Home audio?

[sulphur]

Hopefully, some of you here are home audio gurus and can help me out here.
My heads pickled with this surround sound cinema shite for the house.
I'm looking at the Bose Cinemate II, but reading reviews they're rather mixed. I don't wanna throw out £550 and be pissed with the sound.
Ideally I just want a bloody good 2.1 system, where everything connects into the sub like the Bose does. Wanna upgrade the 5.1 I have now, but no wires so more of a replacement really.
Any ideas of a system similar or greater quality than the Bose? Or any personal experience with it?

cheers much!

[Cashhead]

Are you definitely set on getting a system like that? Is there a reason you want it to all wire back to the sub?

If it was me I'd be looking at getting a separate AV amp, sub and speakers, it means you have a lot more choice and its also all upgradeable in the future. What do you have currently? All AV amps I've used (quite a lot, I install home cinemas, multi room audio systems etc for a living) you can just tell them that you only have a Left and Right speaker and it will work it all out for you, having said that if you can I would try and use left, right and centre as the centre gives you most of the speech and makes a massive difference to the overall sound.

[sulphur]

I was set on getting an av amp/receiver but when I saw the size of them I was well put off. They're mahoosive! I know I've more option for upgrades etc with that set up, but I'm really just after a bloody good 2.1. Everything plugging into the sub is just for ease, 'cos I've currently got Ps3, DVD, Xbox, Wii and TV to hook up. Although DVD will be going soon.
Current system is a sony dav-dz630. Which is just incompatible with my TV. TV has digital optical audio, DVD doesn't. DVD has red/white phono...TV doesn't. Brilliant eh?

[sulphur]

Using this cable,
https://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/AD101.html?id=LI4rKruH

Would this allow me to plug headphones directly into this? Changing my digital optical audio output to a 3.5mm jack...i could connect headphones, yeah?

[Cunnington]

I've had a Bose 321 for over 5 years, and rate it pretty highly. I had a pretty decent system of Denon separates beforehand (the amp alone cost more than the entire Bose setup 10 years beforehand) and it is tiny in comparison. The gemstone speakers were new on the market back then and well out of my price range but the output from such a small package is well impressive.

It is more than a 2.1 as it does some clever shit with the signal processing that makes you hear things wider than just stereo. I dont think it could compete with a pucker 5.1 setup, but I would never get off with arranging my living room to get the best out of a 5.1 system.

The best feature is the processing of the vocal element of the signal to give it an even level, so you dont need to turn the volume up and down to avoid missing bits of dialogue.

The only negative is that the DVD packed in after a couple of years, but had a DVD recorder so it didn't really matter.

In summary, you could probably get a better sound output for your money, but taking account of the sound it delivers, the size of the package, and how it fits into the room make it a winner for me.
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[Rob]

Hey,

Well I've got both a full-on Home Cinema setup with a Yamaha amp etc etc and a Bose T20 connected to the PS3, XBox etc etc. I always like the sound of Bose stuff as it's all Bums and Tits.. it's kinda an in-your-face american sound that is great for gaming etc! There is no doubt that when you do a like for like comparison between the two systems, the Bose is lacking the detail and control of a proper setup, but for the convenience of an all-in-one box solution the Bose is great. The only real down side is that as they don't have a display on them you have to turn the TV on to select the right input which can be annoying when you just wanna have music on. The more expensive Bose systems have an active remove control that does the same as having a screen on the system.

I'd say, go for the Bose, yes for the same money you could piece together a much better sounding system in separates from Ebay or Richer, but hey, why bother with the stress and all the wires.. just get the all in one box with neat and tidy speakers! Remember you need to place the sub right as the main speakers are basically tweeters so you need to get everything else nicely delivered from the sub!
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Love is 1050cc

[Cashhead]

Just to play devils advocate, there will be more cables from a "normal" cinema setup, but having said that you should get some better sound from it and in some ways an easier setup.
Pretty much all AV amps now have HDMI switching capability, so all you need to do is run an HDMI cable from each piece of source equipment and then one HDMI up to the TV. If you have/getting a Bluray player then you will benefit from the proper HD audio soundtracks from blurays which offer a massive improvement over DVD audio, also if you said your DVD is connected via red and white phono you are not getting the best sound from it at all, you would be better using either Coax or Optical if it has them.

The adapter you posted above just allows a different type of optical connector, you will need an active Digital to Analog convertor or DAC like this (https://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/10674599/Lindy-SPDIF-Digital-To-Analogue-Stereo-Audio-Converter/Product.html?_%24ja=tsid:11518%7Ccat:10674599%7Cprd:10674599)

Having said all of that I don't have anything in particular against the Bose stuff I've installed quite a bit of it, as has been said above it is a lot of bass and trebble and not as much in between.

[sulphur]

Thanks for your replies.

I've had loads of thoughts about the bose, and been back to the store to see/listen to it twice since. It's alot of bloody money for a 2.1 setup, so I'm going to Richer Sounds on Sat to see what they can offer me for a similar budget. Only thing is, I don't really want a big ugly AV receiver unit.
I've saw an Onkyo 2.1 system where everything connects to the sub, so I'll be looking at that hopefully.
The Bose quailty didn't seem to 'wow' me that much, in all honesty. I was expecting to be blown away, and it was just 'alright'. Kinda swayed me away from it.