Back in the days when we were 'rich', that is prior to the GFC, though careful with our money, if there was something we wanted, we bought it. And so it was with my Bose Home Theatre Speaker system. It cost close to $2000 when I first bought it, the Bose 'Mini' Speakers and the huge Optimus Sub Woofer which included all the power to run the mini speakers.
If you check today's prices for a similar modern day setup the price nowadays is closer to $1250!
On top of the speaker setup, you also needed a 'tuner/amplifier'. All together with an OK tuner/amp and the great set of Bose speakers, you had a pretty awesome home theatre setup.
Except we live so close to our neighbours, so close that if they sneeze next door we hear! On top of that I've now got hearing aids and 99% of the time I wear wireless headphones to hear the TV clearly enough!
So my Bose Home Theatre setup sort of just sat there gathering dust with wires everywhere (I mean everywhere!) just waiting to be used! Even a whole section of our home theatre cabinet was set aside for the tuner/amp!
It would be a Herculean task to move the cabinet on which the TV sits if ever you wanted to do so.
We had coils of Bose Speaker wires everywhere, hidden behind couches and stuffed down behind the home theatre unit. Every now and again Trish would suggest we move the TV unit or that we do something about all those wires!
It just so happened that all the major electrical retailers here recently had huge sales on and each them had loads of soundbars on special. If I was going to retire my Bose system, I would want something reasonable to take their place. But then again I wear hearing aids, we live on a tiny block of land and usually I wear wireless headphones to listen to the telly!
So I grabbed a mid range sound bar during one of those 'specials'. It took a minimal amount of time to disconnect the Bose setup and move major pieces out of the way. Then there was the tuner/amp to disconnect and put away. The longest time was spent rolling up the metres and metres of wiring and putting it all away on a shelf in the garage.
Out came the new soundbar and the huge amount of polystyrene everything was wrapped in. There was a sub-woofer as well which just needed 'powering on'. It connected to the soundbar automatically using Bluetooth! You powered it on and it automatically connected to the sound bar!, There were no wires, nothing!
Connecting the TV audio to the soundbar was a breeze, I just ran an optical cable from the TV to the soundbar.
By removing the tuner/amp I now had a whole section of TV Cabinet for my android TV boxes so they now could be stored out of the way from atop the TV cabinet.
But the big job was yet to come. I use a 'Universal Remote Control' to run all my devices. So to watch stuff off Plex on my Nvidia Shield I need to power on the TV, the new soundbar, and the Nvidia Shield. I need the TV then to go to HDMI 3 which is where the Shield is connected to the TV. Finally I need to be able to control the volume level on the soundbar.
With the universal remote control I press 1 button! The TV turns on, the Shield turns on, the soundbar turns on and the TV switched to input HDMI 3! However because I removed the tuner/amp from my setup, meant I now had to reprogram the Universal remote Control so the Sound Bar would do the stuff the tuner/amp used to do.
And as is Murphy's Law always on this sort of thing, it didn't just work straight out of the box!
With some appropriate inappropriate language and some trial and error it wasn't long until everything was working as required. And now everything in the lounge room is so much neater and tidier!
Of course the sound bar doesn't produce the sort of audio that the Bose speakers and tuner/amp did. But to my half deaf ears, it sounds pretty good to me!
All in all it was a task which needed to be done and we have ended with an acceptable home theatre setup!
Let me know if you want a 2nd hand set of Bose mini speakers, an Optimus Bose Sub Woofer, around 100 metres of Bose cables and a lower end of the range tuner/amplifier!
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