Bose Lifestyle V20 Home Theater System - Black

Every Bose product I've bought, while not cheap, is top of the line, and this one is no exception. Set up was easy, and sound quality is incredible. System is custom tuned with an included headset for 5 distinct listening locations in the room. After the tuning, the system became transparent; we constantly look around to see ambient noises in 5.1 movies! A nice touch is that Bose includes cables (HDMI, fiber, component) to get your hook up started.

We waited over ten years before finally taking the plunge with Bose and it was well worth the wait. The sound quality is superb and it does everything I need it to do. I test ran it with Saving Private Ryan and finally re-experienced the theater quality sound I couldn't get with our Klipsch or Sony systems. HOWEVER, it took me two weekends to figure out how to make all the connections (DirecTV, TIVO, DVD...) work like they are supposed to; if I had it to do over again I would pay the Geek Squad or somebody to set it up for me. But now that it is up and running I only regret that we waited so long.

First time buyer/user of Bose. We were looking for good quality sound and small size. The design is very good: visitors cannot tell where the sound comes from: speakers were easily installed and incorporated in our current living room. The sound is great for movies and very good for music. The more dynamic the range the better the sound. It does well with PCM 2.0, 5.1, the mp3, wav files and nice with mono recordings.
Upgrading video signal is good too. Standard cable looks better on 40" LCD TV. It does well with trhough HD signal (no loss/distortion). I have Blu-ray from PC hooked to it (no HDCP conflict here yet). Looks great!
Issues: 1. We had handshake issues with a motorola cable box. 2. We had to return first unit as it had color distortion (Bose customer service is good). 3. Infrared signal comes from display so the other devices need to face the display, otherwise use the IR sensor.
SummarY: It's a nice unit, provides enough power, quality and upgrading of audio and video signal in an elegant, discrete design. It can satisfy the average consumer.

Audio:
I bought this system a month ago. The sound was ok, i have vaulted ceilings and so the surround was not that great. The sound was good for music, but for movies, the dialogues seem lost in the center channel and I had to increase the output in the center channel.

Video:
I have the Samsung Lnt-4669 tv, and it says it doesnt work well with older versions of HDMI. Samsung's version is 1.3 and bose is 1.2a. Using the HDMI capables, I got no sound. This was listed in the Samsung manual. I watched 24 through a progressive scan Dvd player connected using composite and the faces of the characters had ghosts whenever the camera moved. This did not happen if I connect directly. The non HD channels also looked better when hooked directly to the TV than through the Bose

Overall, for 2k I dont think it is worth it. I returned my set.

while the sound is what you'd expect from Bose, the positives end there. Set up was not as they described or advertised. The remote doesn't recognize my Blue Ray player, and calling Bose AND Sony produced no solution. I wound up purchasing a Logitech remote- why spend 10k on a TV, Stereo, DVD and have multiple remotes.
Other hangups include the need for special attachments to the units (like TV, Cable) you'd like switched on and off via remote that took my installer extra time. Finally, please note that this "expandable" system requires a separate $250 amp for each new set of speakers, and the Bose cannot control you IPOD, which is just plugged into an Aux jack. My downstairs Onkyo+Klipsch system w DVD, ipod, Wii, cable and old VCR and Pioneer plasma was much easier to set up, and the Onkyo remote controls everything but the Wii.