7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Don't buy a Bose Lifestyle system!
Date of Review: Apr 28, 2008
The Bottom Line: Save your money!
I've owned a Lifestyle 38 (which has the same control software as the Lifestyle 28 and 48) for about 18 months, and I'm very dissatisfied with the design and performance of the highly acclaimed "uMusic" intelligent playback system. I was told by the Bose sales reps that each user in my household could select a specific "preset", which would play each person's preferred music when that preset is selected. The presets could supposedly also be used for segregating groupings of music (such as classical, jazz, dinner music, holiday, children's CDs, etc.) After I stored my 175 CDs (max capacity is about 200), I learned that THERE IS NO WAY TO TRULY SEGREGATE EACH CD OR SONG SPECIFICALLY BY PRESET CHOICE. Instead, each user of each preset needs to rate each song, or an entire CD, via a plus or minus button on the remote, in real time, while its playing. So, if you are assigning 9 presets (For example, Dad's music, Mom's music, teenager's music, infant's music, dinner music, Holiday music, classical, jazz, and swing, as in my household), and you have 175 CDs loaded, each with an average of 16 songs, you must individually rate 175 CDs x 16 songs x 9 preset categories, which equals 25,200 individual plus or minus keystrokes, in real time, which is clearly an absurd user requirement. For example, if you listen to each song for only 10 seconds before rating it, this will require 70 hours of user programming! Wouldn't it make sense to have designed in a function for segregating each CD by preset, since this seems to be a big selling point? I've confirmed several times with various Bose customer service reps that the function of segregating individual songs or entire CDs by preset simply doesn't exist. To make matters worse, the plus and minus ratings are exactly that, your preferences, but not absolute directives, which translated by the Bose engineers means, your preferences to NOT play certain songs or CDs on specific presets are often ignored and over-ridden by the internal uMusic computer, if the uMusic algorithm decides that it knows better than you do what your preferences are. (Think of a very rigid and opinionated nanny as the DJ at your next party.) To top it off, the system seems to "forget" my ratings over time, so that the system actually needs constant monitoring to ensure that the preferences are re-entered whenever a weird selection pops into a preset.
As an illustration, here's what you can expect as a result of this problem: ANY SONG MAY BE RANDOMLY INSERTED AT ANY TIME INTO ANY PRESET, REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY TIMES YOU RATE IT WITH A NEGATIVE. Imagine Christmas songs in July, Sting popping into your classics preset, Talking Heads during your dinner party, etc. This is because the uMusic algorithm picks up on about 20 different elements of thematic content, including musicians, instruments, tonal qualities, etc., but clearly doesn't understand human user preference subtleties. (From a technical standpoint, I understand this arises when, for example, you like a particular artist, who also happened to record on one of your holiday CDs, and the uMusic algorithm can't and won't distinguish a Holiday CD from any other CD.)
As a result of this design glitch, I have to carry the remote with me at all times to ensure that I can zap songs that randomly launch into my presets. The most frustrating part is that all the user programming available can't prevent this from happening, due to the particular inability of the uMusic software to physically segregate by preset channel. Obviously, this is a major headache, so much so, that I've reconnected my 5-CD player (which cost a mere $150 new) into the AUX input of the system so that I can better control my music playback. Considering the $3,000 that I spent on my Lifestyle 38 system, this is unacceptable.
By all means, confirm with a Bose salesperson what I've just described, but beware: You may be told that there's a Play-list function available which will play a specific selection of CDs in a specific sequence, but this suffices to substitute for only one preset channel, and must be re-programmed with every desired music change.
Other problems: As an electrical engineer, I thought installation would be a cinch. Just read the manual, right? Not so. At the moment, my flat screen TV is incompatible with the fancy Bose remote, despite the latest Bose software upgrade. To watch a stored cable program on my Verizon DVR, I need to use both the Bose remote and the Verizon remote, since the Bose remote has no function button to access the stored programs on my Verizon box, and the Bose operating system has commandeered the other operational functions on the Verizon box. Also, the standard Bose DVD player cannot be upgraded to play standard HD DVDs (forget about BluRay), so I had to purchase an external DVD player for HD DVD viewing.
I've finally convinced my wife that the product was misrepresented by the Bose sales staff, and that she should kill them instead of me. I'm currently in the process of seeking a software remedy from the Bose engineering department (which is highly unlikely, given that this is a legacy product at this point in time) or a full refund. Save yourself a big headache and don't buy any Bose system until these problems are fixed!!
