Bose Repair and Replacement

Over the years I have developed extended knowledge on how Bose products work and how to go about making their speaker systems integrate into a standard surround or music system. If you have an older Bose Lifestyle system which does not work and you want to repair it, like video projectors, it is best to send it back to the manufacturer. If you have a set of Bose speakers neatly installed in your system, I can integrate a standard stereo or surround receiver into the system with a sub-woofer and make the system work as good as new. I can also box up your receiver or sub-woofer and send it back to Bose for repair. Recently, I upgraded a Home Theater system which the client had recorded a great deal of their own music (CD’s) onto the hard drive on the Lifestyle system. This system has plate amplifiers to run each area with music and volume control and select music from the remote. It’s quite a nice operating system but no surround. I installed a new surround receiver and used the Lifestyle system as an input to the system so they could play their music in much the same way and have a full functioning surround system. One problem is that, with the Bose Lifestyle system, music cannot be backed up in any way digitally, like making a copy on I-tunes, so it is unfortunate that when that unit breaks or the hard drive quits all their music will be gone.
I have worked on Bose equipment now dating back to the second generation of 901 speakers. Do you remember those…9 identical small mid-range style drivers equalized to attempt to deliver bass and treble? This is where they got the metaphor “no highs no lows must be Bose”. I remember demonstrating these speakers and wondering why anyone would want these speakers that sound as if someone was speaking to you with their hand in front of their mouth. I have watched them come out with many different types of systems, from passive 2-way speakers to 3-way floor speakers to small satellites with a passive sub. Then they came out with amplified Lifestyle systems which used a set of amplifiers in the sub-woofer to drive all speakers. These systems were easy to use and looked nice. They just did not measure up in sound quality to conventional systems dollar for dollar. Another problem is that their product, although easy to use and rather attractive, did not work well in a system approach, which all other manufactures strive to achieve. Also, things like video switching and later HDMI switching only came out after the mainstream had it for years.
Bose has done very well at being both in front of and behind the curve on an ongoing basis. One thing is absolute, their following and perception of quality remain.