Goodwill (charity store) Bose score

[Stonent]

Got 2 swivel cube speakers for $3 each. Ebay closed auctions for these range from $40 to $55 each, or around $130 for a set of 2. I took the grilles off and the speakers themselves have no external damage.  I tested 6.5R impedance (after subtracting 1R for my leads) on each set. 



I've watched youtube videos of people "picking" at Goodwill before but I never found anything before that I knew for a fact was worth considerably more than what it was listed for. These will be going on Ebay shortly.

Recent sold listings for these:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_nkw=bose+lifestyle+red&_sop=13

[David_AVD]

I tested 6.5R impedance (after subtracting 1R for my leads) on each set.

Just a small point.  If you used a standard DMM, you tested the DC resistance, not the impedance.  You'd need to test them with AC (nominally at 1KHz) like a proper impedance meter does to find the actual impedance.

The DC resistance of speakers is usually a bit lower than their actual impedance, so a 6.5 Ohm DC reading may indicate an 8 Ohm speaker.  That said, some hi-fi speakers are 6 Ohm.

[Stonent]

Ok that makes more sense now.  I was reading about these speakers and they are mid-90s vintage but some Hi-Fi forums say not to connect them to non-Bose equipment because they are lower impedance than most normal speakers and they could get damaged.

I remember when working at a few electronics stores that Bose went to DIN style plug after a while probably to make sure you were using their equipment with their speakers.  I never worked in HT or Hi-Fi areas so I didn't know as much about them.

[Stonent]

I hot-wired them to a 3.5mm headphone jack and put them on my laptop.  They sound really nice with no rattling. I do get a bit of crackling at full volume (which isn't all that loud) but I suspect that's just the amplifier in my laptop crying out in pain since I'm sure it's more used to 16 or even 32 ohms.

[Jarrod Roberson]

These are supposed to be hooked into the outputs of the Bose Subwoofer that came with them, I wouldn't hook them up directly to a amplifier, I can't find my manual for mine, but I remember they warned against hooking them into anything but the supplied outputs on the sub, which have crossover circuits to limit what gets output to the satellites.

[Stonent]

These are supposed to be hooked into the outputs of the Bose Subwoofer that came with them, I wouldn't hook them up directly to a amplifier, I can't find my manual for mine, but I remember they warned against hooking them into anything but the supplied outputs on the sub.

Yes I did read that on a Hi-Fi forum. So that's why I just tested them on my laptop and didn't connect to my 150W Pioneer receiver. I suspect the sub has a high pass filter on the cube outputs and limits the maximum current to prevent damage.

Do recall which Bose system yours is?  Are they the black speakers with the red line?

[linux-works]

"no highs, no lows: must be bose!"  lol

if you need a good sounding and semi cheap crossover (for highpass) the behringer dcx-2496 is a unique unit.  it takes spdif in (2ch, not 5.1 or 7.1) and can give you 3 bands of output (hp,bp,lp).  its not too expensive and it can be modded for various things.

else: on the cheap, get a car audio crossover!  I have several from my old old installs and they simply need a clean 12v in and its rca-in and rca-out.  HP them at 200hz or even higher for safety.  some car audio XO's can run 24db/oct which I find to be very nice for power handling and longer mid/tweeter life.

[Stonent]

"no highs, no lows: must be bose!"  lol

if you need a good sounding and semi cheap crossover (for highpass) the behringer dcx-2496 is a unique unit.  it takes spdif in (2ch, not 5.1 or 7.1) and can give you 3 bands of output (hp,bp,lp).  its not too expensive and it can be modded for various things.

else: on the cheap, get a car audio crossover!  I have several from my old old installs and they simply need a clean 12v in and its rca-in and rca-out.  HP them at 200hz or even higher for safety.  some car audio XO's can run 24db/oct which I find to be very nice for power handling and longer mid/tweeter life.

In my non-professional experience, I've found the Bose systems have good audio quality given their size.  Overpriced? Probably, but they do seem to put a lot of thought into their designs and I can appreciate that.

Since the sub is going to have to be big anyway, why not move all the amp circuitry into it? Now you have a really small receiver unit that takes up very little room.  Bass below a point is basically non-directional so it doesn't matter a whole lot that you hide the sub, so now it looks like you have a tiny system making a lot of sound.

One store I worked at had a "Bose room" and a dedicated Bose employee that did a demo where they had these massive speaker cabinets with tiny Bose speakers inside and part way through the demo they just remove the large cabinet and you see the speakers are tiny.  Then later they remove some very obvious looking amplifiers and show they aren't even plugged in and you see the small Bose hardware hidden behind it.

Either way it was always fun to see the customer reactions when everything was uncovered.

[TMM]

Since the sub is going to have to be big anyway, why not move all the amp circuitry into it? Now you have a really small receiver unit that takes up very little room.  Bass below a point is basically non-directional so it doesn't matter a whole lot that you hide the sub, so now it looks like you have a tiny system making a lot of sound.

The problem with most of these 'satellite' type surround sound systems is that the small satellite speakers can't reach down to the non-directional frequencies (<80Hz) so you either end up with a single 'subwoofer' playing some directional sounds (in the 80-200Hz range) or an enormous hole in the frequency response between the sub and the satellites.

Bose also have enormous budgets for optimizing their demo rooms. They use every trick in the book to make the most of the mediocre speakers - good sound insulation in the walls/floor/roof, optimal speaker/seating positions. I think i read somewhere that they even apply external equalization. More often than not, a customer takes home a system that sounded good in the demo room only for it to sound like garbage in their home. Thankfully for Bose, the customer now has expectation bias - it always sounds good to them now because they listened to the exact same system at the store and it sounded great there...

I wouldn't pay more than $10 for the bose speakers in the OP.

[Jarrod Roberson]

My Bose Acoustimas 3 system sounds awesome in every room I have ever hooked it up in.

My Bose iPod SoundDock sounds awesome in every room it is played it, small, large and even outside at the pool.

My Bose L1 Model II PA system sounds incredible in every venue I have used it.

Bose spends a ton of money on psycho-acoustic modeling and testing, they spend the time and science on what you can actually hear and re-enforcing that. Direct reflection and indirect sound doesn't require "perfect sound balanced rooms", it is 100% the contrary, Bose stuff sounds good in environments that everything else that doesn't.

My L1 Model II is 24 speakers in a horizontal radial pattern that in no matter what room and how far away you stand, you can't tell where the sound is coming from. Nobody can, everyone is amazed at how it fills the room, no matter how many or how few people are in the space.

Any opinions on lack of sound quality are just that opinions. Ethan Winer has a very complete and scientific examples of why "audiophile quality" is 100% subjective and exploited by non-scientific charlatans.

http://youtu.be/BYTlN6wjcvQ