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I have a pair of Bose "Direct/Reflecting" speakers (one 8-inch woofer, one 3-inch high-sensitivity tweeter, one 2-inch high-sensitivity tweeter) connected to my stereo. Planning to get an HDTV and would like to set up a surround sound system. Planning to get a new DVD player and an amp/receiver and I was wondering if I need to get a Home Theater in a Box or if I can use the existing speakers as my front speakers. Then I'd just get a center speaker, a sub-woofer, and back/surround speakers.

Can this be done?

Thanks in advance 

3463 views and not one useful reply?  The short answer is, of course you can...but would you want to?

A key ingredient to producing a seamless illusion of surround sound is to have the entire system speak with one voice -- hence, the universal recommendation to source all of the speakers from the same manufacturer (or, if purchased from different companies, to carefully match their voicings as closely as possible), so that, even if they differ in size, sensitivity, directivity, etc., they share the same overall sound.  If grossly dissimilar speakers are used, the differing colorations will call attention to the mis-match, and break the immersive illusion.  This means that, if you retain your current speakers for the main front channels, you would want to use speakers from the same company for the center, surrounds, and sub.  Unfortunately, not to be unkind, Bose is ****.  Just about any other half-way decent speaker company's products will yield far better sound, and at far less cost.  The so-called "direct/reflective" speakers are wrong in theory, and wrong in practice, untrue to any semblance of accurate reproduction of music, movie soundtracks, or anything else.  More than wrong, they are bad, tonally, spatially, dynamically -- there is no category in which they are more than mediocre.

If you want ease of set-up, there are HTIBs which can give you good sound at low-end prices -- all you have to do is open the box and set it up.  Even better sound can be had if you do some of the work yourself -- auditioning speakers, buying a good receiver, and building your own system.  Many manufacturers sell high-quality speakers even at the low end of the price spectrum, including Tannoy, Paradigm, NHT, Infinity, PSB, AV123, M&K...the list could go on and on.  The point is, there's much better than Bose to be had, from companies that spend money on solid engineering and high-qauality components, instead of following the Bose trail: cheap products marked-up to insane levels to fund advertising to convince the public that they're getting steak, when they're really buying Hamburger Helper.