my reciever, I have a mid-level 100 Watt Sony Reciever...again, I know this isn't great but hopefully it will sound ok with my new Axiom M60's. If these Axioms are even half as good as everyone says I think I will be very very pleased. I'm waiting for a pair of Black Oak or Boston Cherry to be posted on the Outlet Store.
What gauge speaker wire would anyone out there recommend with M60's? Right now I have 16 gauge Monster wire for my Bose.
Oh, if you're going with M60s, you'll be fine with the bass for a time. You may have to do some fancy footwork to just get the Bose to cover the centers and surrounds (but I don't really know, never having owned Bose...) The 16 gauge speaker wire will be fine.
Oh yeah. And you'll be blown away.
RD, on your latest question, since your M60s will probably be no more than 10 feet or so from the receiver, the 16 gauge Monster is plenty(although grossly over-priced). On the use of the Bose, because of the somewhat different construction it'll be unlikely that an integration with the M60s would be very satisfactory, especially for the center. You haven't described what crossover provisions your Sony has, but having the M60s handle all the bass and crossing to the Bose's at 150Hz or higher might give fair results.
After reading some posts from others on speaker wire I have been enlightened that I do not need to spend the big bucks for Monster Cable. Being ignorant is expensive!! So the guage of the wire can most be related to the distance the speakers are from the reciever...the further away they are the lower the guage should be...is that the general rule of thumb?
As for my reciever I'm not sure what the cross over is. I'll have to read the manual tonight when I get home from work. Excuse my ignorance but if I were to pop in a CD, set my reciever to one of the 5.1 surround modes, would the same signal be sent to all 5 speakers? Would all 5 speakers recieve the same bass? I assume with a DVD encoded with say 5.1 DTS that my reciever is not putting the same signal through to all 5 channels because the DTS decoder is channeling the proper sound to each speaker.
Thanks
All you have to do with the receiver is turn the subwoofer setting to off. That will send all the bass to the M60s, and you won't have to use the lack-of-bass module.
I had a very similar setup to what you have. I had a Bose Acoustimas 7 and a Sony 935 or something close. I just recently purchased a pair of M22ti's and QS8's from the factory outlet. I am waiting for the VP150 in cherry to hit the outlet.
I have had this for only a couple of days and have one Bose speaker as my center and it sounds like CRAP! I thought my system sounded pretty good with the Bose, boy was I wrong!
I definately do not recommend using the cube as a center channel!
Your Sony does not likely have a 5/6/7 channel stereo mode on it. So you should listen to CD music in stereo only. The reciever will automatically play the CD in pro logic, which will sound awful because it will almost completely come out of the center speaker.
Most higher end reciever companies, such as Denon, have a 5/6/7 channel stereo which produce excellent full range stereo sound out of all of the speakers.
With the sound quality of the M60's, you will only want to hear CD music in Stereo anyways. You will likely listen to everything in Stereo. The soundstage of Axiom speakers are so large, that the M60's will completely fill your room with sound.
Yes RD, the distance of the speakers determines the required gauge. This
article and table by a veteran audio professional covers the topic.
As Andy(snippy) noted, a regular two-channel CD wouldn't play through all speakers unless the receiver had an all-channel stereo mode. With the big difference in speakers being discussed here, that might not sound too good. When you set the speakers "small" in your receiver they receive the frequencies above the selected crossover point and the sub or the "large" main speakers receive the bass frequencies below that point. I'm not especially familiar with the Bose speakers, but I understand that the cubes have little output below about 200Hz, where their bass module takes over. That's why if they're going to be used temporarily in combination with the M60s that the receiver crossover to them should be set at 150Hz or higher, assuming that the receiver has that much adjustment range.
If it's not too late, you can get 12/2 speaker wire from Home Depot for 34 cents/foot. I just bought another 60 feet today.
I would like to ask the experts here, is it ok to move the crappy bose center to the rear 6.1 center channel? Or is it better off to be a pure axiom 5.1 setup?
Well, I'm now on the official Axiom waiting list for a pair of Boston Cherry M60Ti's!!! I can't wait unti my name is called. My Sony reciever is a Sony D-545 5.1 DTS reciever. I emailed the Bose Tech Support about my delema (although I told them I was getting a pair of Bose 601's...little white lie) and they explained that I could use my Accoustimass system as the center and rear channels. I need to set my center to small and rear's to large speakers...and of course my M60's will be set to larger as the front two. Also, much thanks to all the input on speaker wire. This site has given me TONS of useful information and I can't wait to post my experience with my new M60's once I get them. I know when my friends here these baby's they are going to be looking for a pair as well. I already have my Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon sitting out as my first test disc.
Thanks again to everyone on this site for being extremely helpful.
Go with pure 5.1. I don't think there's that much advantage to 6.1, and that way you won't have the crappy Bose sound anywhere near your system. ;-)
I asked because I see a lot of people in this forum who bought M2 or M3 for the 6.1 rear channel. I haven't heard to those speakers but I have the feeling that people buy it just because the rear channel isn't that important and people think M2 and M3 are great speakers based on the fact that M22, M60 and M80 are so good. If people are satisfied w/ M2 as their rear, would a crappy speaker be an good option to be the 6th channel?
I just replaced my Bose center speaker with n M2 until the VP 150 arrives. Even the M2 is a huge difference in sound compared to the Bose cubes, and I can guarantee that if you use the Bose speaker for 6.1, you won't be satisfied. I would just stick with 5.1.