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Bose® CineMate® Digital Home Theater Speaker System
See it at Amazon.com for $449.99Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share105 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Sound, Easy Set-up (sort of)
(5 out of 5) by Bill on Apr 14, 2006 (New York)I am very pleased with the sound quality of the Bose Cinemate 2.1 system. The key to gettting the best sound quality is to follow the instructions and disable you TV's speakers, and set the audio output to 'fixed.' Prior to doing that the bass seemed very low. As soon as I made that change, WOW! what a system. I suspect others who have given the system a low rating may have not had the system set up properly. While you can set it up easily with just a few connections, it it important to adjust your TV's audio to ensure you are hearing that unparalled Bose sound.
105 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
Better Than Your TV's Speakers
(3 out of 5) by A. Wirtanen on Jun 17, 2006 (Cape Cod, MA USA)The Bose Cinemate is not for everyone. I would primarily recommend it for people who currently use their TV's built-in speakers and want an easy two-speaker solution for a mid-size room. I have used the Cinemate for over 6 months and have had no problems whatsoever.
For larger rooms and people who want the best sound, look elsewhere. If you want Bose, I would recommend looking at pairing the Acoustimass 10 or Acoustimass 16 with an Onkyo receiver. For a comparable home-theatre in-a-box (HTIB) solution, also look at Onkyo's solutions. Otherwise, spend some time reading reviews and browsing avsforum.com. The best quality sound will result from piecing together your home theater.
If the Bose Cinemate still appeals to you, here is a list of pros and cons...
PROS
+ Includes a universal remote! This remote can be programmed to control anything (your TV, DVD player, etc.).
+ Easy to set up.
+ Great for music.
+ Looks great, doesn't take up a lot of space.
+ Top-level customer support from Bose. This is one of the reasons why Bose products cost more.
CONS
- No digital input in the US version. If you buy the Japan version, it has digital input. What does this mean? Well, you won't get the best quality simulated surround for HD content or movies with digital sound.
- No stands included. The UFS-20 Bose stands are currently $100 from Bose.
- Works best if you have audio out on your TV or cable box (red and white RCA outputs). Otherwise, it may be hard to use the Cinemate for everything.
- You will not be able to visually tell how loud the volume is. The Bose system does not cooperate with the volume bar on TVs.
- Expensive.
TIPS
+ Set your TV's volume to about 80% and adjust the sound with the Bose remote control. You'll get a better quality sound this way.
For larger rooms and people who want the best sound, look elsewhere. If you want Bose, I would recommend looking at pairing the Acoustimass 10 or Acoustimass 16 with an Onkyo receiver. For a comparable home-theatre in-a-box (HTIB) solution, also look at Onkyo's solutions. Otherwise, spend some time reading reviews and browsing avsforum.com. The best quality sound will result from piecing together your home theater.
If the Bose Cinemate still appeals to you, here is a list of pros and cons...
PROS
+ Includes a universal remote! This remote can be programmed to control anything (your TV, DVD player, etc.).
+ Easy to set up.
+ Great for music.
+ Looks great, doesn't take up a lot of space.
+ Top-level customer support from Bose. This is one of the reasons why Bose products cost more.
CONS
- No digital input in the US version. If you buy the Japan version, it has digital input. What does this mean? Well, you won't get the best quality simulated surround for HD content or movies with digital sound.
- No stands included. The UFS-20 Bose stands are currently $100 from Bose.
- Works best if you have audio out on your TV or cable box (red and white RCA outputs). Otherwise, it may be hard to use the Cinemate for everything.
- You will not be able to visually tell how loud the volume is. The Bose system does not cooperate with the volume bar on TVs.
- Expensive.
TIPS
+ Set your TV's volume to about 80% and adjust the sound with the Bose remote control. You'll get a better quality sound this way.
59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
It should be noted
(5 out of 5) by J. Jones on Jan 20, 2006 I own one of these. I also own a Victorian era house. I am NOT eager to bore holes all over the place to have a 5 or more speaker system. I purchased this system because I like the fact that the 3 speakers with this system are pretty potent. I will say that at lower volume levels, the system is not better than the factory speakers on my TV. However, when you watch a movie like "Gladiator", "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars", etc, and turn the sound up to Movie theater levels, the system shines VERY well considering that it uses only 3 speakers. Speech is clear even in loud segments with a great deal of music and explosions. The remote control drives everything I have in the cabinet and is ergonomic. Set up was insanely easy. I do agree with one of the previous reviewers about the speaker cable length. It could stand to be at least 5' longer.
Another reason that I bought this system was the fact that I have many friends with various Bose products. None of them have ever complained about anything, except for the Acoustimas Wave Radio eating batteries. Contary to what another reviewer wrote, when you close your eyes you CANNOT TELL where the Acoustimas Module is. It sounds like its everywhere in the room.
For a person that rents movies every now and then, this system will serve it's purpose. I simply don't watch enough movies to merit a massive system. I'm happy with what I've got, and would buy another Bose to replace this one if it failed. My inlaws have a Alpine surround sound system with 5 speakers. This Bose performs equal to the Alpine, but cost less and is much easier to control.
Another reason that I bought this system was the fact that I have many friends with various Bose products. None of them have ever complained about anything, except for the Acoustimas Wave Radio eating batteries. Contary to what another reviewer wrote, when you close your eyes you CANNOT TELL where the Acoustimas Module is. It sounds like its everywhere in the room.
For a person that rents movies every now and then, this system will serve it's purpose. I simply don't watch enough movies to merit a massive system. I'm happy with what I've got, and would buy another Bose to replace this one if it failed. My inlaws have a Alpine surround sound system with 5 speakers. This Bose performs equal to the Alpine, but cost less and is much easier to control.
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
Recording Engineer's Thumbs Up
(4 out of 5) by BlueDrums on Jun 21, 2007 (Seattle, WA)I'm a recording engineer and I was impressed with the cinemate's sound and simplicity. I needed an elegant solution for my media center pc, and the cinemate is just the ticket. My wife didn't want obtrusive speakers in the den, and since I already have a DVD player and PVR built into the media pc, all I needed were speakers and amp. The cinemate is a self-contained system that powers it's own speakers through the bass unit. I was able to simply plug them directly into the media pc. It would have been nice for Bose to include a digital optical "in" but alas the input is analog only.
Some have complained that the bass is weak and the speakers are not as lively as others. However, I found the Bose engineers to be quite ingenious as these speakers are very natural sounding - "accurate" as we engineers would say. Many home theater speakers can sound "hyped", accentuating bass and human voice frequencies (1k-3k Hz). However, good speakers should accurately represent what the recording engineers were hearing in the studio. I'm sitting here listening to "Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" and there is plenty of THUMP when spaceships take off, the music is balanced in the mix, and the dialog is clear. It really sounds quite awesome. The crossover between the satellite speakers and the subwoofer unit is very transparent and smooth. My only comment is that the satellite speakers could be a little brighter at lower volume, but one can easily solve this with some slight eq: maybe a high shelf starting at about 8k. (This is easy to do on a pc.) The brightness problem seemed to go away when the system was turned up. I think the system was meant to run at a healthy volume. It packs a lot of punch and can get quite loud. (For geeks: I don't think this is just the Fletcher Munson effect either. The brightness is the thing that got better with more volume.)
As to the claim of "virtual surround" I think that Bose is going out on a limb on that one. Theoretically it would be possible to have the speakers project to the side walls and then have sound reach you as if they are from rear speakers. However, practically the chance of this happening in a typical den or living room is almost nil. People usually have curtains, hallways, bookshelves along walls and they will most likely absorb reflected rays of sound. In my room, I definitely do not hear the surround effect.
In all, however, I think this is a wonderfully convenient package that sounds great out of the box. Surprisingly, the system has plenty of power and can obtain decent loudness levels. I think the bose engineers knew what they were doing when putting this product together. Thumbs up.
Some have complained that the bass is weak and the speakers are not as lively as others. However, I found the Bose engineers to be quite ingenious as these speakers are very natural sounding - "accurate" as we engineers would say. Many home theater speakers can sound "hyped", accentuating bass and human voice frequencies (1k-3k Hz). However, good speakers should accurately represent what the recording engineers were hearing in the studio. I'm sitting here listening to "Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" and there is plenty of THUMP when spaceships take off, the music is balanced in the mix, and the dialog is clear. It really sounds quite awesome. The crossover between the satellite speakers and the subwoofer unit is very transparent and smooth. My only comment is that the satellite speakers could be a little brighter at lower volume, but one can easily solve this with some slight eq: maybe a high shelf starting at about 8k. (This is easy to do on a pc.) The brightness problem seemed to go away when the system was turned up. I think the system was meant to run at a healthy volume. It packs a lot of punch and can get quite loud. (For geeks: I don't think this is just the Fletcher Munson effect either. The brightness is the thing that got better with more volume.)
As to the claim of "virtual surround" I think that Bose is going out on a limb on that one. Theoretically it would be possible to have the speakers project to the side walls and then have sound reach you as if they are from rear speakers. However, practically the chance of this happening in a typical den or living room is almost nil. People usually have curtains, hallways, bookshelves along walls and they will most likely absorb reflected rays of sound. In my room, I definitely do not hear the surround effect.
In all, however, I think this is a wonderfully convenient package that sounds great out of the box. Surprisingly, the system has plenty of power and can obtain decent loudness levels. I think the bose engineers knew what they were doing when putting this product together. Thumbs up.
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
My first Bose
(4 out of 5) by Andrew Williams on Jan 7, 2006 (Merrimack, NH United States)Well I actually bought one. Clean sound. Easy to install. Remote controls everything including Tivo. I have a Sony WEGA which has a nice sound without Cinemate, but the Cinemate definately makes a difference. By the way... if you need to control the bass and treble then switch your audio out to "varible" not "fixed" and turn the volume up to about 80%. Now you can shape the sound to your preference.