Home audio & video forum: Alternatives to Bose Cinemate II

What you want is 'very good sound for the money'. That's possible at your price point. ( Proper speaker placement is what gets you 80% there.)

Bose is smoke and mirrors, and does not provide anything in this universe close to 'audiophile' sound quality. ( If you want that, you should be spending a lot more on speakers alone, FWIW.)

HTIB (or entry level separates) is what you are generally limited to at that price point, unless you start wading through used gear. No rears means no real surround sound, which I would not recommend. You should probably elaborate more about what give and take you will accept in this particular situation. If you could go upwards of $1K you would have a little better choices IMO.

If you could stick with separates/spend a $100 more, I would look at the Energy Take Classic 5.1 speakers ($399), and then look around for a receiver on sale (Onkyo, Denon, etc.). If you don't require many features, you should be able to find one for $200 that would likely suffice. The Onkyo site has a refurb section too to see what's currently available. More will be in the $300+ range though.

It's a decent system