Tiny speakers get lifestyle pumping

The Bose Lifestyle 48 is an upmarket audio system costing a hefty $9000.

If you've ever been to a party in an upmarket part of town you may have already been introduced to Bose's trademark tiny speakers.

Balanced out with a powerful sub-woofer, the mini-speakers have been at the centre of Bose's flagship sound systems for years and they're more powerful than you'd think.

The Lifestyle 48 from Bose is a home theatre setup with the central audio system updated for the digital age. It's for music lovers frustrated with the degraded sound quality of MP3 songs fed from an external source such as a laptop.

It includes a hard drive capable of holding up to 340 hours of roughly CD-quality music. CDs are copied to the hard drive at the press of a button - a process that takes about five minutes a disk.

The system's music database identifies the CD and shows the artist and song title on the Lifestyle 48's digital display.

It's then a matter of adding songs to the hard drive - or playing directly from the CD drive.

The Lifestyle 48 doesn't have the flexibility of computer-based jukebox software, but a system called uMusic monitors your listening habits and assembles a track list based on what it thinks you will like. Nine pre-sets can be configured for different listeners.

The central unit is stylish and the speakers are supplied in white, grey or black. The five 11.4cm speakers produce crisp sound at high volume at the top end of the sound spectrum with the sub-woofer filling in the low frequency sound with a lush bass.

The tiny speakers will deliver true 5.1 surround-sound but their effectiveness will depend on positioning in your lounge - three speakers and sub-woofer in front and two behind.

The Lifestyle 48 includes a nifty feature dubbed ADAPTiQ which, in conjunction with a setup CD and headset, lets you position the speakers to suit the acoustics of your room.

DVD playback is as smooth as a high-end progressive-scan DVD player. The surround-sound draws you into movies and the throaty thump of the sub-woofer will invigorate the high-quality audio on many DVDs.

Inputs allow for Sky decoder, games console, projector, TV and computer to be fed through the Lifestyle 48 and Bose Link uses the main unit to pipe sound into other rooms where Bose speakers are installed. The Lifestyle 48 is an expensive setup but delivers a good mix of audio and visual quality and unobtrusive design for those at the top end of the market.

Bose Lifestyle 48

Pros: Slick design, good sound, easy operation
Cons: Expensive, involves setup and positioning speakers on wall
Price: $8999
Herald Rating: 4/5