# Bose speakers with Yamaha receiver



## kenbola

To all my HT gurus:
I have a Bose Lifestyle 28 Series 3 DVD Home Entertainment system (5.1). The Bose speakers are mounted on the ceiling. I would like to hook up the speakers and the subwoofer to a Yamaha RX-V475 receiver. Do you see any issues doing this? Will this receiver be compatible with these speakers/sub? Thanks for your help


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## tonyvdb

If the speakers have normal two wire connections and the sub has its own line level input (rca) you should be good to go.


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## kenbola

Tony- Thanks soooo much for the quick response. The speaker wire can easily be spliced and connected to a non-Bose receiver. The subwoofer has a proprietary cable and it doesn't look like there is any way to connect the subwoofer to a non-bose receiver. Also, do I have to be concerned about the ohms of the Bose speakers versus ohms limitations on the receiver? thanks again. 
Kenbola


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## tonyvdb

Given the size of the Bose satellite speakers, no I would not worry about the Ohms on them. My concern is the so called sub if it does not have a normal input then you wont be able to use it.


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## chashint

Size of the speakers has no bearing on their impedance or sensitivity.
Having said that it is unlikely the Bose satellites are hard to drive.
It will be interesting to find out what you think of the sound once you replace the electronics and Acoustimass module.
Whatever engineering went into the speakers was for all the pieces to work as a system.


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## kenbola

spoke to Bose technician. The Lifestyle system (speakers and acoustimass module) are not designed to separate out the speakers from the rest of the system. The speakers need the feed from the acoustimass module. He says u can TRY and use the speakers with another receiver, but no guarantees it will work or how long the speakers will last. There are some bose 5.1 speakers designed for use with non-bose receiver but they are stand alone speaker systems.


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## RTS100x5

I have used Bose cubes w other AVR's in several installs...for whatever reason .... they all worked well but I made sure to set the x-over at 120hz... your better off not using to Acoustimass module unless its one of the older ones with RCA input... I have hacked into one that didnt and its a pain but can be done... That being said of course the Bose tech is going to tell you that their speaker system is proprietary.... but we know it just aint so


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## tcarcio

For the time and effort you will put into trying to get the bose to work with your yamaha I think you would be better off just getting some decent used bookshelf speakers. They would probably sound better too. I have the bose 321 system in my living room because of the wife not wanting a bigger system and I wouldn't want to use them any other way. Just my 2 cents, Good luck..


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## kenbola

Thanks so much for your input. As an installer- I now know it isn't worth it trying to make my customer's bose speakers "work" with another receiver. For now we are going to use his current system- use an optical (toslink) cable and a procontrol remote. that's the latest- will keep you posted.


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## eyespy39

I once had a Bose Lifestyle 1-2-3 system due to its wife acceptance factor (small footprint, esp. the cubes). I had bought it as a replacement for a cheap'n dirty Sony 5.1 home system, so the sound was really better. But there were software issues and power line hum even when the system was turned off due to the acoustic mass module that could not be turned off completely.
That was my chance to return it to the dealer, so I bought a Harman Kardon AVR 235 plus JBL Beta HCS Speakers, instead. And even if that AVR and the boxes were not top of the line then, the system sounded still much better than Bose. True, the Cubes sound way bigger than they are. But I believe now that all the DSP-genereated psychoacoustic wizardry by Bose can never fully make up for the qualities of well made speakers and decent setup AVRs/Processors/Amps.
The conventional Harman-Kardon/JBL 5.1 system was less expensive, by the way. Plus, its blue-lit volume dial appealed to my spouse, too.
I've never regretted leaving Bose, even though I upgraded my system a bit by now…
just my 2 cents


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## kenbola

Agree totally. But Bose cubes still win when you are mounting 5.1 speakers on wall and u want little cute speakers and cant do flush mount in wall. No one else has small cubes even to this day.


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## pddufrene

I've had a Bose lifestyle 12 system that lasted me for the past 14years, it finally died a couple months back. I then decided to try and pair them with a Yamaha rx573 and they just didn't sound the same. So instead of paying $3500 for a new lifestyle system I decided to go a different route and ultimately I'm glad I did.


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## kenbola

Good info and true. 
But if u or ur wife NEEDS small how do u beat Bose. Ps i am not a bose fan nor a bose hater.


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## pddufrene

I'm definitely not a hater either, as I said I had one for 14 years and loved it. I just have something much better now and half the price and three times the sound.


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## eyespy39

I admire Bose for how they achieve that much sound out of so small speakers. They're superior in this field. But ultimately, those sophisticated psychoacoustic techniques can only partially substitute for what bigger well-built speakers can offer. It's a in a similar to compressed audio files. Even if Fraunhofer institute found out that most people don't even hear the lost frequencies, lossless or analog audio sounds different.
So I'd decided that if I'm to spend more than 2000,-€ on an audio system to give the highest priority to its audio characteristics and only the second highest priority to its optical appeal. But every one his own, of course. One has to decide and sometimes to even sacrifice part of ones goals...


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## XenoSlap

RTS100x5 said:


> I have used Bose cubes w other AVR's in several installs...for whatever reason .... they all worked well but I made sure to set the x-over at 120hz... your better off not using to Acoustimass module unless its one of the older ones with RCA input... I have hacked into one that didnt and its a pain but can be done... That being said of course the Bose tech is going to tell you that their speaker system is proprietary.... but we know it just aint so


Please Sir. Share with me how you hacked the system. My son and I were in the garage tinkering and this unit is driving us crazy. We're amateurs. Havin fun experimenting


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## SmilingBob

I was looking up information for my old Bose Lifestyle 5 system and came across this thread. I know it's really an old conversation, but thought I'd post how I converted the previous amplified proprietary bass module to a standard passive unit - just in case anyone else ever finds this posting. I had previously repaired, parted out and sold the integrated CD/Receiver unit as well as the "Redline" single cube speakers on Ebay, but kept the woofer because it's always been a curiosity for me. AFAIK, Bose was the first (and maybe only) audio company to incorporate a 6th order bandpass sub design into a mass-market consumer product. The bass module is small, and doesn't necessarily go very deep, but it's efficient and good from about 43Hz - 200Hz, which is perfect for bread and butter duty as a passive "sub." The high frequencies are filtered out due to the bandpass design, so no real crossover is needed unless you want a lower one than 200Hz. Converting it was really very simple and should be similar for most of the bose amplified proprietary acoustimass modules:

1) Remove the plastic housing in the back of the module, which contains all the amps and electronics.
2) Four screws hold a plastic backplate onto the module after the electronics are removed. Remove the backplate and the front of the twin 5 1/4" woofers are exposed.
3) Remove the four screws for each woofer and remove the woofers from the unit. These drivers are wired together in parallel, but not soldered - wires are just wrapped many times around the metal rods soldered onto the woofer terminals. Remove all the wiring.

You are now ready to proceed with rewiring the system to be used with a standard receiver. Super easy - just solder (or use connectors) to connect speaker cable to each woofer, and run the wires through the hole already provided. I used slightly higher gauge cables than OEM, and there is now a pair of wires rather than just one so you might have to drill another hole or widen the one there already to accommodate. I'm a huge believer in the KISS principle, so I just used some speaker clip style spring terminals which I hot glued to the back of the plastic plate and connected to the wires for each speaker. I had to drill two small holes for each terminal, and then filled the holes with hot glue. Voila, you now have a passive woofer that you can connect to any stereo system. This one I refurbished will be used in a bi-wire system in conjunction with an old Pinnacle passive speaker bar and pair of dual-cube bose satellites for surround duty in a low-profile living room 5.0 surround theater.

I did things as simple as possible, but you can do whatever you want, including cutting out a new wood backplate to replace the plastic piece. I peeled off the ****** vinyl veneer (which was peeling) and plan to cover the particle board box with a nice wood veneer to complete the project. Preliminary listening and it sounds just fine as a passive unit.


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## willis7469

What a waste…


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## SmilingBob

willis7469 said:


> What a waste…


Which part?


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## willis7469

SmilingBob said:


> Which part?


Well, all of it I guess. 
As an exercise in academics, sure why not see what you can do. But “bread and butter”? Not even close. It’s neat that you could make it work. But I can’t imagine why anyone would bother. 
Junk.


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## SmilingBob

willis7469 said:


> Well, all of it I guess.
> As an exercise in academics, sure why not see what you can do. But “bread and butter”? Not even close. It’s neat that you could make it work. But I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.
> Junk.


The Bose hate, I understand many people suffer from this. I'm a DIY speaker builder for 40 years now, and the reason I kept this little bass module was because of the reasons cited in my original post. Although in no way approaching a true "subwoofer," it's a pretty decent little passive bass unit that has several interesting design features. I'd have to agree that most Bose products are substandard, cheaply made mid-fi, using press-board covered in vinyl, ****** electrolytic capacitors, etc. but marketed as something "more." But that doesn't mean they have never had good ideas or note worthy designs. Bose pretty much pioneered the sub/sat speaker system, which has been copied thousands of times over the last 30 years or so. This particular unit has been sitting in my garage for the last 7 years, as I was given a broken Lifestyle system (which I parted out, repaired and sold on Ebay). but I thought I would go ahead and save/refurbish this little bandpass woofer rather than trash it. Yes, for academics as well as actual application. And then post my results on a HT forum, in a thread talking about exactly this type of project. 

Hope my little endeavor helped someone else who had a similar interest.


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## SmilingBob

Not that anyone is actually following this thread, but I thought I'd update my post with a review of the refurbed and converted Bose Acoustimass bass unit. We moved into our new home and I finally set up the downstairs TV/Theater. Since we have a dedicated HT upstairs, this one was for casual TV watching and movies when the kids are in the game room/HT playing video games or watching their stuff. I used the refurbished Bose Acoustimass module, which I converted to work with my receiver as detailed in the prior post. I like vintage equipment, mainly because I'm old, and cheap. And if it's not broke, don't fix. 

So, for reference here's the cheapo downstairs theater where the Bose Acoustimass bass unit is being used:
55" Insignia F30 Series LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV
Panny SA-XR55 receiver (circa 2005, still love it and will use it forever or until one of us sheds this mortal coil)
Pinnacle QP9W speaker bar (left - center - right passive speaker, circa 2013 or so. Pinnacle is no longer in business)
Bose Acoustimass bass module (converted from amplified to passive, circa 1990s)
Bose "Doubleshot" dual cube speakers (surround, circa 1990s)

The idea here was to please the spousal unit with a system that is nearly invisible in the living room but sounds far better than the tv speakers. This was easily attained, but not without some issues.

First off, the bass module is very "mid-bassy," and the roll-off on the high end doesn't happen until around ~250Hz or so. This is problematic for HT in that I have the module bi-wired with the left/right on the speaker bar and there is no active crossover available on the receiver in this mode. I have the center & surrounds crossed at 150Hz / 12db per octave at the receiver and the left/right also 150Hz / 6dB per octave using a pair of caps, but the bass module is on it's own and rolls off naturally at the higher than desirable 250Hz. I used the bi-wire balance setting to lower the output of the bass module, and this helps some but I may purchase/make some coils for this unit in the near future. Speaker bar and bass module are located behind the TV (slightly raised so the bar passes all sound). The only indication of a HT is the tiny surrounds behind you (mounted high on the wall) and when you open the cabinet to operate the receiver.

Sound is as expected - far superior to tv speaker, but falling short of real LFE effects for HT (the Acoustimass rolls off rapidly lower than 50Hz). Once dialed in, music is actually pretty nice with the warmth of the Pinnacle silk domes and dual 3" drivers for each channel. Bass from the Acoustimass is efficient (have to turn it down, as noted) and is smooth and not "one-note" like so many critics claim. That 6th Order bandpass is still an amazing thing for a mass market consumer product IMO. HT is fine for casual movie nights. The awesome: the Panny will combine amps in parallel in stereo, and when bi-wired you have 6 amps total power for music since center/surround aren't needed. Such amazing tech and still sounds fantastic. <<3

So, mission accomplished - happy wife, happy life, and I'm pleased with the end-project and overall sound signature. The Acoustimass conversion to passive fills in from 150Hz down to 45Hz, but the lower octave is vacant. It's fine for what it is, and when it's serious movie night we go upstairs. Fun and cheap makes daddy happy.


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## willis7469

Keep smiling…


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