Pros: Unobtrusive, easy set-up, amazing sound from two small speakers, excellent stereo when placed properly.
Cons: Expensive, no HDMI, cheesy DVD player, doesn't really live up to simulated surround sound hype.
The Bottom Line: This system will not really "surround" you, but it delivers big 2.1 movie-theater sound from small speakers, with minimum set-up hassle. Must have money to burn.
picky-picky's Full Review: Bose 3·2·1 GS II Theater System
Update (12/19/06)
I'm happy to report that after continuing to play around with speaker placement and making a couple of other changes, I am getting better performance from this system than I originally reported (see below). (1) I've found that it helped to shorten the distance between the speakers (they're on floor stands) and where we sit. This system is designed for relatively small spaces and I think our 16x22 foot room is a bit too large for it to work optimally. But I've gotten better theater-quality stereo sound by reducing the distance between the speakers and our couch to about 11 feet. (2) Toeing the speakers out is better than toeing them in. (3) This system also has a box called an "acoustimass module" that puts out the base sounds. I put it along the rear wall, in a corner. Originally, I had a wicker chair in front of it. However, when I finally moved the chair aside, I noticed a significant improvement in the system's performance. Although I still don't hear any "surround" sound behind me, I sometimes do hear sounds coming from the far right and left, approaching "3 o'clock" and "9 o'clock." Bottom line now, I'm pretty well satisfied with this system. To my ears, the sound is full and crisp. Still no people yelling "behind" me in stadium scenes, but I can live with that.
I bought this system at a Bose Outlet store after listening to it at Circuit City. When I first listened to it, the small speakers blew me away. I was interested in it in the first place because I was hoping for a two-speaker solution that would simulate surround sound. I didn't (and still don't) want to run wires all around the ceiling of our TV room to reach speakers hung on the back wall. I bought into the Bose hype about bouncing sound off the walls to achieve a virtual surround effect. Maybe it works in a smallish room that's all hard surfaces, but it doesn't work in our TV room, which is 16' by 22' and has floor-to-ceiling windows with soft blinds on one end and an open staircase on the other. That stipulated, I'm still pretty satisfied with this system after fooling around with it for a couple of weeks.
We have a 55-inch Sony LCD rear-projection high-def TV with many, many inputs and outputs. All the sound runs through the TV, and an optical cable takes it from the TV to the Bose "media center", which processes all the digital audio whatnot and sends it on to the two little speakers. I don't use the Bose DVD, which seems kind of cheesy, actually. We have a Sony "upscale" DVD player connected to the TV with an HDMI cable.
To cut to the chase, I now find that I get the best performance from this system by putting the speakers (on floor stands) on either side of the TV and toeing them in (angling them toward each other) just slightly -- maybe 15 or 20 degrees. This seems to give a real sense of separation between left and right without messing up the "center" of the sound. I think solutions will vary with different rooms, but this is what's working for me.
I think my expectations for this system were unreasonably high going in because when I listened to it the first time at Circuit City, I was standing very close to it, which was the only way to listen to it there. It was almost like listening through headphones, so of course all the effects were heightened in a way they never would be in my own TV room.
Bottom line: This system delivers a remarkably good sound as far as my ears can tell (but I'm no audiophile). I listened to it side by side with a KEH KIT 100 (another two-speaker solution), and the Bose sounded much better. I saved $100 by getting a "factory-renewed" system directly from the Bose outlet store, and I've had no problems with it.
The Bose 3-2-1 GS Series II is pricey, for sure, compared to most five-speaker systems, but if you're like me and you don't want to hang or bury wires everywhere, it could be your answer.
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