My sister-in-law and father-in-law both have the Bose Acoustimass systems, but older models. They are closed systems, meaning they aren't open to connecting other equipment. The new Bose systems may be different, but I just couldn't get past the fact that the models my in-laws have are closed systems. I guess Bose thinks their system is better than others and would never need upgrading. Yesterday I had an opportunity to mess around with my father-in-law's Bose system. I'm impressed by how much sound comes out of the little speakers, but I HATE the sub-woofer. It sounds muddy. Those little dinky satellite speakers carry the high frequencies, but they sadly miss out on the very important mid-range frequencies. The Bose system also uses their dinky satellite for the center-channel speaker, which is one of the most important because it's used for 90% of the vocal frequencies. Compared to my Infinity center-channel speaker (which is junk by today's standards), the Bose speaker doesn't compare in the least. Personally, I think you'd be better off buying a separate receiver for you BR player. This way, if anything goes bad, you have options to replace one component only. Also, you can get really great satellite speakers with a sub for a decent price.
Many receivers now decode the Dobly True HD audio, which is why you should buy a separate receiver. For $400 you can buy a great Denon or Yamaha receiver that has open architecture for all external components, and has HDMI connections and decodes Dolby True HD.
Blu-Ray players, from what I know, are Region specific, just like the standard DVD players. Just like the DVDs that you buy in the U.S. are encoded for Region 1.
Hi,
I am currently in US and will be going back to India in few months. I wanted to buy a Bose Acoustimass 6 , Blue Ray player and a Samsung HDTV after going to India.
I went thru the "CNET's Quick guide to Blu-ray" and found that, I need to buy a AV receiver to hook up Blue-Ray.
My question is,
1) Can I not hook up the Blue-ray player directly to Acoustimass and my HDTV?
2) If I can, will I still be able to get the Dolby TrueHD output.
3) If I need to buy a receiver, Can any receiver can be hooked up to Acoustimass module?
4) Also, are Blueray players region specific like DVDs?
Please somebody help me on this asap so that, If I need to buy a receiver, I will buy one here and take it there. Receivers are very expensive in India.

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