General – Dan Passaro

Bose CineMate 15 review

The Bose improves with a lower price …

Summary …. by price:

$599 (full retail): 5/10

$299 (factory refurb): 8/10

Yes, you read that correctly. The product improved with a lower price. 😀

Details:

The refurb was purchased at the Bose store during Black Friday 2015. At $599 you keep walking. But at $299 it was worth taking an auditory sample.

The sound is great. It’s not surround sound, nor are there connections to add surround speakers, but the center speaker does impressive work with voice, soundtrack and music in the typical living room.

The highs are crisp and the mids are clean with good separation between the two. Another soundbar/subwoofer combo I had was muddled. It was also only $99 on Black Friday ($149 retail). A soundbar/subwoofer combo worth spending any money will be, in my estimation, $250+. Otherwise just save your $250 and use the TV speakers. I’m serious.

The subwoofer pounds nicely and the system has an abundance of useful power, ie: no distortion in scenes such as the ones in Edge of Tomorrow. A rotary dial on the back of the subwoofer for adjusting bass level is the ONLY adjustment available in the system.

Who is this package for? The person looking for a clean, compact design for a small space.

The unit comes with four rubber feet with adhesive that you press on to the four legs. These rubber feet isolate the sub from the floor. They also prevent the sub from sliding … and they work extremely well!.
The ‘strap’ on top is Gorilla duct tape that I added. It’s the easiest way to pick the thing up!

The system has three controls:
Power
Volume
Bass setting

That’s it. No Bluetooth, no different equalization options and the subwoofer is wired.

The package does come with an optical cable and multi-function Bose remote. I don’t know how well that works as I use a Harmony One remote I purchased several years ago. The One does operate the Bose just fine. After all, it’s just a volume control lol.

It’s an easy hookup. You have three inputs on the back of the small center speaker: RCA, digital coax and optical.
You can use the coax OR the digital, i.e. not both, with the RCA (say, for a CD player).

I run the optical only.

The system is intended for home theater use (vs use as a pure stereo system).

The most streamlined connection would be for all your inputs; set-top box, media box (like Apple TV), Blu-ray player, etc to connect to your TV.

Then run the optical audio output from the TV to the CineMate 15.

As you can imagine the Bose CineMate 15 is intended for use with later model gear. Most everything five years old or newer, that connects with HDMI, should be fine.

The connection process is: TV cable to center speaker, then the permanently attached, thick double cable from the center speaker down to where it separates into two connections that plug into the subwoofer. The subwoofer plugs into wall power.

Here it as part of a 46″ flatscreen setup:

Essentials for your laptop bag

I have three basic groups I carry in my laptop bag; aka My Writing Kit:

1. Computer Group.
The laptop, THIS ONE, and the wall charger. I do plan on adding a spare battery.

2. File Group.
Literally files and perhaps a notebook.

3. Goodies Group.
This is the group we’ll focus on here.

So what does the well stocked laptop bag hold within it’s Goodies Group?
The Comfort Kit.
The Charger Kit.
The Food and Drink Kit.

In the Comfort Kit we have:
* Flents ear plugs, purple. 33db noise reduction on these babies.
* One of those thin fleece caps, for those really cold coffee shops lol. A regular baseball cap should hold in enough heat.
* Nose drops, Afrin regular. Much better than desiccating yourself with allergy pills or the like.
* Pack of tissues.
* Headphones. I just have the latest Apple earbuds and figured out how to (re)pack them in that case they come in.
* First Aid kit. Just a little pocket one which has Ibuprofen and a band-aid. Basically one of THESE, plus one or two Alka-Seltzer Plus in Citrus. I think the Cold and Cough version. I just use it in case of over-eating lol.
* A new blush brush. Yep, you read that right. I use it to clean off the keyboard and the screen.
* A Swiss Army Knife, like the Classic, is useful. Jut remember it’s there when flying. I have a SAK Bantam on my keychain.

The Charger Kit:
* Laptop charger
* Portable battery pack with USB out, at least 1 amp. I still have an Eneloop KBC-L2 pack rated at 5,000mAH. It’s roughly the size of a deck of cards.
* USB cable for iPhone
* Wall charger for iPhone. Naturally it will charge through any USB cable.

The Food and Drink Kit:
Just one or two 16oz water bottle and one or two food bars or Snickers. I also sometimes use a 16oz Pilot’s Flask since they are flat-ish and easier to pack.

It all fits into a Targus laptop bag most similar to THIS ONE. This is the only bag I have right now that accommodates this laptop (the Dell is a full 15 inches wide) and as you can see the interior pockets are empty. I don’t want anything to scratch up the laptop or crack the lid.

Not the perfect bag which is why I’m looking at the Netpack Comp Brief I and the Solo Urban 17 😀

Front flap stuff (and things) in the laptop bag

The Blue Vase University

Ah, the Blue Vase University.

Are you a graduate?

What does it mean to graduate from the University?

It is a real thing, though not a real place. It is tangible and brings peace. And just to be clear it is not related to some insurance thing.

Then what is it?

To tell you would be to rob you, to deny you the …….. well, let’s just say that the graduate of the Blue Vase University fully understands why someone would be circumspect to explain, much less to explain it in full detail.

“So, if I’m not a graduate how do I get to be one?”

If some of you readers know the answer, don’t go posting it in the comments 😉

For those who are still asking the question just look in the mirror and tell yourself ‘It Shall Be Done.’

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