Bass Tuning! Bose Acoustimas Series Woofers

Dr Amar G Bose started his career as a Professor in MIT. Later he would start the Bose Corporation by licensing his amplification algorithm for American military use & the likes of NASA. It was much later that consumer products like the Bose 901 series speakers hit the market. The 901 series speakers was a polarizing product as people in general either loved or hated it. The Bose 901 series speakers does hold some scientific promise, but was the result reflective of those published scientific papers? That's what makes it so polarizing.

Many years later, Bose moved away from conventional box speaker products and started moving in to the Acoustimass series of satellite speaker with sub woofer combo. Still very based upon the earliest premise of Direct/Reflect Sound Technology, but also add to the premise that low frequencies, a.k.a. bass becomes omni-direction below 80Hz. This comes at a time when urban living became more dense, homes got smaller, but people still wanted good sound with room filling bass. And judging by the Accoustmass series sales numbers, it was a home run!

Now, I know many audiophiles have some kinda beef with Bose, due to the construction & materials used, and that smoothing, well rounded, limited bandwidth sound ani't what we call hifi either. However, to the other 98% of the world population, that didn't really matter at all, despite those high price tags which resulted in fat margins. Fast forward to recent years, Dr Amar G Bose wanted to cash out, hence sold Bose Corporation to Apple Inc. Apple already own Beats By Dr Dre. And now Apple have merged both entities to become Beats By Bose!

I started with a little history & background of Bose, because I am squarely in the 2% of the worlds audiophile population, yet I am one of the few who loves Bose products for what they are today, lifestyle. My household is just all Bose sound mostly, in the non audiophile areas. And lastly, I find the Acoustimass bass modules, or woofers just so useful to have around, especially the passive ones. they are easy to integrate in to any existing sound system, and with guarantee extra room filling bass. What else do you want? Me, I always find the Acoustimass modules bass to be a little flabby, and when playing loud, port chuff becomes very apparent, especially the older series 1 models. Which is what I have exactly in my home office/study area.

And here, I set about doing something about that port chuffing sound. This DIY work is rather easy, and I think every Bose Acoustimass woofer user should try it. Do you know you can tone down that flabby bass & port chuff sound by just stuffing the Bose Acoustimass woofer? Here's a step by step guide how to do it. 

Bose Acoustimass series I bass module.

Once turn around, you will find back panel access screws & speaker input & output connectors.

You'll need to unscrew all the screws on the back panel, including those holding the 4 feet.  Do not unscrew the speaker terminal screws.

The back panel open, revealing all the internals inside, you will notice there is already some poly fill inside. Those white fluffy pillow fill. Just look at the materials used by Bose, woodchip board, crappy looking Pasar Road drivers & cheap x-over parts. Nothing special, but industrial grade only.

A closer look at the cross-over, all stuck to the rear panel.

Add more polyfill or pillow fill, there are generally 3 types on window fill, you can have foam or feather, both sadly are no good for this application. Then you have polyfill of various density, which will work for this case. What I have is of rather high density polyfill.

After filling the accessible side of the box to about 70% including the original polyfill. I stop and work on closing back the rear panel, making sure all the wires are still connected and in contact. As it quite common for Bose Acoustimas bass modules to fray & delaminate around the edges & corners of the box, so I wrap my module corner & edges with black duct tape to keep it protected. Even if the Acoustimass bass modules are designed to lie down, they can be placed in various positions, those liitel red feet you see are actually rubber door stoppers available from your local hardware shop. 

The bass quality after stuffing of polyfill in to the Bose Acoustimas bass module is tighter, cleaner and certainly less bass port chuffing effect. The immediate feeling is that the upper bass has been toned down, with slightly less kick and an overall bass volume reduction. So in essence, you gain some and you lose some. but for me it certainly an easy mod that takes just 20 minutes or so and it work a joy. Here are some other Bose Acoustimas bass modules that have gone thru similar bass tuning process.

Bose Acoustimass series III, I use this to complement the main hifi rig in my man cave. I loev this passive sub because even though it's one box, there is actually 2 units of  6.5 inch drivers inside running in stereo configuration! 

Here is how the Bose Acoustimas series III looks inside, still 2 units 6.5 inch drivers inside working as stereo pair. The box chamber design is totally different, but you can still access the box via the back panel where the speaker connectors are located. With simplified construction, all you need to do is to uncrew 6 screws in back panel to be accessible to the chamber which I have circled in RED. You just need to stuff the polyfill in to the chamber(as circled in RED) by 30-50% for bass tuning, results depends on your preference & room acoustics interaction.

I not only use Bose in my home, but also inside my car too. I use this Bose Acoustimass Canon in my car boot to augment bass to the OEM system in my car. I also need a 2 channel amp to drive this too. Again my main issue here is port chuffing & car interior panel vibration.

There are 3 chambers inside the bass canon. You can stuff polyfill in to the center chamber as circled in RED by 50-70%. As I preferred tight bass in my car, I filled the middle chamber by up to 70%. The chamber is accesi8ble via the tuning ports with end caps on the long port side. You just need to unscrew all the screws around the tube diameter on the end cap. For my interior panel vibrations, I added sound dampening materials to them. With panel vibration gone and bass tuning to very tight less, I some times can sit in my car, after reaching the destination. just to finish the song, before getting out!  

Bose Acoustimass Canon for home theater use. No I don't have this, but one of my buddies used to have it in his HT den, back then in the 1990's. These Bose Acoustimass Canons were considered high end at the time! I remembered my friend demo-ing Top Gun movies in his Dolby Digital 5.1 HT system. They were pretty convincing back then. However, the Bose Acoustimass Canon is very rare now, and hard to find in the used market.

There you go, now you know my fetish for Bose Acoustimass bass module!

 

Upgrading My V! Kenwood GE-7030 Equaliser

With a pair of  Bose 901 MK VI speakers serving as the front main channels of  my 5.2.4 Dolby Atmos surround sound system, I have discovered that adding an EQ(in the form of a Pioneer GR-555) in to the mix only for the front channels improved the over sound performance of the system. What I did not realized is that  the quality of the EQ component mattered in HT too, just like in our 2 channel stereo system. Here goes......

The Kenwood GE-7030 comes with a frequency jog dial & level up/down buttons for easy band selection and adjustment. Excellent ergonomics when in use, even if all those buttons on the front face plate seemed a little daunting at first!

Spotted this unit on FB Market Place, made the inquiry, but due to it's high asking price I actually held back & thought carefully about it for more than a month if the more expensive EQ really makes a difference? I guess some times, what's meant to be was meant to be, as what are the chances that an item is still there after a whole long month or more? Based on my trading experience on FB Market Place, the stuff is usually gone after a few days if one is eyeing & not making an effort to secure the item.

Anyway, met the seller who was a really friendly guy and he gave me about an hour of his time, just walking me thru all the bells & whistles that this Kenwood GE-7030 has got. Basically, one can work this Kenwood EQ in 3 ways. First is the most common used as 14 band Graphic EQ. Next is as a 3/14 band grouped Parametric EQ. Last is the easiest, using it's 7 pre-programed stored EQ Genre curves, which includes modes such as Flat, Pop, Rock, Car, Jazz 1, Classical 1 or Classical 2. Last but not least, that matching pale bluish dot matrix text & bar display just matches my stack of other components from Denon, Cambridge Audio & Oppo. The Kenwood does not stick out like a sore thumb, unlike my earlier Pioneer GR-333 EQ which came with bright amber bar display. And believe it or not, the Kenwood GE-7030 was sold during the 1991-1992 catalog years. The fact that it's still around today is testament to Kenwood, and probably most Japanese audio manufacturers during the era, that overall high standard of build quality. The Kenwood also came in a tall, massive & deep 2U chassis, which on itself looks just like a second AVR on the rack, but weighting only 5.4kgs. Not too heavy, but for an EQ, it's a battle cruiser. 

My HT component stack. from top, Denon X-4400H AVR, Oppo UDP-203 & BDP-83 Blu-ray player, Cambridge Audio A-120 4 channel power amp, Kenwood GE-7030 EQ, and lastly Weiduka PLC and other auxiliary components, like HD Toaster & that Arcana HD Fury(hidden behind)

The Kenwood GE-7030 unit that I bought came with some minor scratches and dings on the front faceplate, which required some touching up with permanent black marker. Once marker ink dried, with a bit of elbow greasing, the touch up will look almost seem less, unless viewed up close  

With the Kenwood EQ plugged in to my AV system, allowing me to only manipulate the front channel tonal response, I played around with a variety of settings which included Parametric, Pre-Programed, but eventually  settled on that characteristic 14 band V setting on Graphic EQ mode which worked so well on Bose 901 speakers with the Pioneer EQ in use previously. With the EQ setting been custom set in memory, I can move on to enjoy my music & movies. Yes, I actually use the HT system on Denon HEOS to stream Spotify or just MP3 file loaded from my smart phone.

The first thing that hit me was how much more transparent sounding this Kenwood EQ is compared to the Pioneer EQ. It's not a fair competition either as the Kenwood is at least 2 steps up the model line, which equals to a Pioneer GR-777 in that case. However, the Kenwood EQ operates on all logic & memory control board while the Pioneer is still based on the classic electronic sliders. I am not sure if that's the advantage here, but the difference is easily heard, it's just so much more can be heard with the Kenwood, like a veil has been lifted off the sound track and music. The Kenwood is also more powerful sounding, the music & sound tracks just comes alive, as in gun shots, cannons and explosions hit harder, kick drums "kick" harder, and vocals, crystal clear and even with nice imaging thrown in when playing music in stereo mode! While vocals is crystal clear, it still maintains a degree of body within the image of the sound stage! Bass & treble definition is also improved  with the new clarity. Highs are more airy and bass lines can be followed easily. I can't say enough how well this Kenwood EQ matched the Bose 901 MK VI speakers. 

Just a caveat if you're reading this, it may not be a good idea to add an EQ in to the mix if you're not using Bose 901 series speakers in your stereo or HT system. The unique design and sound character of the Bose 901 series speakers demands that an EQ be used with it. There maybe other speaker designs with an EQ requirement, but I believe those are far & few in between, with the Bose 901 series being the poster boy of the group!  

V For Balanced Tonal Quality, Pioneer GR-555 Graphic Equalizer

Pioneer GR-555 Graphic Equalizer on top, bottom Canbridge Audio A120 4 channel power amp, bottom

There's a popular saying within audiophile circles, No highs, No Lows, Must be Bose! Since replacing my previous Bose 301 MKIII speakers with a pair of Bose 901 MKVI, my front channel sound field improved tremendously. I get more of that "theater feel" when watching movies. Absolutely a positive improvement in enjoyment. However it was when replaying concert BDs, I faced the very reality of the popular saying! Something had to be done!

As the original Bose 901 series came with an equalizer if bought new(mine was "terpakai" sans equalizer as the previous owner lost it), I had to get one. The choice was either to an original Bose 901 EQ from Ebay or just get any that comes along that fits.

I waited for months for a popular Japanese branded EQ to pop up on our local hifi classifieds, but no luck until this nifty little Pioneer EQ pop up on FB Market Place. I guess real audiophiles really don't give a shit about EQ after all!   

Concert BDs was an Achilles heel for my HT system, not anymore! Tsai Ching in concert as see here

The whole HT equipment stack!

 I picked up the Pioneer GR-555 Graphic Equalizer right away and went home to install in to my HT system for the front channel Bose 901 speakers only. The EQ connects between the Denon AVR-X 4400H receiver and the front channel of the Cambridge Audio A120 power amp. Luckily I had previously bought a pair of extra Monster THX-400 interconnect for moments like this! 

The Pioneer GR-555 EQ is very definitely product of 1990's design school. On the satin black finished front facia, it has 7 band up/down slider control for both L & R channel, giving custom EQ adjustments on each side if necessary. Amber colored L & R dancing EQ bar display mimics the slider control. Round the back panel 2 sets of input & output RCAs are available including one set for Monitor signal in/out & a second set for Tape in/out, if one needs to EQ when recording.  The whole unit feels well screwed together, and as if you need proof, hey! It's still functioning after more than 20 years!

Bose 901 Series MKVI speakers, No Highs, No Lows, must be Bose! With an EQ, the sleeping giant is awakened!

With the Pioneer GR-555 EQ in the loop, when set to a V equalization curve, the Bose 901 MKVI came alive, especially when playing concert BDs! It sounds more musical, less mid range centric and widens up the bandwidth, especially the bass & treble regions. Certainly much more musically engaging than before. When watching movies, the whole system gets a small but noticeable sonic lift. Guns, canons & explosive scenes gain a degree of harder hitting impact. Even left, right, front, back panning effects are more pronounced & dramatic then before.

Not every HT system needs an EQ, but in my case, for the small outlay of a used item, it was definitely well worth the addition.  

The Results, My Home Theater

Continuing from my last posting about my HT room project. I have allocated a room measuring 17ft x 13ft x 11ft(W x L x H). My projection screen mounted on the 17ft wall which leaves me the 13ft total projection length. The final outcome is that 11ft projection length(measured from tip of lens) was used as projection length for the Optoma UHD 50 projector to project 120 inch screen size(measured diagionaly as in TVs)  

The 120 inch XY screen dominates the 17ft wide wall. Also noted is a pair of SVS PB-2000 sub woofers, flanked by a pair of Bose 901 MK VI series main speakers partnered with a single Bose 201 MK III as center channel.

Form the next picture below, you can see that my sofa is backed up against the back wall still measuring 17ft wide, but with space taken up entry door on the left, and equipment rack & disc library on the right. Overall, this is a SIM 4K picture quality & Dolby Atmos 5.2.4 sound specification based system. And if you look carefully, you won't see much cabling, as most are either imbedded in wall or in ceiling. All the cabling was laid when I planned my HT room project during my home renovation in 2018.

 

You can also see that the Optoma UHD 50 projector is mounted right above the sweet spot of the sofa! Flanking the projector is a pair of Bose 101 surround speakers. If you look carefully on the right, next to my equipment rack, is the Bose Acoustimas 5 passive sub woofer, which is set to high pass at 80Hz as part of the rear surround system. 

My equipment rack from top: Denon AVR X-4400 H receiver for Dolby Atmos & DTS-X processiong & powering center channel & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speakers which are Bose Model 25, Oppo UDP-203 4K disc player with the Oppo BDP-95 Full HD player with Cinivia free. Further below is the Cambridge Audio A120 4 channel power amp, powering front main speakers & surround sound duties. Further below is the Weiduke AC 8.8 power conditioner which powers the whole stack of equipment as seen and my dual HDD toaster for my 4K movie collections. 

On the right side corner of the back wall, is a compartmentalized area, mainly for library of disc collection. I also installed a dedicated MCB box in my HT room. If the book shelves looked familiar, is because they are from Ikea!

I also did some acoustic diffuser works on the ceiling to break up sound waves, coupled to heavy drape curtains on both sides of the side wall upon the first reflection points of the Bose 901 MK VI main speakers. The ceiling acoustic diffuser also works as the mood light & 2 pairs Dolby Atmos ceiling speaker mounts, if you look carefully.  

Overall for the money I spent, at about MYR25,000 on all equipment count, I feel satisfied with the intangible return on entertainment values, especially these days of MCO where the cinemas are closed. The 120 inch screen give big picture cinema feel when just sitting about 13ft away. When viewing Full HD movies, the picture is bright, vivid tonal pallet and very punchy, if some what veering slightly bluish(like most Sony or Samsung TVs factory calibration). Upon having sifu Michael Wong(contacted via FB) coming over to help calibrate my projector, the picture quality improved in terms of field of depth layering of majestic scenes from movies. Since the Optoma UHD 50 is a SIM 4K(i.e. non native or up sampling to 4K), the picture quality in 4K post calibration took a turn for darker and being a budget projector, the blackness(or greyish black) weakness is laid bare and exposed for all to see too clearly. Movies like Batman's The Dark Night should be avoided in 4K mode, due to the projector limitations. Bottom line is if you're expecting JVC level of 4K reproduction here, you'll be sorely disappointed. However if you are like me, where my majority of movies are on Full HD, with only the occasional 4K viewing diet, then this projector will get the job done very well.

The sound is an area I am more than happy with. I run the Denon Audyssey Auto  Calibration with the supplied OEM mike and already gor very decent results. I then further fine tune the channel levels, the high pass frequencies for speaker and low pass for LFE, and timing compensation with EQ off. It was just some tuning from disc to disc over time and until a point, I never need to fine tune the Dolby Atmos settings again, until I changed something that is.

The sound is with effective in surround panning, & the Atmos ceiling speakers are especially effective when watching raining or thunderstorm or aircraft scenes, especially is movies like Top Gun & Mid Way, just to recall the 2 movies that impressed me. The dual SVS sub configuration gives thundering bass and full on explosion impacts, to the point that is room and plaster ceiling shaking! I love using Bose speakers all round for HT because they are really good value at used prices and they can really go loud without popping their drivers! They are also very warm sounding for music concerts, and especially enjoyable when playing those Vienna Philharmonic New Years Concerts! 

I have made some improvements along the way since system installation over a year ago, and I'll get to those later. What do you think? Kindly feedback on comments section with thanks if any opinion or questions............

Bose Quietcontrol 30 & Soundsport Earbuds, My Travel Mate

Bose Quietcontrol 30 Noise Cancelling Earbuds

At that point in time, circa sometime in 2016 I decided to refocus on my career path. Got a job as a Regional Sales Manager selling European premium industrial solutions to the defense, education, aerospace, automotive, medical and coating industries. I traveled much in my role, usually to Europe, Middle East, and all over ASEAN & China. Yep, China was the biggest market in the world for anything & everything, so it can't be ignored.

With this change, I lost most of my hifi & AV baggage, as I aim to de-clutter my home, to the happiness of my other half who has always been accusing me of being the hoarder in the family! For more than 3 long years, only my Bose Bluetooth headphones & my Huawei smartphone was my go to musical salvation. As I was always on the move, wireless was the way to go, even if I had to sacrifice some sound quality. I would always have music in the hotels, trains, planes & when I am waiting for someone or something.

Comes wit a nice travel pouch too!

As per my usual habit, I would shortlist a number of suitable candidates to try on. One of my choice earbuds was B&O E8, it was cool looking and had the right credentials, but in my audition, while it did sound plenty good, it's bass wasn't full-filing to my diet of music, mainly 70's, 80's rock and Canto Pop of similar vintage. The B&O would sound great if I had veered towards jazz or classical music. However the matter that would put it out of contention was it's poor Bluetooth compatibility with Android phones, you see B&O only saw fit to optimize the E8 for Apple phones. I heard the current Gen 2 B&O E8 is much better in this regard, but never tried it anyways. 

The next contender was Bose, remember how I've always loved 'em? The Bose Quietcontrol 30 Noise Cancelling Earbuds were on X'mas sale at the Dubai airport, on one occasion when I fly buy Dubai! I tried them on as they were a neckband design, even if I didn't fancy having something on my neck. And boy did it sound good to me, especially with the noise cancellation dialed down to about 10%, while the high frequencies wasn't as refined as the B&O E8, the music flowed with rhythm and that signature Bose beat with meaty bass sealed the deal. With the sale discount thrown in, it was a mighty sweet deal too! 

Happy times with that Bose Quietcontrol 30 didn't last long tough. With constant use, that soft neckband was starting to bother me and felt cumbersome. The noise cancellation feature was effective in shutting out outside noise, but it started to sound eerie with only the music and no background noise accompanying it. Worst is at the airports, I couldn't hear my flight callings, and had a few near flight misses as a result. It was then Bose launched a new line of wireless earbuds called Soundsport! 

The Bose Soundsport have 2 models in the range, the basic which came with a wire connecting between the master and slave buds, and the Soundsport Free, which is pure L & R earbuds, minus the connecting wire. Everything else looks the same, not sure if it sounds the same though, but the Soundsport Free did include a small charging box that is similar to the B&O E8 which could extend play time by a few hours more on a single charge and yet also nearly doubling the cost! As they say, The Price Of Freedom!

I was smitten as soon as I put on the Soundsport(the one with L & R connecting wire!) alas, I was not totally free, but much relived to lose that constricting neckband! That connecting wire didn't feel like anything at all as I've always had wired headphones prior to going Bluetooth. One thing immediately stood out with this BOSE was bass......... lot's a nice meaty BASS, which worked well with my musical diets. Did I mentioned it was also half the price of the discounted Quietcontrol 30? 

The Soundsport had similar top to bottom end sound quality as the Quietcontrol 30, but it had way....... more bass. It was slightly noisier as it didn't have noise cancellation, and would leak in some ambient noise too. But you know what, that means I could still hear my flight being called at the airports, which is a good thing for me! Love it, love it, love it!

Bose Soundsport Wireless Earbuds

Both the Bose Quietcontrol 30 & Soundsport ushered me in to the new hifi-less world, where the act of listening to music was just that, without the distraction of hifi. However a footnote for those looking to make the leap from wired to wireless headphones or earbuds, the price of going to wireless is at the expense of sound quality and musical resolution. If you think MP3 is bad, wait till you lose another 30% from there on! See freedom is never cheap, but for that on the go me at the time in point, I didn't really cared for hifi anyways. I treasured the go anywhere with music(or what's left of it) more than ever. Like I used to say but never really thought I could do it, "I could lose my hifi, but not my music!"

Second Hand Dialogue. Bose 201 Series III Speaker.

A single, and lonely Bose 201 Series III speaker spotted at E-bay.

Still on my home theater project. I last expressed a mild disappointment with my weedy sounding center chanel after putting the whole she bang together. I find that while most people like to test the "crash-boom-bang" aspect of AV sound reproduction, they tend to forget about the clarity of dialogue, which I feel is very important in today's movie story telling, unless one is watching an episode of Mr Bean, or the silent movies from The Three Stooges or The Charlie Chaplin era!

My approach to AV sound reproduction setting up is nearly as fastidious as an audiophile obsessed with the female vocal mouth's size, shape, scale, teeth, lips and moist. Well, I said nearly, didn't I? The next issue I have with the center chanel is that the tonal quality must be as close to that of the main speakers as possible, hence I would always recommend that the center chanel to be from the same matching range and speaker manufacturer where possible. This is to promote a unity tonality, as when in some movies with dramatic surround panning effects should seem as tonally consistent as possible as it happens. You wouldn't want one particular speaker to stand out like a sore thumb, like most poorly matched center speaker tends to do.

I applied three tacky rubber foot on to the bottom panel of the Bose 201 speaker, two at the back corner and one in the middle on front, which allows the speaker to sit securely facing back wards to the rear wall.

With the above technical parameters in mind, I set about looking for a value for $$$ proposition from who else, but Bose to match my whole main and surround set up. I know of many who roll their eyes upon the mere mention of that brand! I spy in E-bay this lonely single Bose 201 Series III speaker, which is about the same vintage as my Bose 301 Series II. As a matter of fact, they also happen to match visually too. The transaction price was a worthwhile USD$29.90 and as usual in so many cases of E-bay transactions, the shipping cost was a horrendously costly at USD$55.00. That brings the total cost speaker cost arriving at my door step(three weeks shipping time with UPS) to nearly RM$300.00 for a single used Bose 201 Series III speaker as a replacement for the tiny Bose VCS 10 center chanel . Not exactly cheap, but I got what I wanted, more importantly.

I then proceeded to think about mounting a slightly bulky center chanel speaker in front of my Samsung display screen. After trial fitting about, I couldn't find a good place to discreetly mount the Bose 201. I had to think out of the box! Hence I came to the idea of having a back wards facing center chanel, mounted behind the screen. Hang on, the Bose is non-shielded, but wait, the Samsung is a plasma screen, so it does not matter like the ol' CRT based displays. Plasma screens are not affected by speaker driver flux radiation. So the idea went in to practice, but I had to wire the back wards facing center chanel in reverse polarity, so that it's acoustical polarity matches that of my main speakers. After some trial mounts and measuring confirms that I had enough space at the back of the screen to accommodate the Bose, I proceed to DIY an L-bracket at the back of my hard wood AV rack, so that the center chanel can be mounted faced back towards the wall, with some clearance space.

Now, that's how it looks like, with part of the L-bracket protruding out to give the back wards facing speaker some clearance from the wall. The distance between speaker and back wall is crucial for reproducing the right tonality. 

With the center chanel speaker mounted and all wired up and ready for sound test, I started to gauge it's performance, using again my reference movies, like Avatar and Transformers 3, Dark Of The Moon. I find that while tonally very close matched to my main speakers, the male voices had a chesty mid bass boom, which clouded the clarity of the dialogue. I moved the whole AV rack about 3-4 inches further out in to the room, giving the rear facing center chanel about 6 inches clearance from the rear wall. Bingo, the chesty mid bass boom on male voices disappeared and is now tonally seamless with my main speakers. I should be happy, but I am not, because upon closer scrutiny, I felt the lack of a pin point dialogue anchored to the display screen as as person talks effect, which I've experienced in well set up AV sound systems.

I tried to bring back the Bose VCS 10 slim design center chanel to it's original place under the Samsung display, facing front, and wired in positive polarity an as acoustical match to my main speakers, working in tandem, with the back wards facing, Bose 201 Series III speaker wired in negative polarity now in series with the front facing speaker. Now I got the result I wanted, crystal clear dialogue, in a seamless tonality match with the rest of the surround and main speakers, with pin point and anchored to screen placing. I fiddle around some more with the distance adjustment settings in the Denon AVR 1612 to get a tighter and more focused result.

The Bose VCS 10 is put back in to good use to aid the focusing the dialogue and anchoring the voice to the display screen.

Needless to say, that my low cost, matching center chanel project paid off big time. Gone are the weedy dialogue and I can now enjoy my movies more, with the more comfortable and seamless tonality. Ahh... time for some pop corn to enhance my enjoyment of WWII In HD, a world war II documentary series using actual journalist and army archive footage shot in colour(which was very expensive then), and remastered with 4K resolution equipment, produced by the Discovery History Chanel. For a war time history buff like me, a good center chanel reproduction of narratives by Gary Sinise(of CSI NY fame) is essential to fulfill my enjoyment of documentaries like this. I am a happy man at the home movies.

My AV Revival, When It All Comes Together.

The 64 inch Samsung PN64D7000 Smart TV dominates the AV set up, based in my family lounge measuring about 18 x 25 x 12ft(W x L x H). My sitting distance from the display is about 20ft away, but the nearest seat in the house is probably more further than 10ft from the screen, but the picture quality is still ok, without the screen pixels being visible just yet. 

In my last post, I've introduced the new building blocks chosen for integration with the existing speakers for my renewed AV system. You may have spotted that they are practically all last year's model! I think if if one is looking for value performance and not necessary must have the latest specs, then last year's models at clearance prices can make great buys, for those on a limited budget like me.

For me at least, all the best equipment is pointless, as I must still find a way to integrate them in to my family lounge. The trick is in the AV rack, which I've chosen to by pass all those performance enhancing specialty rack for this lovely looking, solid hard wood AV rack, which softens the overall hard edge look of the display and equipment, to fit in to my domestic lounge decor, mostly made from similarly warm tone lacquered hard wood too. It took me a while to do furniture shopping while all the equipment arrived and awaiting to be set up.

Astro cable TV decoder made by Philips and Pioneer BDP-140 represents the source of my home entertainment.

The Denon AVR1612 receiver is a reasonably powerful sounding workhorse, and actually sound like it's got more to give than it's modest power specs would indicate, provided you sort out the power cord issue. It runs cool too, which its why I could get away with such a tight fitting ventilation space. After more than 2 hours of high power rumbling my lounge, the Denon only felt slightly warm to touch.

With the arrival of the AV rack a week or so later allowed me to proceed with setting the system. A good buddy, who is an authoritative figure in the industry came to lend his pair of hands and expertise in helping me do the initial set up. The whole process of connecting all the cables and making doubly sure that everything has it's place took nearly 3 hours of hard work, including using the Audyssey as starting point 5.1 chanel calibrating but when the first disc was ready to play, it was testing time.

We used a variety of Blu-ray movies to reference the sound calibration, including Avatar, Transformers 3, and Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Some of my older reference DVDs, like Black Hawk Down and Terminator 2 were also used to familiarised my self to the new system. The remaining fine tuning was for the 5.1 chanel surround set up was completed over a course of two weeks, with more movies and pop corn sessions. It doesn't really feel like work actually! 

The ol' skool Bose 301 Series II dates back to 1988, when I bought my first hifi set, the fact that it still serves my home entertainment today speaks volumes of it's quality. The Velodyne VX-10 is another blast from the past, since 2003. It's a 10 inch sub woofer with a self powered built in plate amp, wired with Monster sub woofer cable from the Denon AVR 1612. The Velodyne produces enough low rumble during movies, courtesy of the corner enforcement placement.

The Bose VCS 10 center chanel speaker is probably the weakest link in my AV set up for now. Plans are in place to do something about it. Stay tune to find out.

The Bose VCS 30 installed with wall mount brackets. I place them about 1 feet higher than ear level when seated, for most effective surround panning results. I had my family lounge wired in wall with tin plated Belden speaker cables, to maintain the wire free look, prior I moved in during 2003.  

The final result I got was brilliant pictures and big sound quality to match. The system went pretty loud too, and seemingly able to rumble the family lounge when the movies call for it. The surround panning effect works seamlessly to immerse the movie experience that bit more satisfactory. I get a kick when kids and some un suspecting adults turn their heads towards the back as the surround effect pans out, only to realised I've got a pair of really small Bose VCS-30 speakers around the back, while watching movies. The element of surprise is relevant for one to get totally absorb in to the movie one is watching.  Dialogues are highly intelligible and clear if a little weedy sounding, compared to the big, full bodied sounds of the front and surround effects. For me, this is an area that needs to be further improved, at least to get as tonally seamless with the big Bose 301 Series II as possible. I've figured out the improvement plans, which will need a bit of time to materialised. Also on my mind is that 10AWG power cord for the Denon AVR 1612 receiver, which can still be heard to be performing on the edge when loud explosions and dynamic sound track passages. The symptoms manifest it self as the sound just one the verge of breaking up on the near max volume.

Remote control heaven! From left: Astro, Samsung, Denon and Pioneer.

A scene from Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Mood lights are dimmed for best viewing pleasure.

It's been a fun and satisfying experience setting this AV system, which is my fourth project(my first AV project was under taken in the early 1990's. It was a full fledge projector based, 5 chanel(there was no.1 yet at the time!) Dolby AC-3 system, comissioned by my dad in his home) over the years by the way. More AV adventures to come as I set about to unleash the full potential of my AV system.