Reviews for Bose® Companion® 5 Multimedia Speaker System

I've had these on my iMac for over 5 years and they are a durable product that does sound good with loud games and movies when audio accuracy doesn't play a part in listening enjoyment. However, when I'm playing music files in uncompressed files like Flac Aiff, or Wav format then these speakers show their true nature which is they are incapable of reproducing accurate tonal quality whatsoever. In fact they sound the same whether you listen to highly compressed mp3 or uncompressed music files and their bass is has an artificial sound quality. When playing music featuring an upright acoustic bass guitar it sounds like an electric bass guitar from a Casio keyboard. I find almost all Bose speakers terrible at accurate reproduction of musical notes. Only recommended if you listen to electronic hip-hop or mp3.

20 of 23 people found this useful

Purcahsed the Bose Companion 5 system to go with my Late 2009 iMac. Easy setup with decent instructions for the novice. Sonic reproduction for games and moives (for simulated surround)is good. Although the astute listener won't be fooled into thinking that there are speakers behind him or her.

When listening to music the system fails by adding coloration to a two-channel source. Vocals have too much reverb and sometimes sound hollow with an echo effect. Music listeninig in general is mediocre. Highs and mid-range tend to mell and sound shallow. Bass is booming and lacks punch and tightness. Would easily recommend this system to someome looking for a good gaming speaker setup or watching movies with 5.1 encoding on their computer.

A better choice for music listening are the BX5D2's by M-Audio. They are somewhat bulky at 7 x 7.5 x 10 (W x D x H). However they do an excellent job when playing music and produce a studio quality flat response. They also perform quite well with games and moives but not as well as the Bose Companion 5's. However, they don't do anything poorly enough to make me look elsewhere. Did I mention they cost $100 less than the Bose Companion 5 system

10 of 11 people found this useful

I had bought these from best buy thinking they would be killer and they were just alright. The bass wasn't boomy or deep at all and HAD ITS OWN LIMITED VOLUME REGARDLESS of the actual speaker volume.. I would turn up the speakers loud and the speakers would get very loud but the bass would be "capped" not compensating for how loud the 2 speakers were. I returned them and got the logtitech z-5500 speakers and they are awesome even though they lack tweeters. I would definitely go with Logitech or Klipsch speakers

10 of 17 people found this useful

I've had the Companion 5 system for about a year, connected to a G5 iMac running both Tiger and, for the past month, Leopard.

Often the sound from these speakers simply stops. The only way to get it back is to re-boot the computer.

If you study the Apple Support Discussion Forums you'll see that I am not the only Companion 5 owner who has this problem. You'll also see that, to date, neither Bose nor Apple can offer an explanation or a solution.

So, bottom line, the Bose Companion 5 system looks very nice and, when it works, sounds OK (not amazing). But it is NOT dependable. Unless/until Bose acknowledges and fixes the problem, my recommendation is to look elsewhere.

85 of 104 people found this useful

high price....you can get better sound with this price...
I'm buy for $490...makes me dissapointed... Only good in playing movie, nothing else...
price.........1 stars
performance...4 stars
sounds........3 stars

33 of 64 people found this useful