Bose Lifestyle 12 Theater System

Bose is a tremendously successful consumer-electronics company. They have survived over the years by applying intense marketing pressure to sell moderate-quality products at extremely high prices. Just read some of the Epinions here on Bose products. One writer describes attending the so-called "Bose Road Show" which she describes as a glorified sales pitch. Enticed with come-ons for $300 Wave Radios (a high-quality, extremely-high-price clock radio), she soon found herself, based on what she calls "bait-and-switch," walking out with the $1,079 Acoustic Wave Radio.


Marketing Muscle

The Massachusetts-based audio equipment manufacturer spends lots of money on marketing. They sink mass quantities of cash into magazine advertising, even TV advertising, and, as a result, the company can depend on a stream of positive reviews. The audio magazine publishing business is competitive, and not an arena in which editors can readily criticize the products of a major advertiser.

Some serious audio magazines deal with this situation by simply refusing to review any Bose products. Interestingly, when Sound & Vision Magazine reviewed one of the Bose home-theater systems, the Lifestyle 50, they included no technical specs with the article (it was the usual gloss-over-the-unpleasant details S&V review, but even they had to admit that you could easily get a lot more, and better quality, audio equipment for the price of the system). This is the only time I've ever seen an S&V article without any specs (amplifier power, speaker range, etc.).


Bose, Don't Sue Me for this Review, Please

Bose uses more than just marketing muscle to maintain their position. The company maintains a large and busy legal department. Bose sued Consumers Reports magazine for publishing a negative review of their speakers. Bose sued Cambridge Soundworks because that company advertised having "Better Sound than Bose for Half the Price" (truer words were never spoken -- I hope Bose doesn't sue Epinions over this review).


Meet the Lifestyle 12 Series II

Because of the company's marketing prowess, they get away with charging way more for their products than the gear would rate if it were priced on its own merit. The system I am reviewing here, the Lifestyle 12 Series II, while it's the lowest-priced of the Bose home-theater systems, sells for $1,999. Bose claims not to discount, though they are currently throwing in a DVD player with the LS12. At Crutchfield.com, they will either give you the DVD player, or a $250 credit to apply toward the cost of a more-expensive DVD player.


A Very Pricey System

This is a phenomenally overpriced system, especially when you consider that it does not even include a built-in DVD player. That's right, you get a CD player with the LS12, but no DVD player. Compare this system to the Panasonic SC-HT80 (which I've reviewed). The HT80 is an all-in-one unit, like the LS12, so it has the same high level of ease-of-use and installation. However, the HT80 includes a DVD/CD player and sells for $600. Furthermore, the LS12 only has a coaxial digital-audio input jack, so you can't even use it with DVD players which have an optical digital-audio output jack, such as the Panasonic DVD-RV30 or RV31. You can get an optical-to-coaxial digital converter, but this would add another expense to the already-high price of the LS12.

Granted, until the offer runs out, Bose is including the freebie Onkyo DVD player with the LS12. But you then have to separately connect that DVD player to your home-theater system. I thought the point was to make installation and use of the product foolproof. Also, integrating a DVD player with the LS12 and your TV will be no walk in the park, as I detail later in this review.

For those of you not scared off by the thought of connecting a DVD player, A/V receiver, and speakers (and it's not that hard to do), it's simply amazing to consider how much more you can get for your money when buying audio components instead of the LS12. For example, Kenwood's HTB-503 home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) system, which includes a real Kenwood VR-407 A/V surround-sound receiver, with, among other things, a complete set of coaxial and optical digital-audio inputs, sells for $450. The HTB-503 (see my review of the HTB-503) doesn't come with a DVD player, but neither does the LS12 (except for as long as the special promotion lasts).

To move up slightly in quality, you could get a set of PSB's fine Alpha Intro LR satellite speakers (front-left, front-right, rear-left, rear-right), an Alpha Intro CLR center-channel speaker, and an Alpha Sub Zero subwoofer, all for $866. Combine that with an Onkyo TX-DS484 A/V receiver, readily available for $300, and you've got a system that will easily blow away the LS12 for a little more than half the LS12's price. The Alpha speakers are all quite compact, just slightly larger than the satellites which come with the LS12. Yet the Alphas are far better speakers. Each of the Alpha LR's includes a 0.75-inch aluminum-dome tweeter and 3.5-inch polypropylene-cone woofer. The Alpha CLR center-channel speaker includes the same type of tweeter, flanked by two of the 3.5-inch woofers.

The LS12 doesn't even come with a dedicated center-channel speaker. Although there's nothing technically wrong with using the same kind of speaker for the center channel as is used for the four other satellite surround speakers, it's much better to have a more substantial speaker for the center channel, as is the case with the dual-woofer Alpha CLR, because, with 5.1-channel surround-sound audio, the center channel carries a large amount of the audio load, including soundtrack dialog.

Also, the LS12's speakers are of an inferior design to the Alpha's (and many other speakers). Instead of having a woofer and a tweeter, with a crossover, to handle the audio range in each speaker, each of the LS12's satellites consists of two identical 2.5-inch paper-cone drivers. Paper is an inferior material to the polypropylene used in the Alpha woofers and the aluminum used in the Alpha tweeters. The LS12's bass module employs a pair of 5.25-inch drivers of unspecified material. The bass module is not video-shielded and, thus, should be kept a minimum distance of 18 inches from a TV.

Keep in mind, when I compare the LS12 to the Alpha speaker system, combined with an Onkyo TX-DS484 receiver, I'm comparing it to a system which would cost a total of about $1,150, versus the $1,999.99 price tag of the LS12. The LS12, at the moment, does come with a DVD player. If you subtract the street-price value of the Onkyo DVD player (it's a discontinued model, but it's comparable in features to the Sony DVP-S360), which is $250, the effective price of the LS12 (assuming you don't already own a DVD player) is $1,749.99. Now, as I said, the $1,150 PSB/Onkyo system, with its far superior features and functionality, would blow the LS12 out of the water. And that's a system that costs about two-thirds of what the LS12 costs. The system you could purchase for the LS12's total cost of $1,999.99 is just phenomenal. As you can see, the LS12 is an incredibly overpriced product.


The Main Unit

Like all the Bose Lifestyle systems, the LS12 consists of a CD player/AM/FM tuner/preamp unit in a sleek, low-profile, brushed aluminum case. There are no controls on the main unit itself. If you lose the remote with this system, you're truly out of luck. The subwoofer unit contains the power amps, with 40 watts going to each of the satellite speakers and 80 watts to the subwoofer. There's a sleep timer which can be set in 15-minute increments, for a maximum of 75 minutes.


No DTS

The AM/FM tuner has manual and seek tuning. You can program up to 20 preset frequencies. The single-disc CD player features random play. A small, blue display on the main unit gives you CD track information, CD elapsed time information, and radio frequency. This unit only has Dolby Digital (DD) decoding. It has no Digital Theater Sound (DTS) decoding. DTS is a 5.1-channel surround-sound format, similar to DD, except it uses less compression and thus offers the capability of fuller, more accurate soundtrack reproduction. As just about every A/V receiver selling for more than $300 includes both DD and DTS decoding, it's rather amazing that this $2,000 Bose product does not have it.


No Video Switching

Speaking of things that you'll find on most over-$300 receivers but not on the LS12, this unit has no video switching. That's another impressive omission. As there's no video switching, you'll have to route the audio from your video components, such as your VCR, DVD player, and satellite receiver, into the LS12 while their video connections go directly to your TV. If your TV doesn't have enough inputs to handle all the video gear, then you'll have to buy a separate switcher. For connecting DD audio, such as the output from a DVD player, the LS12, as previously mentioned, has only a single coaxial digital-audio connection jack. Many of the satellite receivers which have DD output have only an optical digital-audio output jack. With one of these, as with a DVD player like the Panasonic RV31 with only optical digital-audio output, you won't be able to connect to the LS12 (unless you purchase an expensive optical-to-coaxial converter).


Limited Audio Inputs/Outputs

In addition to the digital coaxial input, the LS12 has three L/R analog audio inputs and a single L/R analog audio output (e.g., to feed the input of a tape deck). It would take very little gear to fill up all of these inputs and leave you with more gear than you can connect. For example, in a typical configuration you might connect your TV audio, your VCR, and the analog output from your tape deck (with the single analog output on the main unit feeding the input of the tape deck). Okay, but what about the analog output from your DVD player? Oh, and if you use that single output for your tape deck, you won't have an audio output to feed the audio input for recording on your VCR.

Then again, you can't connect the video from the VCR through the LS12's main unit, so maybe you'll be better off directly connecting the audio from the TV to the VCR. But then you don't have an audio connection from the TV to the LS12. Suddenly, it becomes apparent why even the least-expensive A/V surround-sound receivers have video switching and usually at least ten or more audio and video inputs and outputs. The shortage of inputs is typical of the atrocious design of the LS12, and this from a company that prides itself on "Better Sound Through Research." What do they spend all their time researching? Not product design, that's for sure.


The Remote is Nice

One nice feature of the LS12 is its remote, which is an RF (radio frequency model). This means it has a much greater range, up to 75 feet, than typical remotes and, unlike IR (infrared) remotes, it does not have to be in direct line-of-sight with the main unit to control it. The remote has all the usual controls, including tuning up/down, source selection, and volume. However, while most A/V receivers allow you to finely tailor the sound levels of the surround speakers, the LS12's remote only has two surround-level controls, one which sets the volume of the center-channel speaker and one which changes the balance between the surround (rear) speakers and the front speakers.


Additional Surround Modes

In addition to DD, the LS12 has a number of audio modes which will distribute sound among the five speakers and subwoofer. There's one mode which is called "stereo + center" and, as the name implies, this turns off the surround (rear) speakers. Another mode creates five-channel sound from mono input. This would come in handy if you connect a mono TV to the LS12 or you use it to listen to a tape with a mono soundtrack.


Excellent Ease of Use, Customer Service

The LS12 is fairly simple to install. The speaker wires are color-coded, though only two colors are used, one for the three front speakers and one for the two rear speakers. The Panasonic HT80, which I mentioned previously, uses color-coding for the speaker wires and has a different color for each of its six pairs of speaker wire. Bose customer support is reputed to be very good. They actually have separate 800 numbers for their various product lines. So, if you have trouble connecting home-entertainment gear, the customer support would be a plus for you.


Speaker Tests -- Radioguy Cranks The Cure

I tried out a Bose LS12 system with the Cure's "Staring at the Sea" singles collection. The opening track, "Killing an Arab," starts with a bass-guitar line. The LS12's performance on this was muddy and quite disappointing compared to what I'm used to playing music on at home (Boston Acoustic A60's). There was a noticeable hole as the bass reached the upper limits of the frequencies the bass-module could handle and the satellite cubes attempted to pick up the slack. On the second track, "10 .15 Saturday Night," the guitar solo at 2:15 was not well reproduced. The satellite speakers did okay with the vocals on the third track, "Boys Don't Cry," but this is the type of mid-range vocal material that any boom box can easily handle.

The upper and lower cube of each satellite speaker can twist, up to 360 degrees, so you can point the two identical drivers in different directions, allowing more of the sound to bounce of walls and objects in your listening room. I didn't bother trying this out, as I felt this additional factor would have made an objective evaluation of the speakers more difficult. This feature, found on very few other speakers, strikes me as a useless gimmick, a rather typical case of Bose features being more driven by their marketing department than their much-vaunted research department.


Conclusion

One interesting thing about the LS12 system is the rather high number of "not recommends" its gotten in Epinions reviews. Of 13 reviews of the product, six don't recommend it. This review is going to make it an even seven-for, seven-against. It's unusual for any product on Epinions to have such a high percentage of not-recommends. I hope this review has given you a general idea of why so many people feel that way about this product.

As I've pointed out here, it's not just a question of this being a decent product that's overpriced. This is a mediocre and poorly-designed product that's overpriced. It makes so much more sense for you to buy an A/V receiver and a set of speakers, or at least, if you're going to get an all-in-one unit, you should go for something more practical, like the Panasonic HT80 (which includes a DVD player, as well). As well as giving you way better performance for the money, an A/V receiver will have all the inputs and outputs you need to make the required connections in a home-theater setup.

You should never purchase any audio equipment, especially speakers, without doing a listening comparison with other, similarly-priced products (or, in the case of Bose, much lower-priced products which are just as good). If you're interested in the LS12, or any other Bose product, then by all means go to a retail outlet, or a friends house, if any of your friends own Bose. Make sure that you compare other products to the Bose, so that you get an idea of what you can get for your money. You might end up liking the Bose products. Or, you may come away fully agreeing with the old adage: "No highs, no lows, must be Bose."