Custom sound comes to my house

I've owned lots of audio products over the years, and played with lots more consumer and professional equipment. I know that lots of time and effort goes into designing and using recording studio equipment, mixing the audio, pressing the CDs, and designing the consumer electronics that reproduce the sound at home.

But my house, and probably yours, wasn't designed for the best sound. I've wanted sound like at Carnegie Hall, but I didn't want to hire an acoustic design firm to customize the sound for my 11 x 15 room.

Now Bose comes along with ADAPTiQ as part of the Lifestyle 28 system. It's a headset and a software CD. The CD plays on the Lifestyle system, running a calibration routine in 15 minutes, and using the headset to listen to sounds each of the speakers make. Based on what it hears, it adjusts the sound for each speaker to undo any undesirable things my room would otherwise do to the sound.

Technobabble aside, the resulting sound ROCKS. It's smoother than anything I've heard on any system in any home. There's tons of bass, but only if it was in the music or movie. The surround is better balanced than lots of the movie theaters near my home. And the left/right/front/surround balance has been made perfect for my off-center favorite seat at the back of my room.

What I've written is not any exaggeration of my experience with this system. At the same time, there's no way I would have believed it before I put the system into my house. You'll have to see for yourself, or not.

I'm happy. I've got a home theater sound system that plays CDs & DVDs, (yes, MP3 on CD-R, too), controls my TV, VCR, and satellite receiver, and looks great.

But the best part is that if engineers broke into my house, measured and adjusted everything, and left behind a note to tell me this is the best sound I could get in my house, I'd believe them. It sounds that good.