Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 I do not recommend this equipment October 31, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Unfortunately for me, I didn't do an in-depth research of this product, and was carried away by the promises of high quality and superb sound that BOSE boasts for its products.
The 321 GSX broke down only after 3 months, during which I gave it little use. I was loading a CD into the hard drive and the equipment went crazy, turning on and off on its own, non stop. I had to unplug it to make it stop. Most embarrassing, I was hosting people and they were making fun of how much I had paid for a piece of junk (compared to their lower-priced but much reliable Japanese or Korean entertainment systems).
After several (and useless) calls with technical service, they indicated that there was no fix (no way to reset it) and that I had to exchange the equipment. Doing some research, I realized that this same problem has happened to several other people, so evidently they have a serious quality control problem. Had I known this, I would have thought it twice!!!
Unfortunately for me I was unable to return it, plus I had incurred in installation costs, so I am "stuck" with it.
The worst sound quality is that you don't have, so don't be deceived by BOSE's promises of superb sound; if it breaks down, you won't hear anything. So save yourself some money, and don't make the foolish decision of buying this equipment, is really not worth it.
 burning mad at 3 am August 3, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I feel angry and duped by BOSE. today I had my second, yes second, GSX321 system installed and it worked wonders for all of 7 hours before it began to shut down after a minute or less. Would never have believed the other negative reviews posted here had this not just happened to me. I bought the first unit two months ago and it worked for all of a couple of weeks until it too just began shutting itself off.
for the second unit, today, I had the BOSE staff do the installation, so nothing would go wrong. boy was I foooled. another 400 dollars wasted.
that bose knows about this and does nothing but ship out replacement units, and they do do this fast, must confirm they know it's a lemon and are just trying to hide this from the public.
SHAME SHAME SHAME. Don't waste your hard earned $1500 on this garbage.
Mostly Junk May 6, 2007
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
We just returned our Bose 3-2-1 GSX system. When it works properly, it works great, but getting it to work properly is the key. We bought it for the features, sound and brand and returned it for it's quality.
Though the sound is great, some remark that it has negligible mid-tones. This is correct, but didn't affect our enjoyment at all. The sound is great and the simulated surround is excellent. You have to set the small speakers so the inner edges focus on the center of the listening area. The subwoofer can be anywhere, but we placed it under the TV. The late-1980's-era LCD display cannot be shut off and doesn't have a clock display.
The problems started when it couldn't read some tracks on some CDs we had. Then, when we tried to load CDs into the internal HDD, the system crashed. It kept powering on & off. Unplugging and doing a hard reset didn't work.
On the plus side for Bose, we got through to tech support almost immediately, and this is on a Sunday morning. Of course, the tech had never heard of this issue, and he said they would send a replacement main-unit. I said that I would just bring it in to our Bose store and swap it out.
Before I left, I read many reviews, including those here, and decided to return the whole thing. My recommendation is if you end up buying this, save the packing materials.
It's astounding that Bose would let a product which has issues like this out the door. I hope they can figure things out before they loose their reputation.
Pros: Excellent features, excellent sound, easy to setup.
Cons: Poor CD read, poor overall quality
Do not buy this product. August 3, 2006
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I purchased this system a little over a year ago for my husband's birthday-we have been fans of Bose for a long time, but this system is full of glitches. As the other reviewers said these systems are very picky about what dvds they will play. We started having problems about one month after the warranty expired and had to pay the flat rate of about $70.00 for the repair-only to have it do the same thing about three months later-now under new warranty we ship it back again and it is "repaired" this time for free-we have had it back for about one week and already it is refusing dvds-even a brand new just opened never before played disc. I just got off the phone with Bose and we are shipping it back and they are replacing it. At this point I am not too optimistic. We purchased a cheap ($50.00) Memorex dvd player from Target for the times the Bose is not cooperating and it plays anything and everything beautifully, albeit, without the sound quality of the Bose, but what good is sound quality if it won't play the disc?
In my opinion Bose should stick to audio.
DVD Player does not work properly May 8, 2006
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
I am a fan of Bose and their quality sound systems - or at least I was so far. The 3-2-1 GSX is a great idea and the sound is very good. But the box has so many glitches that it is extremely frustrating. The biggest problem is that DVDs tend to freeze or stop playing at the slightest imperfection. We rent DVDs from Blockbusters and almost never had a problem on our old DVD player. Really bad discs would cause some image distortion or strange effects on the screen but they would normally recover once over the bad spot and never freeze up. The Bose has a hair trigger sensitivity to the slightest imperfection on the DVD (and which rentals don't have a small scratch or dirt). The Bose will simply stop playing, display a message ("can't read DVD") and stop. All tricks trying to fast forward or somehow skip that spot fail. Imagine you are in the middle of a thriller! In all such cases we played the same DVD in our old player without any problem.
I am in the high tech business and used to systematic fault isolation. So I took one disc that froze the Bose (in that case it did not even eject the DVD and I had to recycle the power) to the store where I bought the Bose and tried it on other high end players. It worked fine in all cases and got over the trouble spot. The I played it in the top end Bose Lifestyle system. It jammed for a while (also very sensitive) but it recovered.
I had a lot of interaction with Bose support on this. They sent me a software update CD which made no noticeable difference. The dealer just says such a high quality system is very sensitive to disc defects. That's balloney, 80% of all rentals from Blockbuster freeze the system.
I have given up having Bose resolve the problem since there is an obvious flaw in the DVD reader and they don't admit to it. I am now buying another DVD player to add to the system since I am tired of the frustrations with the 3-2-1 GSX.
If you have a choice, don't buy this sytem.
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