Someone that I know (who I’ll leave anonymous so the world isn’t jealous of them) recently was in the market to purchase a home theatre setup. Their previous system was a full Bose surround system package that they managed to get a great deal on in the late 90s. Although a quick google search will find you pretty heavy debates over Bose, I had heard his system in full use before and I was thoroughly impressed with the abilities of it whether it was movies or music. Considering the size of the speakers in his old system I hadn’t heard anything else that sounded as good as that. As you can imagine he was put in quite the predicament when the old Bose system stopped working.

After several months of debate and checking out different sound systems, this person that I know decided that they did needed size to be a priority for their current living arrangement so they were looking at either a 2.1 setup or a soundbar system. While they decided a soundbar was idea size, he couldn’t find anything that sounded good when your compared it to the prior system he had… until he met the Bose CineMate 1 SR Home Theater Speaker System. Purchase day came and I decided to tag along for the ride to hear the systems he was considering. For him the decision came between the Bose CineMate Series II, Bose CineMate GS Series II and the Bose CineMate 1SR sound bar. We went out and listened to all three and although the CineMate/GS packages did a good job of producing sound, they didn’t do a very good job of immersing the audience in the sound – they sounded like 2.1. I was skeptical at first about the soundbar as I had previously considered them and while there was some good value for the price, I had always thought soundbars were choice between great sound and great virtual surround sound. When I listened to Bose soundbar I found that this clearly was was not the case. As I listened I found that whether it was action or music I felt as if the sound was all around me – it was a very impressive demonstration.

As it wasn’t my money to be spent I didn’t recommend either way as the soundbar was quite a bit more money; however, in the end they ended up deciding on the 1SR sound bar. After a relatively simple install we got the sound bar configured which is done through an easy calibration device. The device resembles headphones and through a series of 5 calibrations the soundbar is configured quite painlessly. After calibration we ran a couple tests and I have to say that the sound coming from the soundbar is crisp and clear and the virtual surround sounds even better in a living room environment than it did in the open store. I’m not sure what technology Bose uses to do this; however, without a doubt as I listened to it I found that I really felt like sound was all around me. Although I haven’t compared sound bars of this price range I will say that if you’ve decided on soundbar purchase and you are thinking about buying the Bose CieMate 1 SR I can tell you that from my experience with it I think you’ll be quite happy.