"**I did not say that ALL Luxman integrated amps used such a system. Just
their low end ones. I know of no amplifier that employs pre/main
connectors that does not disable the the tone controls when it is used
as a power amp only. "

Seems to be a misunderstanding here. If the tone controls are in the power amp feedback loop then they would not affect the pre out of course. Whether this is desirable or not is up in the air. By disabled when used as a power amp I assume you mean bypassed, because regular pre outs are after the tone controls.

"**If you think an Acoustimess„¢ system can EVER sound good, then you need
to get out a lot more. Bose Acoustimess„¢ are absolute crap. There is a
huge, deep and wide hole in the frequency response of the system,
centred around 200Hz, the woofer module (it cannot, EVER, be called a
subwoofer) "

No disagreement here, but this was in conjunction with another system. Together they sounded good. It was a corner situated system. The Bose sats were on top of the big speakers and the bass module was way back in the corner.

Best thing Bose made was the wave radio, they don't sound all that great but for their size the do pretty well. Convenient, the customer doesn't have to hook anything up. The sound is adequate for quite a few people.

But when you get like 901s, who the **** brainiac got the idea to use nine speakers and face eight of them away from the listener ? We strive to have clear sound, to have loudspeakers that sound almost like the best of headphones but on a larger scale. Some people like Bose but I think he was a snake oil salesman.

All this "ambiance", that is your room, you DON'T WANT THAT. You want the ambiance in the recording. Not your room.

Another good thing Bose made were my Mother's speakers. Smaller than a toaster but shake the floor. I can't even get a model number, they were some kind of special order I bought from where I worked at the time.

Other than that I don't have much use for Bose. In my buddy's system they served well as tweeters.