Quick question about Bose and receivers

[wafflebird]

OK guys,

I have a friend who is upgrading to a Samsung DLP before the launch of the Xbox 360 . He currently has an older Bose Cube set up with a Sony receiver.The speakers are all running out of the Bass (yeah right) module. I have just had a gentleman from the local Sound Advice (Tweeter) store tell me if we hook the cubes straight up to the receiver, the receiver will "Blow" them up in about 10 seconds. The speakers have standard push in release connectors on the back of them 1 black, 1 red.

My friend is totally unimpressed with the lack of bass from his system. He is currently planning a gradual upgrade. We were thinking of getting him a good sub and run the speakers straight out of the receiver. I am very knowledgeable in standard Hi-Fi and have a really great set-up myself which I installed (RX-V2500, Velodyne Sub, Mirage Omni-CC, and Omnisats) and I hook up a good deal of friends equipment on a constant basis. But I have never recommended or worked with this type of a system. Is anyone familiar with doing this? Would the speakers suffer damage running straight out of a receiver? Is there a wattage difference in what is sent to the speakers from the Bass module as opposed to the receiver? An ohm difference?

The gent at the Tweeter said "Bose is Bose and they want you running it their way." I was not asking to purchase anything from him, I was just inquiring if he had a certain sub in stock, so I do not think he was trying steer me in any way.

Help me out please. I do not want to damage his equipment.

 

[jaxvon]

The guy at Tweeter was right, unfortunately.

 

[Sheep]

I agree, when upgrading from any bose system its an all at once deal, for speakers anyhow.


Do you want suggestions for systems for your friend or just info on bose cubes hooked directly to the reciever?


sheep

 

[wafflebird]

Just the receiver question

I just want to know if I can hook the cubes up to the receiver without damaging them!!

 

[jaxvon]

What I meant was that it's not safe. They're meant to be ran off the "bass module".

 

[Snap]

YEP if you just hook up those cubes to the receiver you are going to SCREW them up something bad! All the x-overs and stuff are in the bass box. Everything must run through the bass box, or bad things happen.

 

[Tex-amp]

He can still add a sub but he does need to run the cubes thru the "bass" module. The cubes are crossed over around 250hz to the module.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

2 options....

1. Tough it out

2. buy new subwoofer AND speakers. (come on, you can get a cheap set for practically nothing these days)

 

[wafflebird]

Thanks guys

Well now I know why the receiver will "Blow" them up I guess. According to Texamp (Thanks by the way I am always wanting to know why and you helped me out here) the cubes only get 250Hz and above. So a receiver will send them much lower Hz, which they are unable to produce which will lead to a lot of distortion blah, blah, and the speakers will meet their maker as a result of this.

Hmm..... and people want to know why Bose does not publish their frequency responses.............

On a more humorous note when speaking to the Salesman on the phone he was bragging about his Bose AM 10 system, I asked him how he dealt with the lack of Bass. His response was "Oh I have plenty of bass, what do you mean?". I just left it alone, but thought it kind of funny, this is the guy people go to for advise on HT and he thinks he has "Plenty of Bass", 45 HZ at best, how many more lost souls has he helped make?????????????????????????????

 

[j_garcia]

No, the receiver will not blow them up. With them set to small, they will survive, BUT few receivers have the ability to set a x-over high enough for them to be properly crossed over with most subs. You will end up with a huge dip between the natural roll off of the cubes and the sub.

All your friend should have to is hook a sub to the preamp sub out. It will work fine. With the mains set to large, the Bose setup will get a full range signal and the sub will be fed only LFE (which means it will only be in use for movies with an LFE track).

Mistake #1 - buying bose cube system.

Solution = Ebay.

 

[wafflebird]

Already there

Well the Bose system was there when he arrived, so not his mistake, but trying to work through it.

Quick question, he only has one cable going from the back of his receiver to the bass module. I believe that is the Sub-out connection. Could we tee off of that (1 male to 2 female Y-cable), run one to a REAL sub and leave the rest of the set-up as is for now? The cubes would still get their respective signals from the module, and he would have some great LFE as well. The output signal is digital, so it is not like we would be working the receiver. Then as time (and $) allow he can then step it up.

I believe that is what is being stated above by Texamp!!

If this will work, I smell a SVS coming!!!!

 

[j_garcia]

LFE output is not digital, it is analog. Yes you should be able to split the signal and send it to another sub also, but since the Bose bass module can't handle LFE anyway, what would be the benefit?

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver crossover for bose

wafflebird,
The crossover on my Yamaha receiver goes up to 200 Hz which would probably work fine for direct connection of the bose cubes. Check for this feature before ordering a receiver.

I am not sure what type of connection you are describing from the sony receiver to the bose bass module but it is probably an analog line level connection. It is unlikely that there is any processing in the bass module to handle a digital signal. Also you said that the receiver was a Sony and not a Bose?

Another option would be an inexpensive satellite system like the Athen .5 to pair with the new receiver and subwoofer. You can find the 5 speaker set for about $200 and have similar styling to the bose with superior performance. The 2 way design should produce frequencies down to 90 or 100 Hz for crossing over with the sub.

The good news is there are plenty a suckers on ebay who will probably pay good money for the used Bose system.

Good Luck.

 

[wafflebird]

Thanks

We ll we are still in the deciding stage. J garcia you asked what would be the benefit, of adding a sub. What we are thinking of doing is adding the sub (SVS PB12-ISD) now and running it with the Y cable. That way he would have some awesome bass. Yes it would still be running the Bose cubes for now. Considering he is buying a Samsung DLP and the Sub, this is a way to get a great picture and better sound for now. The cubes work OK but the bass module just basicly sucks . Then with time and research he can take the next step and get the speaker system he wants. No real need in buying a set now that he will want to replace later anyway.

The problem is the size of the room for one. I have not measured it but I am guessing it is 25' at least x 16-18' with 14' or more of celing heigth. SO some really small speakers would probably not do the trick.

He was looking at the M&K site last night and they have some really small cube speakers (I know it goes against what I am saying above but I have to ask) but they are MP5 NK series. Anyone here had any expierience with these? They have them on their discontinued page at mksound.com.

Thanks again for all of your input.

 

[j_garcia]

We ll we are still in the deciding stage. J garcia you asked what would be the benefit, of adding a sub. What we are thinking of doing is adding the sub (SVS PB12-ISD) now and running it with the Y cable. That way he would have some awesome bass.

What I meant by that is, there's no reason to feed LFE to both the Bose module and the SVS. The Bose module cannot handle true LFE. Your only choice really is to set the signal to the Bose module to large and feed the LFE to the SVS only, because either way, you still have to set the speakers to large for the Bose to work correctly.

 

[mulester7]

.....the Bose bass module MUST receive a full-range signal, or it would not be able to pass 250 hz and above to the cubes, if it is in fact 250 where the cut is made, are we sure of that?.....you can run LFE to an SVS sub, and disable the woofer element in the Bose bass module........

 

[wafflebird]

There we go!!!!!!!!!!

Mulester that is exactly what we were thinking. To make the cubes work we have to go through the bass module. But we will just run a Y cable to another sub (Still to be determined, thinking SVS but also saw the Velodyne Deco system on sale at Velodynes' web site for $599.00 it has a SPL800 II as a sub with 5 sats) we are going to go auditioning tomorrow, take a look at what we have at our couple of local Sound Advice stores. Still may go with the SVS. My friend is trying to decide on just a sub now, speakers later or getting a good deal now on a whole system. Then put the Bose system in his bedroom where th 60" Sony is going. That is what is being replaced by the Samsung DLP.

Anybody have any experience with the Deco system from Velodyne? I read the review here on the small systems they did and it received good reviews.

 

[j_garcia]

Are there two connections to the bass module or just one? Is there a bundle that connects to each speaker terminal then to the bass module AND a separate cable connected to the sub preamp output?

If you disable the driver in the bass module, then there is no point in sending an LFE (Low Frequency Effects) signal to it via a Y.

 

[wafflebird]

Connections

The way the Blows uh... Bose is set up is there is a single line connected from the sub-out to the Bass module. Then from there a wafer type cable goes out to all of the cubes. That wafer cable is like 3" wide at the bass module. So the signal has to go into the bass module first, then I guess it does its crossover from there out to all of the cubes. Which gets back to why we can't run them straight out of the receiver, as it is too old to have in internal crossover, especially that high.

But we figure we can either leave the Bose module on, won't make any difference once we get a real sub anyway. Then later on he can get the rest of the setup. His brother in Ocala has an awesome set-up. 3 M&K S-150p's a pair of M&K tri-pole surrounds and a MX 350 MK II. Went to the opening Gator game and checked out his set-up when we were there along with a great DLP.

Of course those speakers are a little (allot) on the high end. But it was a GREAT system. Sad part is we really did not have time to really check it out.

Anyway I will keep you guys informed and I REALLY appreciates your input guys. I tell you what why don't you guys throw in some input for a good budget system for my buddy. A set of 5.1 satellites only no sub. Keep in around 500-700. Let’s see what we can come up with. Thanks.

 

[Tex-amp]

.....the Bose bass module MUST receive a full-range signal, or it would not be able to pass 250 hz and above to the cubes, if it is in fact 250 where the cut is made, are we sure of that?.....you can run LFE to an SVS sub, and disable the woofer element in the Bose bass module........

Okay, the "bass" module goes to 200hz and the cubes kick in at 280hz. http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html