Bose PS321 Subwoofer - Rewiring for another system

[Jimteacher]

I got a "loose" Bose ps321 powered Acoustimass subwoofer, from a Bose® 3·2·1® GS II DVD home entertainment system - without the other parts, and, as I like playing with such things, wanted to see if I could hook it up to a regular system other than Bose.

The input from the Media Center is a 16-pin ribbon. All I'd like to do is send a typical signal from the pre-amp subwoofer output of a receiver into two of those 16 pins to get subwoofer sound from the Acoustimass woofer.

I'm sure I could just run speaker wires right into the speaker wires, as I don't think that they'll pull that much power, but I'd like to make use of the Amp in the woofer if possible.

This is just for fun, as I like taking things apart and just messing with them, but I wonder if this is more trouble than it's worth, though if it did work reasonably well, I'd take it to school and use it on a receiver that I have there for my kids.

Thanks for any advice...

 

[Seth=L]

Your guess is as good as ours. If you ask someone from Bose they would tell you that it cannot work with other equipment and that it's proprietary, they won't discuss it on a technological level. If you guess wrong, it may fry or you may fry something valuable of yours (receiver or some such thing). My advise, put it up for sale on Ebay with no reserve or bid set, you will at least get some change out of it. I absolutely don't recommend wasting time and possibly you equipment on this Bose Acoustimass Module.

Trust me, it's the best advise you will get.

 

[Davemcc]

On the other hand Seth, it might be satisfying to tear into a Bose module without any care or concern over whether it survives. Destruction has it's own perks.

But even if you did get it working, you would probably find that the sound quality is dissappointing, extension lacking and very boomy. It's not really good raw material for a project. [Shame]Yes, I did own a 3-2-1 at one time[/Shame]

 

[Halon451]

I wonder if this is more trouble than it's worth

If you're asking us, then the short answer is yes.

As Dave pointed out, even if you get it to work, you will likely be sorely disappointed with the results. That unit is not really a subwoofer, and even Bose claims it to be only a "Bass Module" whatever the hell that means. You'd be better off just going out and purchasing a low-priced cheap subwoofer from Best Buy or something rather than trying to employ this for use with any standard receiver, if you're just looking for something that works well enough for class.

 

[Seth=L]

On the other hand Seth, it might be satisfying to tear into a Bose module without any care or concern over whether it survives. Destruction has it's own perks.

But even if you did get it working, you would probably find that the sound quality is dissappointing, extension lacking and very boomy. It's not really good raw material for a project. [Shame]Yes, I did own a 3-2-1 at one time[/Shame]

Bose module torn appart, fine, but don't try hooking it up to other stuff. Is it worth the risk of destroying good equipment with a piece of crap? I have personal experience messing up a good piece of equipment because I was tinkering around with a crappy piece of equipment. I can only recommend selling it, or taking it appart for fun. I suppose if you had a piece of junk Kenwood receiver laying around you could torture it with the Bose.

 

[kucor88]

Hi

I got a same story like you.I was opened the sub and look on the internet to he details and on the and I can now connect to any universal system.

actually it is verry simple circuit what is inside first wat its need to look the IC -its the tda 7396 (all of the data can found on the internet). so first its need to find the audio input pins on the connector of the sub so fallow the 1. and the 2. leg from the ic

then the second thing what its needed to look is the standby leg this is the 8. leg. It's need to connect to the +Vs point this are for examle the 3. and the 9. leg. it's can to bridge it verry esaly but also it's possible to put one switch.

My personal test was so:

It's works perfectly but like on the picture it can see that I need to repair some solderings..and that 2 little edittings under the connector is also my repair because my panel is demaged....
so now I will make it normally and then it will look normally..

I hope that I was help how to " hack " the bose 321 subwoofer...

I got a "loose" Bose ps321 powered Acoustimass subwoofer, from a Bose® 3·2·1® GS II DVD home entertainment system - without the other parts, and, as I like playing with such things, wanted to see if I could hook it up to a regular system other than Bose.

The input from the Media Center is a 16-pin ribbon. All I'd like to do is send a typical signal from the pre-amp subwoofer output of a receiver into two of those 16 pins to get subwoofer sound from the Acoustimass woofer.

I'm sure I could just run speaker wires right into the speaker wires, as I don't think that they'll pull that much power, but I'd like to make use of the Amp in the woofer if possible.

This is just for fun, as I like taking things apart and just messing with them, but I wonder if this is more trouble than it's worth, though if it did work reasonably well, I'd take it to school and use it on a receiver that I have there for my kids.

Thanks for any advice...

 

[tcarcio]

Can you say Boat anchor......

 

[agarwalro]

Kucor88, thanks for posting here. Dude, A++ for effort. F for choice of product to expend that time and energy into. All said and done, kudos for making it work for you, stay a while and we could have a nice symbiotic situation going.

 

[impuls4muzik]

for this speakers? what connection need?

 

[nfafan]

Amazing that no one has made a "bypass cable" to sell on evilbay to accomplish this exact same function.

 

[Seth=L]

Amazing that no one has made a "bypass cable" to sell on evilbay to accomplish this exact same function.

I suspect if you did, Bose would sue.

 

[johnrm]

I am planning on doing similar. I purchased the front speakers of a 321 system and hooked them up to a regular surround sound stereo as my surround speakers. First off I noticed the bose had 4 pins on each. 2 speakers are in each of the cabinets. Each speaker measures 4 ohms. In parallel that would break it down to 2 ohms. That would fry my amp! Series would be the only way to go. to make sure I wired them in phase, I hooked a battery to the pins and figured out what pins went to what speaker and by watching the speaks push in or pull out I could match the phase. both must be in phase. I did this on both sides. I merely soldered my leads onto the pins. Voila! all is good. Bose doesn't want people using anything but bose connectedto their systems. It's why the fancy plugs and stuff. I'm usng Bose 201's as my front speakers and this small 321's (normally the front) as my rear surround sound. Works awesome. I now want to hook up a Bose subwoofer (using a Sony subwoofer now) to complete my system. I know getting info from bBose on this wont be easy (top secret, classified national security issues). But I will figure it out. These are powered speakers, which means I'll probably use the amp built in. I don't know if it has a built in power supply, if the inputs are normal line level or what. At worst, I will use another amp with a low pass crossover and power the speaker. I see the subs everywhere for about $50. Wont know much til I get them. Wish me luck. I'm sure I'll figure it out and when I'm done will post more info on this.

 

[johnrm]

for this speakers? what connection need? View attachment 14594

I didn't use any connector but soldered leads directly to the pins. Make sure they are wired in series and in phase. In parallel they will probably be to low of impedance and fry your amp. In phase is because you want all the speakers to push and pull together. Basically you're jumping the out(negative of one) into the in(positive of the other). Then just hook the positive lead to the positive of your amp speaker oututs and the negative to the negative of your amp speaker outputs.

 

[Chad Johnson]

I am planning on doing similar. I purchased the front speakers of a 321 system and hooked them up to a regular surround sound stereo as my surround speakers. First off I noticed the bose had 4 pins on each. 2 speakers are in each of the cabinets. Each speaker measures 4 ohms. In parallel that would break it down to 2 ohms. That would fry my amp! Series would be the only way to go. to make sure I wired them in phase, I hooked a battery to the pins and figured out what pins went to what speaker and by watching the speaks push in or pull out I could match the phase. both must be in phase. I did this on both sides. I merely soldered my leads onto the pins. Voila! all is good. Bose doesn't want people using anything but bose connectedto their systems. It's why the fancy plugs and stuff. I'm usng Bose 201's as my front speakers and this small 321's (normally the front) as my rear surround sound. Works awesome. I now want to hook up a Bose subwoofer (using a Sony subwoofer now) to complete my system. I know getting info from bBose on this wont be easy (top secret, classified national security issues). But I will figure it out. These are powered speakers, which means I'll probably use the amp built in. I don't know if it has a built in power supply, if the inputs are normal line level or what. At worst, I will use another amp with a low pass crossover and power the speaker. I see the subs everywhere for about $50. Wont know much til I get them. Wish me luck. I'm sure I'll figure it out and when I'm done will post more info on this.

John, can you take a picture of your surrounds and what wire goes to which posts? Thanks! Chad

 

[pewternhrata]

These are the posts I enjoy. "Hey I got this thing I'm gonna try" That's all I did growing up and I still do. Lucky for me, I rarely have to call a repairman when something breaks. I've messed around with so many things that now I can take almost anything apart with confidence and read a repair manual. New fridge, washer, stove, furnace...nope, not today.

 

[MrBoat]

These are the posts I enjoy. "Hey I got this thing I'm gonna try" That's all I did growing up and I still do. Lucky for me, I rarely have to call a repairman when something breaks. I've messed around with so many things that now I can take almost anything apart with confidence and read a repair manual. New fridge, washer, stove, furnace...nope, not today.

Same here. Only time I farm out work is if the specialized tools cost more than the task, or for a one time deal.

 

[Pk797]

Gentlemen- I have a somewhat similar pet project I’m working on now myself. I should start by saying that I am not a great audiophile by any stretch, but like kucor88 and other’s here I do get distinct pleasure out of making what I have work, before necessarily running out to buy the latest and greatest. I am engineer by trade but really more importantly I am a bit of a born tinkerer, that believes in the saying related in.. "shopping in ones own closet First.”


In any event- I have now (2)two Bose Acoustimass speaker set’s. One that includes just two(2) of the Redline cube satellite speaker pairs, that I bought many years ago and one other that I purchased used more recently that includes (3)three of the Redline series satellite speaker pairs. *Each of course comes with one of its own original Bose sub enclosures, that also doubles as the system's crossover hub. *My thought is to use both systems- powered by my dad’s older but much appreciated/ cherished Marantz 4 channel amp and receiver unit, which I am already using, but doing so now with the one Acoustimass system set up normally on one end- driving its own 2 or 3 Redline speaker pairs by themselves through the Acoustimass crossover sub system, as per it’s standard configuration while possibly experimenting with the other in allowing the second crossover sub to run a pair of JBL Control 25t’s instead of the standard Bose Redline cub speaker units.


I am running these Control 25t’s currently directly from the amp’s second channel, partly because of curiosity on how they would sound together with the Bose system and partly because of how they fit in the room itself and while I imagine there is likely any number of different ways to lay this out I was curious how these two direct JBL speakers would complement the system as a whole, hoping I guess they would help fill areas cut or phased out by the more strictly controlled Bose satellites.


What I found is actual quite opposite. The JBL’s hooked up directly the amp as they are now do not sound great (even with what I expect is a reasonably fair crossover built within their own little enclosures) and seem to be struggling with the presumably wider host of frequencies they are now being asked to produce without any other form of frequency cutting or tweaking. It was to this point I was hoping to borrow favor now from the otherwise unused/unoccupied second Bose Accoustimass sub- crossover hub, to use with the JBL’s satellites instead of the standard Bose cubes.


First question- was to ask what you guy’s thought of what to me seems like a simple enough idea at the surface, but of course leaving out tuning and items like impedance concerns.?


The other question I can think to ask is how you guys/gals thought best to configure this set-up?


Obviously everything would be wired up through the Acoustimass sub unit, as per normal, but I wonder how best to set-up the JBL Control 25t’s to cope with this arrangement? What Wattage setting I may want to invoke and if I should possibly do anything with the internal transformer or crossover mechanism likely already inside the Control 25t’s now in doing so..?

 

[rodspain]

Hi

I got a same story like you.I was opened the sub and look on the internet to he details and on the and I can now connect to any universal system.

actually it is verry simple circuit what is inside first wat its need to look the IC -its the tda 7396 (all of the data can found on the internet). so first its need to find the audio input pins on the connector of the sub so fallow the 1. and the 2. leg from the ic

then the second thing what its needed to look is the standby leg this is the 8. leg. It's need to connect to the +Vs point this are for examle the 3. and the 9. leg. it's can to bridge it verry esaly but also it's possible to put one switch.

My personal test was so:

It's works perfectly but like on the picture it can see that I need to repair some solderings..and that 2 little edittings under the connector is also my repair because my panel is demaged....
so now I will make it normally and then it will look normally..

I hope that I was help how to " hack " the bose 321 subwoofer...

Hi from Spain first thanks for your work it's amazing. I tried to find information about that and i see your web . I want to ask you if it's possible to do it, in ps321 series 3 . Thanks in advance.
Sorry for my english.

 

[trismo92]

Bump..!

I have a GS 3-2-1 system (series III, I think) and I am without the interconnect (acoustimass) link cable.

I'm not paying Bose ~$180AUD for the replacement...

kucor88 's post seems to confirm that this is possible, although his uses a different input? The one mine uses is the square, 15(?)-pin connection.

I'm just wondering if anyone is able to clarify his work, or provide a better (translated) explanation.

Thanks in advance

 

[Pogre]

I think the overall consensus is that Bose components are not worth the time and effort. I agree with that.