WB South

Last week we had a client call and said he couldn’t play Pandora on his Bose Soundtouch system. After a brief conversation with our client, it was determined that the client was trying to play Pandora directly from his phone and not through the Bose Soundtouch app. Remember to play your music services on your Bose Soundtouch system, you must first open the Bose Soundtouch app and then select your music service. If you try to access your music services directly from your phone

Once again this week, we had 2 customers that were shocked and disappointed to find out their “wireless” speakers required wires. Both clients said that they were told at the time of purchase that the speakers were wireless. To protect yourself when shopping for “wireless” speakers this holiday season, ask a simple question, are the speakers battery operated? If the answer is yes, you have a truly wireless speaker. If the answer is no, then you know a wire will be connected t

This week we met with a client that had square in wall Bose speakers and wanted to update his entire system. These speakers were approximately 20 years old and were part of the original Bose Home Entertainment systems. The most important thing to know is these speakers used 1.2-ohm speaker drivers and are not compatible with any of todays 4-8 ohm receivers/amplifiers, either Bose or any other manufacturer. These speakers were Model 102FR and could have been be flush mounted i

With the holidays approaching, our clients are asking if they purchase Bose Bluetooth speakers such as Soundlink Mini or Revolver, as gifts for family members, can these Bluetooth speakers be added to their home wide Soundtouch system? The answer is no. Bose Soundtouch products are Wi-Fi based products and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are different technologies. What adds to the confusion is you can Bluetooth music to a Soundtouch device, but remember, Bluetooth speakers cannot connec

A few weeks ago, we discussed how to play connected sources or the TV audio in other music sources. The issue continues to come up so we would like to revisit how to play connected sources such as a CD player or cable box in other zones. There are 2 important things to remember. First the connected source must be playing in the zone where the device is connected. Second, the connected source will not show up as a stand-alone option in the other zones. For example, if you wou

This week we visited with a client that had an older non-SoundTouch Lifestyle system and wanted to add streaming music products in other rooms. His question was could he continue to use his older Bose Lifestyle system? The answer is a qualified yes. The older Bose system can continue to be used as a home theater surround sound system, however, you can not play the various sources that are part of your older Lifestyle system, such as the DVD player and radio, in the rooms with

Last week we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of moving your Bose system to your new home. For those that decide to move your system to your new home, here are a couple of important points. For a home theater system, be sure you have the Bose console/receiver, bass module/woofer, and the 5 speakers. For the wall-mounted speakers, be sure to remove the speaker wall brackets. Note once you remove the brackets, there will be 4 small screw holes and a wire hole that wil

We are often asked, ”Can My Bose system be removed and moved to my new home”? The answer is yes but I always suggest the Bose system be sold with the home either as a sales incentive or at an additional cost. Homes will often sell quicker if advertised with the built in Bose Home entertainment system. There are 2 good reasons to sell the system with the home. First, leaving the system avoids the resulting repair to the walls where the speakers are located. Even with surface

After last week’s post on “What is a Smart Home”, a couple of our clients inquired if their Bose system will work in a smart home environment. The answer is yes; new Bose systems, Lifestyle 600 or Lifestyle 650 systems as well as Bose SA-5 amplifiers and Soundtouch or Bose Music Soundbar and speakers will work with major Smart Home platforms such as Control 4. The Bose drivers, the collection of control codes are available to be downloaded into the Smart Home platform. This

Soundtouch owners often want to play connected devices, such as CD players or the TV sound to other zones. If you have a Bose Lifestyle 600 or 650 system or Bose SA-5 amplifiers, this can easily be done. As an example, you have a CD player connected to the Bose Lifestyle 600 console in the Great Room and want to play the CD out on the Patio. First, turn on and play the CD player in your Great Room. Next using the Bose app, add the Patio to the Great Room. You will now hav

As many of our clients have decided to upgrade their older Bose Lifestyle system, they often are surprised to discover there are no built in CD/DVD players in the new Bose Lifestyle 600 and Lifestyle 650 systems. The reason the devices are no longer built in is that video formats change much faster than audio. Remember the standard DVD or the videocassette? Rather than make your Bose system incompatible with any new forthcoming video formats or devices, the new Bose Lifestyle

During a discussion of Bose Soundtouch updates, I was asked the difference between software and firmware updates. I must admit that was a first and somewhat out of my field. So after a little research, here is what I found. Surprisingly for me, I learned Firmware is a variety of Software. Software can be stored on your hardware or in the cloud and usually refers to applications and programs such MS Office on your computer or any various phone apps. On the other hand, Firmwar

Many of our clients are taking advantage of our trade up program and are replacing their old Bose Lifestyle system with one of the newer Bose Lifestyle systems. The 1stquestion we are often asked, “ Can I use my existing brackets and wiring”. The answer is simple, it depends on what system you are trading up to. If you are trading up to the Lifestyle 600 system, we can use your existing brackets and wiring. If you are upgrading to the Bose IN wall BIV Home Theater system, b

If you are one of many new cable cutters that are now using an over the air antennae, you may have noticed that some of the channels are no longer available. Don’t panic, no need to run back to your cable company. Due to some recent FCC changes, some channels were forced to move to another frequency. The main reason for this was to increase available frequencies for the upcoming 5G services. To find your missing channels, go to your TV menu and select “re-scan channels”. RE-s

Clients often inquire if they need the most expensive HDMI cables. For the majority of people, the answer is no. Unless you have one of the new 8K TV’s, an expensive HDMI cable will not improve your picture quality. Standard 2.0 HDMI cables will transmit 4K HDR signals. If you do have a new 8K TV, a new 2.1 HDMI cable is needed. As with all audio video systems, the final result is equal to the weakest component. For example, if you have the best speakers and the best audio so

This week a client called and said 1 of his 2 outdoors speakers wasn’t working and what can he try? 99% of the time, there are 3 things that can cause this issue, bad speaker, bad amp, or bad speaker wire. Here is a couple of quick steps to try to identify the cause of the problem. First, switch speakers. If the non-working speaker still doesn’t work when switched with the working speaker, you probably have a defective speaker. If the non-working speaker starts to work when

After the cable or satellite company installs a new box, there is a very common problem, great picture but no sound from your Bose Home Theater sound system. The conversation usually goes something like this, “the cable guy said it has a great picture, must be a sound problem, call your Bose guy”. The reason this happens is that the cable company most likely connected the new cable box directly to the TV, completely by passing the Bose system. To confirm this, depending on t

This summer, many of our clients have experienced some strong thunderstorms that have knocked out their systems. If this has happened to you, here are a couple of things you can try before scheduling one of our techs to come out. First, unplug all of your devices from the electrical outlets, wait 60 seconds, and then plug each one back in. After plugging in your devices, confirm the power lights came on. If the power lights did not come back on, confirm the outlet is working

If you have recently changed your cable box and now your Bose Home Theater doesn’t sound as good as the old cable box, there is probably as quick fix. Cable boxes allow you to select the audio output format. The choices are usually mono, 2.1 stereo, and 5.1 surround sound. Be sure you cable box is set to 5.1 surround sound. To check your audio setting, using your cable remote, go to the settings menu and choose “Audio Options”. Next select “audio output”. Finally, select ”5

After last week, some clients were ready to upgrade their routers and asked what were the highest rated routers. According to a CNET article published January 2019, the top router was Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless-AC1900. This router had the highest rating in Set-up (9), Features, (9), and Performance (10). This was followed by the Asus AC2900 dual-band Wi-Fi router. This router was specifically recommended for larger homes and scored a 9 in all performance metrics. Acco