Bose

[RSteve]

I had never purchased any Bose audio equipment in my life and I've purchased far too much audio gear. In my kitchen I have a 28" Samsung HDTV with a 28" Vizio soundbar attached. About a week ago (maybe longer) at Goodwill, I bought a Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III Subwoofer for $8.00. It's passive, no amplifier. The soundbar has a sub out port. I connected that to a 20 watt Lepai amplifier I had collecting dust. I connected the amplifier to the Acoustimass 5 Series III sub. To my old ears, that Bose sub shoots out the bass. The amp is 20 watts RMS and I can barely turn up the volume knob without shaking the cabinet everything sits on. I believe the sub houses two small woofers. I'd guess the sub is at least 20 years old. I think I got my 8-bucks worth of bass.

 

[Timbo]

We had the full acoustimass system when I was groowing up, maybe a series 1. My goodness the treble speakers were tiny, four little paired cubed speakers about four inches square, but the sound they made when paired with the sub was tremendous. Absolutely sharp and precise, I wish I still had them today. Dunno what happened to them, My brother and I are suspecting our other brother pilfered them and sold them for cash at some point as our father has no recollection of them being given away and neither of us took them. Gotta love the black sheep in the family... NOT.

And a good score Steve you lucky bugger.

 

[RSteve]

The sub is this model:

I'm sure the sound engineers at Bose have the cabinet size and port diameter acoustically computed for maximum bass or I'd put the guts into a significantly smaller cabinet.

 

[Zeno Marx]

For $8, I'll say (almost) nothing. I always thought Bose and Adcom left a lot to be desired. More marketing than R&D with superior results. I'd rather pay a company for quality product than for their advertising budget.

 

[RSteve]

I had never purchased any Bose audio equipment in my life and I've purchased far too much audio gear.

I always thought Bose and Adcom left a lot to be desired. More marketing than R&D with superior results. I'd rather pay a company for quality product than for their advertising budget.

I've also always felt that Bose was grossly overpriced, but figured I had nothing to lose for $8.00. I've now opened the cabinet and checked the cones and surrounds, which are in good shape. Both are 4 ohms, wired in series. The crossover is functioning properly as there's no high frequency bleed through.

 

[RSteve]

About a week ago (maybe longer) at Goodwill, I bought a Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III Subwoofer for $8.00. It's passive, no amplifier. I connected it to a 20 watt Lepai amplifier I had collecting dust...

Interesting development today. I removed the Bose subwoofer from the kitchen, deciding to move it to the living room. In the kitchen it was attached to two smallish Pioneer speakers. The combination of the Bose sub, Vizio soundbar, Pioneer speakers was excellent, but I rarely use the kitchen TV, so it would sit, basically, unused.

I moved it to the living room, where there's a 50" 4k TV, 32" Vizio soundbar, Lepai 200 watt amplifier, and Jamo E800 speakers. I got everything all wired, tucked away and taped a lot of wiring. I powered everything up and it sounded terrible. I'd heard that Bose engineers deliberately made their passive subwoofers incompatible with most non-Bose speakers. The sub worked great with the small Pioneer speakers and 20 watt amp in the kitchen, but with the 200 watt amplifier and Jamo speakers, not very well at all.

The $8-buck sub is back in the kitchen.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Some of those Bose speakers came with equalizers/pre-amps/amps/something or other that were necessary to properly run them. They had a funny name for them. Cube? I can't remember right now. Another hooky gimmick they had. Not sure if it applies to that sub or not.

 

[RSteve]

Some of those Bose speakers came with equalizers/pre-amps/amps/something or other that were necessary to properly run them. They had a funny name for them. Cube? I can't remember right now. Another hooky gimmick they had. Not sure if it applies to that sub or not.

Yes, the Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III Subwoofer was designed to be wired to the "Cube" speakers that came with the sub. It does work very well with the Pioneer bookshelf speakers I have in the kitchen, but not so with the Jamo speakers.

 

[RSteve]

Yesterday, I wired a Goldwood GW-S650/4 6-1/2" 4 Ohm Poly Cone Woofer into a decorative, rosemaled wood carry case that I bought at Goodwill for $4.00, then, with a hole saw, cut a hole for the woofer in the rear of the carry case. From the Vizio soundbar, sub out port, I connected a Nobsound NS-03G 100W Mini Sub Power Amplifier and connected that to the Goldwood woofer. I cannot believe the bass response I'm getting, with no higher frequency bleed through.
I did try wiring the Bose directly to the Nobsound NS-03G 100W Mini Sub Power Amplifier but it's a mono amp.
I tried wiring in both series and parallel according to the directions in this How to Wiki but the sound I got was awful.
The Nobsound amplifier does require this Nobsound DC 24V@6A 150W Power Supply Adapter, AC100~240V Power Brick for Amplifier.
And, yes...LOL, except for the rosemaled carry case, I had the rest of the components lying around the house salvaged from other goofy audio projects that entertained me for a while.

 

[RSteve]

Yes, I am crazy. Today, I wired the passive Bose subwoofer in the kitchen to a 320W Bluetooth 5.0 Power Stereo Amplifier with Subwoofer, Douk Audio M1 PRO, I had just bought for this purpose, and I got virtually no sound. I checked all the wiring. Exactly the same thing happened when I'd wired it in the living room to a 200 watt amplifier. The Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III Subwoofer is designed for very low power amplifiers. Put in too much power and there must be an internal cut off. So, I've packaged up the 320W Bluetooth 5.0 Power Stereo Amplifier and it's going back to Amazon. What a pain in the burro!

 

[RSteve]

The Bose Acoustimass 5 Series III Subwoofer is no more.

I took the back off the Bose sub and learned why I couldn't get it to perform with the high powered amplifiers. Inside there were two 5.5"speakers. The sub isn't really a sub at all, rather a lower frequency module. I did not expect to see the number of resistors and complexity of the crossover. It really is quite sophisticated in terms of its audio engineering, but the component wiring harness to achieve a low frequency module is a good bit cheaper than a quality subwoofer cone. It literally had a choke to cut power to the drivers. I trashed everything but the little speakers, the cabinet and the exterior spring loaded connectors. The 5.5" speakers will go to Goodwill for another audio fool's project.

Tonight, I started to remove all the excess cabinet interior baffles. I'll finish that tomorrow with my reciprocating saw.

Sitting in a box in my basement is a Polk DXi 12" dual 4 ohm coil subwoofer. I bought it nearly five years ago from Best Buy via Ebay for $40.00, intending to use it in some crazy azz audio project. The sales receipt is still in the box.I'm hoping there's a cutting template for the Polk 12" in its box. If not, I'll be cutting a lot of cardboard templates. I'll mount the Polk sub in the side of the former Bose subwoofer and put rubber feet on the corners, so it down fires. I want fairly firm bass so I'll be sacrificing an unused pillow whose polyfill will be tightly stuffed into the cabinet. It should sound pretty decent, but, if not, I've had my $8.00 worth of recreation.

Added Thursday afternoon about 4:15, and the new sub is just about complete. It was a real pain in the butt cutting the hole in the side of the Bose cabinet to install the Polk 12" subwoofer. After cutting a pilot hole, my portable jigsaw did the rest, but when it hit support and channel barriers, I had to just goose it along to avoid breaking the blade. All the wiring is done using male and female disconnects. I also taped each connection, just for safety. This Polk sub has two four ohm coils, so my choice was to wire in parallel for 2 ohms final or in series for 8 ohms. The amp is 100 watts rms at 4 ohms, so I wired for 8 ohms in series, 50 watts which is more than ample. I bought a fiber fill pillow for $3.00 at Walmart this afternoon and will use the stuffing for dampening in the cabinet. That's tomorrow's project.

​

 

[RSteve]

The project is complete. It's wired to the Nobsound NS-03G 100W Mini Sub Power Amplifier with a switched cable from the amplifier to the subwoofer, so if I want to take the sub out of the audio chain without shutting off the sub's amp, I can just flip the switch. The bass response is exactly as I planned. I think I may be done with audio projects. My hands are covered with nicks, tiny cuts, and bruises from the cutting and fitting of the sub into the MDF cabinet.
This was one of those projects which, in the middle, I asked myself, "Why I am screwing around with this?"

 

[RSteve]

This is getting ridiculous. When I dropped off the two 5.5" speakers at Goodwill that I gutted from the Bose cabinet, I made the mistake of going into the store. Sitting on the shelf where they have audio gear was another Bose Acoustimass Subwoofer, but a bit newer model and in white. It was $6.42 with tax. I bought it and have a plan for it, in the distant future.

 

[RSteve]

Sitting on the shelf where they have audio gear was another Bose Acoustimass Subwoofer. It was $6.42 with tax. I bought it and have a plan for it, in the distant future.

I assume that inside the cabinet there's the same low frequency wiring module and twin 5.5 inchers that were in the other cabinet. If there's space, I want to wire four old Pioneer automobile speakers into the exterior sides of the cabinet, retaining the bass module. When the project is complete and tested successfully, I'll drop it off at Goodwill or in a phantom dumpster.

 

[RSteve]

I assume that inside the cabinet there's the same low frequency wiring module and twin 5.5 inchers that were in the other cabinet. If there's space, I want to wire four old Pioneer automobile speakers into the exterior sides of the cabinet, retaining the bass module.

The joke was on me. Inside the cabinet, there was nothing. The speakers and the wiring module had been gutted. I decided to go ahead with the project with some changes. I've already mounted two 5" full range Pioneer car speakers inside the cabinet directly adjacent to the large port. I used a hole saw to cut into each side of the cabinet to exterior mount two 6.25" 2-way Pioneer car speakers. It may sound okay for use when I'm outside working in the yard.

 

[urbino]

Speaker tinkering can be a fun little project.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Yeah, can be fun for sure. Car speakers...they were my lustful bane of my existence when I was a teenager. Wanted it loud and in your face. Man, kids are obnoxious.

 

[Carlos]

Did someone say "speaker tinkering"? Two pair of Klipsch Heresy II's getting new Bob Crites crossovers and titanium tweeter diaphrams. One of the phenolic was actually open. Been a while since I did this. Was a fun project.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I didn't know we had any other folks into audio at that level. One of my brothers has Klipsch Fortes I helped him purchase in the 80s. Beautiful furniture. I'm not a horn speaker person (too bright and fatigue my hearing), but I appreciate a lot about those older Klipsch. I've never heard a pair with Crites and changed tweeters. I've read plenty about it though.

I was just thinking about this old abandoned playhouse theater in my home town that went through several failed restaurant iterations. It was one of the coolest modern structures in our town of 1800s homes and brick streets, but they couldn't get anything to work there. I don't know why, but the place was never locked up. Nobody locked their doors in my town. I remember seeing an entire wall of McIntosh gear, covered in cobwebs and thick dust. I think they were some kind of mono tube amps, but I'm not positive. They were attached to one of the brick walls on plywood. Something left over from the old theater. I bet two things: 1) in today's market, thousands and thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, of equipment that would sell in two seconds 2) it all ended up in landfill because nobody in that town would know what it is. McIntosh was never cheap, and now, it has a cult following.

 

[Carlos]

I have three sets of Heresy II's. Three MAC1900 recievers. A new volume control and a re-cap kit for one of the McIntosh when I get time. An SA-700 Technics 100wpc receiver from 1978/79. Have a U Turn Audio turntable now to replace all the Dual's I used to have. A Maverick Audio DAC interfaces everything to the computer.

Would have loved to have been the person pulling out all that McIntosh gear in that theater. Yeah, monoblocks amps were popular.