Customer Reviews

Bose 3·2·1 Series III DVD Home Entertainment System

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Expensive home theater system that did not last long as the right speaker went out within three years of purchase. Bose will repair the speaker after the one year warranty expired for a minimum $150.00 plus shipping costs. Bose charges a premium for their products based on reputation however the higher costs for their products do not justify the lack of prodcut performance after a few years. Don't waste your money on a product that does not last.

Peace,

I bought this system when it first came out directly from Bose and it cost $1000+s&h. Less than 3yrs the speakers blew, and kept shorting out intermittenly over time before they finally went. A family member had the same system with the same problems. I inquired with others who had the same system and guess what? Yes, they had the same damn problems, so I called Bose. I was told it would cost a minimum of $200 to fix and that was only if the problem was actually a short or blow speakers, and I'd in addition be charged for s&h both ways!!!!! I shared with them all the other people who were having the same problems and asked was there a recall and they said no! For $1000+s&h WTF!!!!! I would not buy from them again. Too bad thier customer service doesn't compare to the quality of their system when it's working!!!!

My 10 yr old RCA 5 disc Surround Sound system (then priced $249) wins any side by side comparrison...when the darn disc player plays... So as a replacement I chose the Bose 321 home theater system expecting at least as good sound and video plus the "Simplicity and Compatibility" as advertised. Maybe I should have not expected as much as I did given (for Bose this unit is very low cost) but the last thing I expected was that Bose had gone "Discount Department store" in quality. But this is what you are getting.
If you do not know what I am talking about here it is:
Samsung, Panasonic, LG, JVC (the typical high-end retail store brands) all have an alternative line of merchandise they market thru the Bi-Mart and Costco discount stores at a substancial savings. These models are typically not even the manufactures own design! Indeed they will occasionally tell you so right below the manufacture's service tag, or on the 1st page of the set-up instructions. They look great and some will even play for a while... but not always and never with any real quality.
This system is Bose's discount line and no better. My Bose clock radio has bigger and better acussitic qualities, and I have never seen a less reliable disc player in any format! I expected HDMI on both input and output but didn't get it... so forget augmenting your online video playback with Bose sound. NO S-Video connection, so not enough input connections to keep both my Cable and VCR connected at once.
Bottom line it is not traditional Bose quality and I still do not have a complete home theater system.
Save youself money ... look to LG & Westinghouse for high quality; or Toshiba & JVC for best for the buck.
LOL... I'm going with JVC 1080 VCR, and I already swapped out my Bose 321 for a 1000 watt LG Blu Ray theater system Grins, and a curtain to hide the cables... alas we can't have it all after-all.

This product is like Rolls Royce selling a $200,000 car that won't start.

The DVD player DOES NOT WORK. If you want to watch DVDs you WILL need to buy another DVD player.

I'd say that I have a problem with about 90% of DVDs, whether they're new or old, movies or TV shows or whatever. Quite often they won't play. More commonly they'll play for a while and then randomly lock up. There's a whole eject/ turn off/ turn on/ install disc/ find where you were up to procedure you can go through that might get it going again (or you'll get a FORMAT UNSUPPORTED message) but it will only lock up again 5 minutes later.

This would be bad in a $30 walmart player, but this thing cost a packet and is supposed to be a premium brand. If Bose cared at all about quality or customer satisfaction they'd recall the lot of these since almost all of them seem to have the same problem. I actually don't see how they can get away with just ignoring this.

As for the sound quality, my friend bought a $400 system that looks and sounds just as good and plays Blu Ray DVDs as well.

There are far better systems out there and you could buy two of them for the price of one of these.

DO NOT BUY ONE

Purchased this system when it first came out. Nothing but problems. Doesn,t play DVD,s at all anymore. The BOSE answer. Upgrade to a newer more expensive system or pay $$$ to ship and fix. I will be looking for a better company to buy from. It is sad. Bose use to stand behind what they sold. Not anymore.

A Colossal Waste of Money!!
Let's make this short and sweet. Having been talked into it's space saving features, and it sounding fine in-store we purchased this because we wanted something small for a small apartment. We paid a hefty price because of the promised quality of sound and brand. It was a fairly new product at the time and not may user reviews.

The thing just plain stopped working correctly almost immediately. It would "lock up" playing DVDs, and the ONLY recourse was to unplug the thing, and replug it in, wait for it to restart itself from scratch and then try watching your DVD all over and find where you left off. It did this with MANY DVDs and bringing it back to Bose for cleaning or repair was WAY too much $$$. We hadn't owned it that long that it would ever have needed cleaning yet, and a dirty DVD or reading head would not cause the entire system to freeze that no buttons worked on either the unit or the remote, hence the unplugging trick as the only option. It is a piece of crap. We replaced it within two years of frustration.

great sound but the dvd player showed "bad disk" over 90% after the warranty ran out in a year. Will buy just the sound systems in future.

Even though I didn't expect much since I purchased the basic "3-2-1" as they call it. I was impressed by how quick the unit stopped working. After about 8 months of use, it stopped reading dvd's, I had it fixed. 2 or 3 months later, the remote started malfunctioning.
It may be worth a try if you're looking for a basic, clean-looking surround system with decent sound, but I would never go back to it.
Hope this helps,
A3

Just bought this system. For the money I paid, it sounds great.
Played Count Basie, and the horns to the bass sounded superb.
Then my wife and I played Sinatra. And let me tell you, we cranked it up and Frank never sounded so good.
I know that there are better quality and higher end systems. But for the money $799.00, it's well worth it.

I have had this unit for over 10 years from when they first came out with it. The sound quality is great 5 stars. The convenience of having one device instead of a rack system is great. I certainly got my money worth. I want to buy a newer one and hope they come out with a blu ray version soon. The one I have now wont play DVD's that I create from my computer. That is my only gripe with it.