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General discussion

Home Theater & Blue Ray advice

Jul 6, 2009 4:55AM PDT

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.

Discussion is locked

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BR, Bose, etc
Jul 6, 2009 5:53AM PDT

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.

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You will need a 7.1 surround receiver
Jul 6, 2009 8:42AM PDT

Hi.

From reviews I have read regarding the Bose Acoustimass systems you will definitely need a receiver to power them, the more power the better. I suggest reading some reviews on the web before purchasing them. The subwoofer (two 5.25" woofers) is most likely powered, but the system itself will not provide power to the satellites. So to answer your question, no you cannot connect a Blu-ray player directly to the Acoustimass system but you should be able to connect it directly to an HDTV via HDMI. My suggestion would be to purchase a 7.1 surround receiver for which you would be able to connect your Blu-ray player and Acoustimass system. Blu-ray are also region specific.

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voltage the Hz in India.....
Jul 6, 2009 1:08PM PDT

230volts and 50hz... Your going to have troubles because of that.