Going into the dark side.....please help


Lots of change in life and thinking about completely blow out my seperates and switch to Bose 321.

I have a 3 weeks old baby girl and have to start to plan baby proof my living room area. I have a complete full setup in my basement theater with Maggie1.6, Meridian 561 and Proceed amp and HSU VTF 3. I will keep those and use them to get my fix of hifi or mid-fi actually.

T current living room is mainly for casual TV/DVD viewing and mostly background music. I have Acurus ACT3, Green Mountain Europa, HSU VTF-2 and Classe 150 there. Nothing fancy but decent sounding. Wife complains about the look, difficulty to operate and many wires around when baby gets a bit older.

So it seems the only way out for me is to get rid of them and get an Bose 321 or somehting like that, 2.1 not 5.1, fairly modern looking, stremlined, and easy to operat, ie build in DVD. I know I have to take a big set back in terms of sound quality. But I want to ask for some help here to see if there is any alternative to the Bo$e. I normally would have researched myself but with a new born, bewteen work and diaper change and feeding, that's a complete luxury I can't afford.

I have read someone mentioned Denon S301 (discountiued) is decent and I saw Kef KIT-100 the other day in the sotre which probably is better than the Bose. The system maily be used for background music, classical/Jazz probably 90% of time and 10% for DVD view. Anyone want to chip in. Thanks for reading my long post. Regards.

rich
ddl24

Showing 3 responses by calbrs03

Congratulations. Nothing in life is better than children. However, their presence doesn't mean you have to lose your things. Just use common sense about what you get and how you display it. FWIW, here are a few general points.

1. No tubes. (My son is three, and I've used solid state since he was born.)
2. Forget turn tables. Ain't gonna happen.
3. Buy integrated amps. Buy them used. Integrateds are smaller, with fewer wires and knobs, and they sound damn good. Put it out of reach. Nothing sits lower than two feet.
4. Get longer speaker cables. Long enough so they can't be pulled. Better yet, hide them inside PVC pipe.
5. Use floorstander speakers or monitors with stands that are lead/sand filled, with extra weight on the feet. Keep the grills on. Use electrical tape on the binding posts.
6. Tell your girl "not to touch". It works.

I've used this system with great success. Have fun--you'll never be the same. And good luck. You've got about 10 months before things get crazy.
Butsy:

I'd suggest grandchildren are!

That's asking a lot of a three year old :)