I have an Bose Acoustimass 10 setup with a Sony STR-DB870 (this sounds poor especially with music). I am looking for a better Amp. Currently I am thinking of trying either the Denon AVR-2106 which the local Bose shop recommends or the Cambridge Audio 540R V2.
Has anybody had a good experience with matching Amps to the Acoustimass system or any advice (besides dumping the Bose speakers please)?
Just an addition to this. I have been reading a few posts about Bose (The nay sayers get a little fired up don't they!). Anyway I have heard that you get much better results if you can pump the acoustimass with 200w per channel. Anyone have any experience with receivers that arent an arm and a leg and rate this high and are good (say 1000 bucks or so)? The two systems I mentioned earlier may be a bit underpowered.
As long as you have Bose speakers it doesn't matter what you connect to them, it'll still sound poor. I suggest scrapping the whole system and starting over.
Receivers with good current are not cheap. I suggest Outlaw.
The naysayers have usually experienced Bose at least once and have moved on to better speakers. They are fired up because they fell for the hype and have since realized how much money they have wasted. The fortunate thing is that the Bose can still resell for a pretty penny, specially to the uninitiated. There are still a lot of people who believe that Bose is the best made speakers in the world. Great advantage don't you think?
Now, define better results "if you can pump the acoustimass with 200w per channel"? From whom did you hear this?
How is it going to be better? Maybe a little louder but not necessarily better.
Crap turned up to insane volumes is still crap.
Bottom line is if you want 200watts of good clean power, you are going to spend some money. And if it means 200 watts of output per channel/speaker...look out!
But hey, they are your ears and they are your Bose. However, a good set of speakers sound really well even with Sony. Paradigm, B&W, Mordaunt Short, Axiom, Athena, Ascend Acoustics deny the fact that they are being driven by Sony.
And before you start thinking that I hate Bose...I have the Bose 802. I think they are great, and those I can recommend.
Ok, thanks guys, I have your negative comments now (on top of reading them a hundred times on other posts).
Now what I'm really looking for is practical advice given that I am NOT getting rid of the Bose right now. They are a great size and they sound better than the Missions I previously had (I'm convinced its the Amp). Im not an audiophile and do give a stuff about having bookshelves, and floorstanding speakers filling up my house.
What I am after is people who have had good experiences (I know they are out there) matching amps to the Bose AM 10's (series III). I have read somewhere that they work better with an amp with some oomph however I'm not going trawling through the forums again to find it.
...but then again most Bose listeners probably aren't that a-n-a-l retentive as to be following this forum. Probably just enjoying their music and life with friends around the BBQ!
Go get a Rotel RSDX-02. Should be around $1000 or so. You won't get much purer sound than that. You can check it out with the Bose and once you figure out that the poor sound quality you are hearing now is still from the Bose, you can always get fire up the BBQ and get another set of speakers later.
Touch'e Stof! Thanks and will check that amp out. Thanks Bernie too. I'm going to have a look. Iv'e never heard of Outlaw but I'll try and find a dealer here in Oz so I can check it out.