Small form factor speakers

[guney]

By the way, any recommendations on a receiver?

There are a couple of major considerations to keep in mind when looking for a receiver.

Number one would be "features". Does it decode all the audio formats you're interested in using? Or other specific needs. Most receivers today (even cheap ones) do virtually all the basic stuff and have a sufficient number of inputs (e.g., HDMI inputs) for any typical use. Unless you have very specialized uses (e.g., "I have to be able to connect my Microsoft Zune via USB", or "it just has to handle Pandora radio", or "I need five HDMI inputs", or "I need to be able to connect a turntable"), then any old one would do from this point of view, really.

The other would be the quality of the amplifier. On this front, the better brands still have an edge over the mainstream brands. You can be much more assured about the amp performance of a Yamaha, Denon, NAD, Onkyo, Integra, or Marantz, than you would be of an equivalent Sony, Pioneer, Insignia, or Samsung. If you know anything about hi-fi, I'm sure you know that amplifier specs are very easy to lie with. Number one, not all "100-watt-per-channel" amps are created equal. A lot depends on the current generation capability of the amp. Two amps might both be rated (honestly) at 100 Wpc into 8 ohms, but the fineprint in one's specs might state that it can drive 200 watts into 4 ohms, while the other's may state only 120 watts into 4 ohms. The former amp has more power reserves (high current capability) and can drive the same speakers more loudly, or be able to feed problematic speaker loads more successfully. And, number two, the difference between 100 Wpc and 130 Wpc, and so on, is negligible. For one thing, doubling the power output in watts only increases the audio output by 3 decibels, which is almost a single "tick" on most volume knobs. The second thing is that, most users don't exceed something like 5 or 10 watts per channel during the course of typical home theater viewing. So, pay less attention to the "watts-per-channel" figure than the brand's reputation when comparing the amp sections of receivers.

If I were to buy a receiver today, I'd start looking at Yamahas or Denons. I currently use a Yamaha. I used to use a Denon. I love Denon receivers. Their displays are extremely informative about the input signal and the output mode (both in terms of which channels are driven/present) at a glance on their displays. Moreover, most Denon's feature Audyssey room calibration software. Different models feature different levels of sophistication of Audyssey software. I would still be using a Denon if it weren't for one thing: DSP sound fields and headphone use. I switched (back) to a Yamaha only because I live in a small apartment and the performance of the dynamic compression (or "volume leveling") feature of a receiver and its capability of generating spacious and realistic-sounding processed sound fields via headphones has high importance for me. Yamahas blows away the Denons in that regard. But Yamaha uses a proprietary room correction software rather than Audyssey (due to licensing policy) and arguable may not be as advanced as Denon's on that front.

I'm leaning more towards the totems especially since that stereophile review was so good. Let me ask you, if you were to buy a set now, which would you go with, the totems or the Quad L-ite set?

As I mentioned at some point in my preceding long post (I couldn't blame you if you couldn't read the whole thing ), I'd pick the Totems in a heart beat. They have better built cabinets, and arguably superior drivers and output specs.

In the meantime I am going to research the additional Class C and Class D options you recommended and also a sub and receiver.

Sounds good. Meanwhile, let me make one quick comment in case I may have oversold the Stereophile Recommended Components list: Naturally, it's not a foregone conclusion that "any components on the list are better than any components not on the list". This is especially with respect to the Class D components. As you can tell by their price levels, these are not really options that can keep up with the big boys. If you already happen to be looking at options in these price ranges, the inclusion of these models in the Stereophile list is a good enough reason to start by looking at these first. But, if you happen to have an option already in mind in the, say, $500-to-$1000 price range that you really like, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's worse than these Class D options just because it's not on the Stereophile list. After all, Stereophile can only test so many speakers and they only assemble this list from among the ones they've actually tested (and "recently", actually). So, make sure you compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, when using the Recommended Components list as a guide.

 

[amrogers3]

A question popped up as I was looking at the bookshelf speakers. If the bookshelf speakers have a small woofer and tweeter for lows and highs, does the center take care of the mid range? My Bose 5.1 system has the small jewel cube speakers, center, and and sub. I can't hear the Bose jewel cube speakers producing any base and I can't find any information on how the Bose are set up. So I am wondering if the bookshelf speakers should be producing the mids and highs and a sub producing the lows?

I am replacing a 5.1 Bose satellite system so I am trying to stick with the small speaker concept. I am probably going to go with 2 fronts, a center, and a sub for now.

 

[guney]

A question popped up as I was looking at the bookshelf speakers. If the bookshelf speakers have a small woofer and tweeter for lows and highs, does the center take care of the mid range? My Bose 5.1 system has the small jewel cube speakers, center, and and sub. I can't hear the Bose jewel cube speakers producing any base and I can't find any information on how the Bose are set up. So I am wondering if the bookshelf speakers should be producing the mids and highs and a sub producing the lows?

I don't mean to monopolize the thread completely, but perhaps I can clarify...

Don't take this the wrong way but, first of all, I sense that there might be some misinformed categorization behind your question. You seem to be starting from the assumption that "woofers are for reproducing bass, tweeters are for reproducing the high-end, so something else must be for reproducing mid-range." That association between driver types and frequency ranges is not that concrete. There are two-way (and even single-driver) speakers that can handle almost the entire frequency range, and there are three-way speakers that still need a subwoofer to fill in a coverage hole they leave in the extreme low end. So, there's no hard-and-fast rule such as "a speaker needs a tweeter for high-end, a mid-range driver for the mid-range, and a woofer for the bass", which seems to be where your question is coming from. (But, of course, I may have misunderstood. And, if I have, then I'm sorry.)

Having said that, generally speaking, speakers in the "bookshelf" size category have usable frequency response only down to about 50 Hz (for beefier and pricier models) or to somewhere around 70-80 Hz (for more common models). The top end of their range usually reaches up to the highest audible frequencies without a struggle. (The small size of bookshelf speakers is no impediment to producing high frequencies; it's the lower frequencies that take more power and size to produce.) So, naturally all of the mid-range frequencies fall within this range. So, the mid-range will be produced by your bookshelf speakers. Only the lower bass may need an additional subwoofer or separate bass unit to bolster.

Having said that, that doesn't mean that the center speaker doesn't produce mid-range either. There's really no "division of labor" between the front left/right speakers and the center in terms of frequency range. They all typically cover the same range. (If your center is really much beefier than your left and right, then its low end may extend a little further into lower bass, but that doesn't mean it's because it's meant to handle more of the bass duties. It's merely a by-product of size or driver complement.) The reason for having a separate center speaker in addition to the front left and right pair is purely about the localization of the sound, rather than any frequency-based separation.

Going back to your question(s), the reason your Bose cubes don't sound like they're producing much bass is probably because they're not. But, that's only because they're so tiny, and not because the bass is something that the center speaker is supposed to produce (in case that's what you were getting at). The same would be true of any small (or "tiny") bookshelf speakers. You simply need serious size in order to produce serious bass, and despite the fact that we're accustomed to "infinite miniaturization" in our technology culture, miniaturization doesn't really work for equipment that does physical work, and producing bass sound is physical work.

To sum it up, any reasonable bookshelf speaker (and I don't include those tiny "cubes" in the category) will produce good output down to about 70 Hz or so. Expecting anything lower than that from them would probably not be realistic. So, if you really want well-rounded sound from a speaker system made up of bookshelf speakers, yes, you'll have to include a subwoofer to cover the remaining low frequencies.

 

[kumquat]

A question popped up as I was looking at the bookshelf speakers. If the bookshelf speakers have a small woofer and tweeter for lows and highs, does the center take care of the mid range? My Bose 5.1 system has the small jewel cube speakers, center, and and sub. I can't hear the Bose jewel cube speakers producing any base and I can't find any information on how the Bose are set up. So I am wondering if the bookshelf speakers should be producing the mids and highs and a sub producing the lows?

I am replacing a 5.1 Bose satellite system so I am trying to stick with the small speaker concept. I am probably going to go with 2 fronts, a center, and a sub for now.

The Bose system is sort of a black box of mystery. All the channels feed into the "bass module," which is absolutely not a sub, and it determines which frequencies go where.

In a regular receiver+speakers+sub setup, the speakers are given a highpass crossover frequency during setup. Say that's 80 Hz. Anything below 80 Hz to any single speaker instead gets routed to the sub. The sub also gets everything encoded in the LFE channel of any 5.1 or 7.1 audio (that's the .1).

The Bose probably does something similar, but the crossover frequency is freakishly high, like 250 Hz. The small, POS Bose satellite speakers actually start to severely roll off under 500 Hz and can't reproduce anything worthwhile below 300 Hz. The "bass module" picks up around 200-250 Hz and doesn't really go below about 50 Hz or so. Compare this with a traditional bookshelf speaker (even a small one) which easily reaches 80 Hz and a halfway decent sub that can pick up the rest down to 25-35 Hz.

Another important thing besides frequency response is distortion. When you want to listen at reasonable or moderate volume levels, you're asking the speakers to move a fairly significant amount of air, especially towards the lower end. The more air you ask the speaker to move, the higher distortion is going to be. The tiny little drivers in the Bose (and other) satellites are just too small to move enough air without distorting a great deal. This is why Bose speakers start to sound muddy and indistinct at higher levels.

On the other end, high frequency response requires a very small, easy to driver speaker. The drivers in the Bose speakers are much too large to be effective tweeters, and hence their frequency response rolls off sharply starting around 10 kHz. A traditional tweeter has no problem going to and exceeding 20 kHz, which is easy because they're only around an inch.

As for bass, your system is producing any real bass. The "bass module," while it sort of looks like a sub, has three cheap 5.5" woofers. It doesn't produce anything lower than mid-bass.

For good sound, you need to move air. Larger speakers and a larger sub will do that for you.

 

[guney]

The Bose probably does something similar, but the crossover frequency is freakishly high, like 250 Hz. The small, POS Bose satellite speakers actually start to severely roll off under 500 Hz and can't reproduce anything worthwhile below 300 Hz. The "bass module" picks up around 200-250 Hz and doesn't really go below about 50 Hz or so. Compare this with a traditional bookshelf speaker (even a small one) which easily reaches 80 Hz and a halfway decent sub that can pick up the rest down to 25-35 Hz.

Bingo!

 

[amrogers3]

I don't mean to monopolize the thread completely, but perhaps I can clarify...

Don't mind at all, I appreciate the feedback.

Don't take this the wrong way but, first of all, I sense that there might be some misinformed categorization behind your question. You seem to be starting from the assumption that "woofers are for reproducing bass, tweeters are for reproducing the high-end, so something else must be for reproducing mid-range." That association between driver types and frequency ranges is not that concrete. There are two-way (and even single-driver) speakers that can handle almost the entire frequency range, and there are three-way speakers that still need a subwoofer to fill in a coverage hole they leave in the extreme low end. So, there's no hard-and-fast rule such as "a speaker needs a tweeter for high-end, a mid-range driver for the mid-range, and a woofer for the bass", which seems to be where your question is coming from. (But, of course, I may have misunderstood. And, if I have, then I'm sorry.)

That is spot on. That is exactly where I was coming from. I thought woofers for bass, tweeters are high end, and center is for the mid-range. Thanks for setting me straight

The Bose system is sort of a black box of mystery. All the channels feed into the "bass module," which is absolutely not a sub, and it determines which frequencies go where.

As for bass, your system is producing any real bass. The "bass module," while it sort of looks like a sub, has three cheap 5.5" woofers. It doesn't produce anything lower than mid-bass.

I did notice the bass it rather weak on the unit. That explains it. "black box of mystery..." guess that is also why I can't find out any info online.

In a regular receiver+speakers+sub setup, the speakers are given a highpass crossover frequency during setup. Say that's 80 Hz. Anything below 80 Hz to any single speaker instead gets routed to the sub. The sub also gets everything encoded in the LFE channel of any 5.1 or 7.1 audio (that's the .1).

The Bose probably does something similar, but the crossover frequency is freakishly high, like 250 Hz. The small, POS Bose satellite speakers actually start to severely roll off under 500 Hz and can't reproduce anything worthwhile below 300 Hz. The "bass module" picks up around 200-250 Hz and doesn't really go below about 50 Hz or so. Compare this with a traditional bookshelf speaker (even a small one) which easily reaches 80 Hz and a halfway decent sub that can pick up the rest down to 25-35 Hz.

Another important thing besides frequency response is distortion. When you want to listen at reasonable or moderate volume levels, you're asking the speakers to move a fairly significant amount of air, especially towards the lower end. The more air you ask the speaker to move, the higher distortion is going to be. The tiny little drivers in the Bose (and other) satellites are just too small to move enough air without distorting a great deal. This is why Bose speakers start to sound muddy and indistinct at higher levels.

On the other end, high frequency response requires a very small, easy to driver speaker. The drivers in the Bose speakers are much too large to be effective tweeters, and hence their frequency response rolls off sharply starting around 10 kHz. A traditional tweeter has no problem going to and exceeding 20 kHz, which is easy because they're only around an inch.

Now I understand technically why this set of speakers suck so bad.

 

[amrogers3]

In a regular receiver+speakers+sub setup, the speakers are given a highpass crossover frequency during setup. Say that's 80 Hz. Anything below 80 Hz to any single speaker instead gets routed to the sub. The sub also gets everything encoded in the LFE channel of any 5.1 or 7.1 audio (that's the .1).

So a unit designated as a x.2 would mean that receiver could support 2 subs?

 

[kumquat]

So a unit designated as a x.2 would mean that receiver could support 2 subs?

Yes, but any system can support 2 subs. I dislike the "x.2" designations. They are 100% equivalent to simply putting a y-adapter on a subwoofer output and plugging in two subs that way. That's how the circuitry in the receiver is even set up. They do nothing special to account for two subs.

 

[amrogers3]

So I am looking at both the Totem Dreamcatchers and the Dynaudio X12s. I keep reading great things about Dynaudio in general.

Both the Totems and the X12s are rated 4 ohm. The problem is I can't figure out what receiver would support these speakers. I have looked at both Yamaha and Denon and the spec sheets don't state if they support 4 ohm speakers. I see Yamaha lists Dynamic Power per Channel (8/6/4/2 ohms) as 135/165/210/280 W. Since the specs say 120 W at 4 ohm, I assume the Yamaha can drive 4 ohm speakers. As an aside, not sure why these small bookshelf speakers are so power hungry.

In the review for the X12s, the article states, "This speaker will work better with relatively high-powered amplifiers." Does that mean I need to buy an amp? or would a reasonably priced receiver work? I see you can spend as much as you want on a receiver, definitely dont want to spend any more than $500-750 if I can help it. However, since I would prefer to purchase an Audyssey (or similar technology) supported receiver, that is probably not an option.

 

[kumquat]

4 ohm speakers are very hard to drive and, in general, you need either an enormously expensive receiver or a separate amplifier. Something like an Emotiva UPA-2 amp would handle them just fine, but no $500-$700 receiver is going to cut it.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Driving 4ohm speakers with an 8ohm amp will likely cause a lot of heat, typically frying your amp before too long.

 

[guney]

Both the Totems and the X12s are rated 4 ohm. The problem is I can't figure out what receiver would support these speakers. I have looked at both Yamaha and Denon and the spec sheets don't state if they support 4 ohm speakers. I see Yamaha lists Dynamic Power per Channel (8/6/4/2 ohms) as 135/165/210/280 W. Since the specs say 120 W at 4 ohm, I assume the Yamaha can drive 4 ohm speakers. As an aside, not sure why these small bookshelf speakers are so power hungry.

The answer depends a lot on the actual amplifier in use (which is the amp in your receiver, in your scenario).

In an ideal world, working with a perfect amplifier design, it should not matter. A "perfect" amp that can feed 100 watts into 8 ohms can feed 200 watts into 4 ohms, 400 watts into 2 ohms, and 800 watts into 1 ohm, etc.

In the real world, however, things are not that neat and tidy, of course. Those 800 watts in the 1-ohm scenario has to come from somewhere, naturally. I bet you'd be surprised if you learned that the internal power supply of your $500 receiver was built to produce 4 kilowatts! (Five channels times 800 watts...) Which is why it doesn't. So, in reality, the design of such receivers are typically made with "headroom" only for a little more than the nominal power they are supposed to be able to feed into "standard" (8 ohm) speakers, and that's it. When that's the case, if you connect low-impedance speakers to such a receiver, they will be overloaded and overheated if driven hard, as other posters also mentioned briefly.

Thankfully, you can get a rough sense of how much of such "low-impedance abuse" a given amp (or receiver) can take. Amps with very little power headroom say things like "100W into 8 ohms, 120W into 4 ohms". An amp that has some reasonable headroom would say something like "100W into 8 ohms, 180W into 4 ohms" (i.e., it would be closer to the "100W into 8, 200W into 4" ideal). The Yamaha you're looking at is showing "135W into 8 ohms, 210W into 4 ohms". In an ideal world, it should have been "270W into 4 ohms". It's not too far off that ideal. (There are many lesser receivers with specs like "135W into 8, 145W into 4".) To me, that implies that this receiver shouldn't have any real trouble driving 4-ohm speakers under normal use scenarios. Because, you should also keep in mind that the receiver will almost never actualy feed 210W into a channel in practice. The way power ratings and sound levels work is fairly unintuitive. Since it's partially relevant here, let me try to summarize: A speaker with a typical sensitivity of 90 dB/W/m will be generating a sound pressure level of 90 dB at 1 meter distance from the speaker by using only 1 watt of amplifier power. Each doubling of the amplifier power would add 3dB to this figure. Each doubling of the distance would subtract 6dB from it. So, if you're sitting, say 4 meters away from the speaker, one watt would produce 78 dB from this one speaker for you at your listening position. (Four meters is two doublings of the original one-meter distance; i.e., 12 lost decibels.) Let's say you want the speaker to produce about 85 dB at your listening position. That would take somewhere between 4 and 8 watts of power from your amp. (The 7 dB difference translates to between two and three times 3 dB; i.e., between two and three doublings of the power level. I'm not going to mess with fractions here...) Not only that, but this is only for a single speaker. When your receiver is driving two speakers (each at the same distance) to produce that sound level at your listening position, it will take even less power per speaker, due to the combined effect. This level of sound (85 dB) is considered to present "the potential for hearing damage", and you're producing that by using about four watts per channel or less! (You can experiment with this SPL Calculator to see this for yourself.)

So, unless you're doing something really wild, you're never going to stress that Yamaha receiver seriously by connecting 4-ohm speakers to it. Whether the Denon's specs say something specific about 4-ohm loads or not, I'd be surprised if their amp ratings weren't at least as conservative as the Yamaha's, by the way.

In the review for the X12s, the article states, "This speaker will work better with relatively high-powered amplifiers." Does that mean I need to buy an amp? or would a reasonably priced receiver work? I see you can spend as much as you want on a receiver, definitely dont want to spend any more than $500-750 if I can help it. However, since I would prefer to purchase an Audyssey (or similar technology) supported receiver, that is probably not an option.

"Relatively high-powered" is a pretty vague term, and its meaning depends a lot on where you read it. In the audiophile world where people may pay five-digit price tags for 2x15W tube amplifiers, high-powered can mean something like 80 Wpc. (And it usually does.) An amp with 135 watts of power per channel is a "high-power" amp by any measure, as long as its a realistic spec.

Having said that, running a truly high-end speaker using a receiver is not considered to be the best idea in general. But, I'd say that it's not bad enough to keep you from picking these speakers if you have the means and the interest to do so. Under reasonable conditions (i.e., when you're not in a volume race with your neighbor on the other side of the wall), I wouldn't expect you to feel much adverse effect from this. Given the calculation I've explained above for power level versus sound level versus distance, you can get a lot of sound out of the X12s with just that Yamaha receiver before its amp starts being overtaxed, even if the speakers were rated at 2 ohms.

However, in yet another example of unintuitive high-end audio reality, it's much easier to damage a speaker using an underpowered amplifier than it is using an overpowered one. This is due to the effect of the "clipping" phenomenon that results from the amplifier reaching the upper limit of its power output and the strain on the speaker of the harsh high-frequency component of the resulting distorted sound. So, if you do end up buying the X12s to run off a receiver, just keep it in the back of your mind, that you shouldn't be attempting too many window-rattling demos to your friends and family with your new sound system.

Meanwhile, this could also leave a promising avenue of upgrade open to you for the future: At some point, you could indulge in budgeting another grand or two for yourself to buy a power amplifier to connect between the receiver's pre-amp outputs and the speakers, resulting in that high-powered amp set up recommended by the text that you've encountered.

 

[TESLA]

Wow, the requirements seem to have changed quite a bit in here, haha.

The Dynaudio Excite X12s are awesome, but you will still need the center to be timbre matched (you can go cheaper with the surrounds). As such, you will be closer to the ~$2.5k range for 5.1 than the ~$1.5k budget you started with, unless you can buy used. That said, if you can swing the cash, you will be more than happy.

Also, I mean do not mean to step on toes here, but you listed:

***
- Alright in order of importance: Games, Movies, Music
***

The Dynaudios are amazing speakers, but if music is last on your list, they may not be what you are looking for. This is not to say that they are a poor choice for games and movies (they will still be amazing at everything), but critical music listening is generally more demanding than games and movies. Thus, you can likely get by with spending less money while being just as happy.

So, if the new budget and space constraints are livable, definitely consider the X12s, but do not lose sight of your original requirements in the process.

Lastly, the X12s may be rated at 4 Ohms (you should still have a 4 Ohm rated amplifier paired to them), but from looking at the impedance curves, they do not appear to be difficult on amplifiers by any means.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/dynaudio-excite-x12-loudspeaker-measurements

They will still benefit from a beefier amplifier due to dynamics (just about all speakers do), but you can certainly get by with a receiver.

Yes, but any system can support 2 subs. I dislike the "x.2" designations. They are 100% equivalent to simply putting a y-adapter on a subwoofer output and plugging in two subs that way. That's how the circuitry in the receiver is even set up. They do nothing special to account for two subs.

In his price range this is true, but there are receivers/processors and pre-amps which mix the left and right channels below the crossover into the left and right subs respectively.

 

[guney]

The Dynaudio Excite X12s are awesome, but you will still need the center to be timbre matched (you can go cheaper with the surrounds). As such, you will be closer to the ~$2.5k range for 5.1 than the ~$1.5k budget you started with, unless you can buy used. That said, if you can swing the cash, you will be more than happy.

When I was thinking seriously about the X12s (only a few weeks ago), I had figured that the front left/right and the center could be had for a total of around $1800-2000. But that was without asking an actual dealer, based mostly on Internet research. I could be wrong.

 

[TESLA]

That sounds about right, but remember, he would still need surrounds and a sub. At minimum that would add another $500, likely another $700-800.

 

[guney]

That sounds about right, but remember, he would still need surrounds and a sub. At minimum that would add another $500, likely another $700-800.

Yes. You're right.

I was thinking based on the assumption that the satellites and the bass module of the existing Bose system could be retained and might do a passable job with the new front speakers. (Although, the suitability of at least the bass module from a Bose 5.1 system as a subwoofer for a Dynaudio bookshelf system is a bit questionable, to say the least.)

 

[amrogers3]

Wow, the requirements seem to have changed quite a bit in here, haha.

The Dynaudio Excite X12s are awesome, but you will still need the center to be timbre matched (you can go cheaper with the surrounds). As such, you will be closer to the ~$2.5k range for 5.1 than the ~$1.5k budget you started with, unless you can buy used. That said, if you can swing the cash, you will be more than happy.

Welcome back Tesla. I keep reading great things about the X12s Guney mentioned. Matter of fact, I couldn't find any negative reviews at all. Unfortunately, I think they may be out of my price range

Looking at the price for an X22 center, a pair of X12s, a receiver, and a sub, I'm looking at around $4000 with tax. I've been crunching the numbers but I don't think I can swing it. Remember, there are not any dealers in my area so I haven't had the opportunity to go in and talk to a dealer and get a quote. Actually, I'm afraid to go try them out as I might have to sell my firstborn when I hear how good they sound.

So having said that, is there a set of speakers, center, and sub you guys could recommend for around $1500 to $2000?

 

[amrogers3]

Yes. You're right.

I was thinking based on the assumption that the satellites and the bass module of the existing Bose system could be retained and might do a passable job with the new front speakers. (Although, the suitability of at least the bass module from a Bose 5.1 system as a subwoofer for a Dynaudio bookshelf system is a bit questionable, to say the least.)

Guney, using the Bose sub would be great if that is doable and would significantly cut down on costs until I could save for a "real" sub. Bose has a weird setup though. You have to connect all the speakers to the Acoustimass module (sub) and the acoustimass module has a special connection to the "receiver" unit which controls the inputs, volume, etc. I don't not believe (without somehow hacking the acoustimass unit) that you could get the unit to work with a regular receiver.

 

[guney]

Guney, using the Bose sub would be great if that is doable and would significantly cut down on costs until I could save for a "real" sub. Bose has a weird setup though. You have to connect all the speakers to the Acoustimass module (sub) and the acoustimass module has a special connection to the "receiver" unit which controls the inputs, volume, etc. I don't not believe (without somehow hacking the acoustimass unit) that you could get the unit to work with a regular receiver.

Yep. I was half expecting that.

Never mind then. It makes sense that the whole thing was made to be used as a complete system. It's not really a 5.1 speaker-and-sub bundle anyway; it's more like a dedicated proprietary system. (Too bad!)