My customer wants to use the Bose system they won at some company function. Bose wants me to connect speakers through their subwoofer. I want to ditch the sub for a better one and hook up the speakers directly to my receiver.

Anyone have any luck doing this?

For the record, I hate the bose systems, but this is a really good customer of ours.

Nope you have to use it.

I was afraid of that. Do you know why? Is the sub performing some kind of impedence matching?

The sub has the amps for all five speakers AND the crossover that keeps those little sats from going up in smoke. I don't know what the crossover freq is, but if you could use a non Bose receiver and set the crossover high, say 150 Hz or thereabouts.. then maybe it could work. You'd still have Bose sats. You are going to improve the sub and keep the sats? Why bother? Either use as is or change the whole system.

If I hook the satellites to a Sony amp and set the xovers like you stated will that work? Why does the sub need to amplify the speakersif I am planning on using a receiver?



Problem is that the place is wired already and the person who ran the wires did not account for the sub. I have to put the sub in a back corner and did not want to have to risk the propriotary wire being too short (if I was able to somehow snake it).

Give it a go. You have the pieces in place.

Thanks Tom.

Last question: Have you ever done this with a Bose system?

The subwoofer is powered but the receiver is used to amplify the satellites. They connect through the sub for convenience (whose I don't know) and supposedly some signal processing. Its been a while since we have done this but there is typically no crossovers in Blose speakers they just send full range and let the speakers roll off low frequencies if you can believe that cr*p. It has been years since we have done this however the model number hasn't changed so I am certain you can't hurt anything. The propritary cable is just speaker wire bundled with the sub RCA connector so feel free to cut, splice, and reconnect at will as it is nothing special. This all having been said I would keep the system intact (except the wiring) if I was being forced to use the satellites since you are not going to gain much and you won't know until it's done. As always I appologize for knowing anything about Blose.

Had this same issue a while ago and was warned by a Bose factory employee not to wire to a different amp as their speakers have paper cones that will potentially be shredded by a higher powered amp.

FYI

I thought the amp was just for the sub?

I looked at the instruction manual on their site and they list directions for connecting a receiver. It would seem that the speakers simply pass through as doodman stated earlier.

That is correct I believe, the problem was, as stated by this employee, that the different amp could blow the speakers. This seems counterintuitive which is why I point out that it's his position not mine.

Splice-away!!!

As I see it, There is only one "for sure" solution!

You have to go in go into the sub. The sub is the crossover and it does all sorts of matching.

Hook it up right the way it was designed to be hooked up and play something with high female voices. It would sound horrid and that will pretty much take care of it.

Hooked up a system like that 3 years ago and 5 minutes of listening... he sent that crap back.

Long and short you have to run everything to and from the subs.