About Bose Jewel Cubes

[Colin]

From previous posts:

Bose

Do not make me do it – do not make me defend that other horn
company, the one so righteously despised by tweaking audiophiles everywhere.

Of course, I am talking about Bose. Most of my friends have,
and love, the little white Bose systems; they love the small size and think the
sound is great. They like the tiny cubes with their curved little horns inside.
They like to buy a stereo where amplification, control and speakers unify into
one sharp looking system. (One decision, not many. Classic retailing strategy.)
Creating the most tangible holographic sonic illusion of the singer and her
band, and removing any hint of the sound system that created the illusion, is
certainly not their goal.

They think that my big old speakers are loud and that I am crazy
to keep fiddling around with this massive system. They do not care about the
lowest octaves on the piano scale or the metallic ring of the cymbals. They
usually say things like “it is too loud” and “it still doesn’t sound real.”
(Ouch!)

I once convinced a friend to switch back to his older and
larger Advents instead of his smaller and newer Bose 301s. While he does like
the sound better, he still has them stuffed away in his home entertainment
center at the back of the room and they do not point towards a focal point.

The Bose systems are easy to hide and fit into any décor,
they cover most of the musical scale, but they offend the tweaking audiophile’s
sensibilities and thin out the pocketbook. The B&O equipment has always
looked futuristic and minimalist – very 50s retro and sharp. The B&O sound,
while not great, has always been good. (“Put those slender polished aluminum
speakers teetering on metal cones in the second guest bedroom, Jeeves; they
will love the looks and I never spend much time in there anyway”) Like Bose,
they too deliver the favor of plain vanilla ice cream in the bucket for the
price of premium Haagen-Dazs™.

And such will always be the case. Consider a sleek little
Porsche Boxer versus a mint cherry condition, tricked out Honda CRX. Both give
quick and thrilling ride – only one looks better and costs almost eight times
as much.

Klipsch on the other hand, has never won any beauty
contests. My big old horns are $500 Morgan workhorses; not $2500 Arabian show
horses. As much as I love the curvaceous cherry finish of the solid-as-marble
B&W 802s, for example, the sound quality should come first. With Klipsch
speakers, the sound does come first and the looks … well, the looks come
second. It is like the famous nature photographer who only worked in black and
white, Ansel Adams. He said he would work with color when he got the pictures
right. He shot black and white for decades and never did any famous color work.
I suppose that someday Klipsch will make great looking speakers when they get
the sound right. After all, it has only been four decades.

My point is that there is a market for the Bose type of
systems. A very good market indeed. Witness the recent purchase of a good
amplifier company by the old speaker manufacturer renown for their large
speakers. Small powered home theater units are, no doubt, on the horizon.

Bose Jewel cubes

No, Bose don't suck, but to use Marx's words, they merely
take that which is sacred and make it profane …

The single most important thing to remember about the best
selling folded horn-loaded loudspeakers on the market today is that they are
cute little boxes. The large size of their bi-directional sound is a vivid
contrast to their diminutive size. They make great sound for their size - this
is from someone firmly in the "bigger is better" camp when it comes
to music and speakers.

In fact, the living room response of a small black pair
recently revealed that the small cubes with the round backs do indeed capture a
good portion of the audio spectrum. The truth of the sharp looking cubes is not
how badly they perform; but how much of the music they capture. They measure
surprisingly well, which says as much about their engineering as it does about
the validity and weight of frequency response measurements.

Either the small Bose jewel cube speakers do a very good job
of capturing a wide swath of the musical range or the importance of such
measurements is historically over-inflated. My woefully inadequate measurements
show something like 315 to 8 kHz within about 4 dB. With each cube pointed
off-axis from my sweet spot, by about 45 degrees, there also seems to be little
or no measurable reflections from the side-walls. Pretty impressive for
speakers than fit in the palm of your hand.

The stack of two cubes per side does need a generous twist
of the amplifier dial to start sounding good and they should never be seen in
public without a sub-woofer, but the little cubes are a marvel of engineering.
More like a tightly wound Honda VTEC engine than a heavy Chevy big-block. The
differences are actually quite subtle.

Although the volume of the Cornwall
boxes is hundreds of times larger than Bose's boxes, the big old horns reveal
the delicate nuances of music which make them eminently more listenable and
enjoyable. They play with authority and verve, making music joyous and
addicting.

Compared to my big old horns, the pianos on the Jewel cubes
have no ring, the cymbals are distinct, but without dramatic sizzle, they have
no mellow ring or crisp swish. The Bose boxes have less tonal definition,
details are buried and attack on notes is slower. Saxophones have no
"blat", bite or edginess. While their bass is less solid with little
punch, in some respects, especially on typical recordings of popular music, the
little boxes are easier on the ears than the audiophile ones. No wonder so many
of my friends have the Bose systems: they get most of the music without the
ugly row of speakers, cabinet and electronics which forms an expensive wall in
my living room.

If I was not a tweaking audiophile, these charming, barely
there, speakers are certainly ones that I would consider. The Wife Acceptance
Factor is the top of the list. The music sounds good, but it will not suck you
in to further stereo improvements and large collections of discs. Buy these
jewels and then find another hobby.

Posted: Sunday, February 03, 2002

http://www.geocities.com/trustnoho/bose.htm

Apples and oranges. Not only are you comparing the sound of
cones to horns, but you are also comparing a direct device to one that reflects
sound off the corners of the room. Bose has always does a technologically good
job of reproducing most of the music spectrum with a small enclosure. Their
Jewel cubes capture something like 315 to 8 kHz within about 4 dB in my living
room. Because of their size, they are very popular with boaters. I first heard
the Bose 901 from outside a bedroom window. After introducing myself to my
neighbor, the friend that I made remains the best one I've had for over 25
years. He was listening to classical music and continues to prefer it to this
day. The 901s cast a huge soundstage in his little room, but I can not say they
were any better than the smooth sounding Advent cones that his sister had next
door. Back then, I knew nothing of texture, tone or imaging.

Try to compare them with CDs that have separate tracks for
single instruments. Drums, cymbals, chimes, piano, horns, bass guitar and vocal
solos would be perfect. High quality or Test CDs, like the ones from Chesky or
DMP, which have separate tracks or brief solos of individual instruments are
especially good. Make sure to include an especially wonderful vocal track too.
The Diana Krall sessions, with her lips so close to the mike, a thumping double
string bass and a tinkling piano are excellent for this experiment.

Close your eyes and listen to the cymbals; do they sizzle
when stroked? Do they crash when whacked? Listen to the drums. Do they snap
when hit, do they thump when kicked? Does the bass sound low and full, does it
sound warm? Do the horns blare and blat like real horns? Or the piano – can you
hear the keys clack or strike the strings? Does it ring or resonant? Finally,
play the vocal track. How does her voice sound - is it delicious?

[Groomlakearea51]

"The Wife Acceptance Factor is the top of the list"

That was a monumental obstacle until I brought home her LaScalas way back some years ago. That pretty much allowed me to go nuts.....

[Invidiosulus]

My wife prefers speakers that sound good.

She has given the go ahead on MWM's or Jub's.

[dtel]

My wife prefers speakers that sound good.

She has given the go ahead on MWM's or Jub's.

You picked a good one, wife that is ! [Y]

[DTLongo]

There is a current long "Bose vs. Klipsch" string over on the Updates and Modifications forum that folks interested in this topic may want to take a look at.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

As much as I love the curvaceous cherry finish of the solid-as-marble B&W 802s, for example, the sound quality should come first.

Colin, you've been sniffing too much glue again.

As much as you may want to deny it, those B&W cabinets are engineered to the N'th degree for sound. Read one of their white papers.

You may now go back to your fantasy land.

[edwinr]

There certainly is a market for Bose style sound systems. Those little cubes can fit anywhere. I've heard several Bose Lifestyle 5.1 and 7.1 systems in full flight watching movies. When properly setup and equalised for the room, they can sound quite impressive. You can't push them too hard though - even the top shelf Lifestyle system runs out of steam on big movies. Okay, when compared with a better Klipsch system, it's like chalk and cheese for accuracy and general tonal quality. But look at the size of the little satellites!

The big gripe I have with Bose is their pricing strategy. Many of their systems are WAY over priced. Particulary for the build quality offered. In fact I'd go as far to say if Bose dropped their prices by 30%, they'd still be too expensive for what you'd get. I guess Bose has a market niche that they are happy to exploit...

[stormin]

As much as I love the curvaceous cherry finish of the solid-as-marble B&W 802s, for example, the sound quality should come first.

Colin, you've been sniffing too much glue again.

As much as you may want to deny it, those B&W cabinets are engineered to the N'th degree for sound. Read one of their white papers.

You may now go back to your fantasy land.

LMAO

[Tom_E]

Imagine this...Here in Norway, all Bose products cost 50 % more than over in the US.

It's insane!

[skonopa]

The big gripe I have with Bose is their pricing strategy. Many of their systems are WAY over priced. Particulary for the build quality offered. In fact I'd go as far to say if Bose dropped their prices by 30%, they'd still be too expensive for what you'd get. I guess Bose has a market niche that they are happy to exploit...

Exactly. That is my biggest gripe with Bose as well. I've listened to many a Bose setup, and thought they actually sounded decent. But that is the thing, for that kind of money they are asking, I'd expect more than just "decent". Yes, they are small and make for some pretty sleek setups, but still. For like a third of the cost of one of the better LifeStyle setups, I could get a complete set of Klipsch Quintets, a decent sub, a decent receiver, and a decent upcoverting DVD player, that still would blow away any of the Bose setups that I've heard. Not only that, one of those Quintest speakers is really not that much larger than one of those Bose dual-cube "jewel" array. If not Klipsch Quintets, I've also heard a setup consiting of a set of those Mirage "Omni-Sats" (or "Nano-Sats", or whatever they are calling them these days) that I also felt was much better than a Bose setup, again at nearly a third of the price and darn near the same size as well.

Yes, Bose does have thier niche, but (and admittedly, I am most likely preaching to the choir here), with just a little bit of research (and looking past all the slick TV commercials/magazine ads, and other marketing) and shopping around, one could easily find a comparable, if not superior, setup for less price and still result in a sleek looking setup. To bad the retailers don't help in this regard either, after all, look at the real slick looking Bose kiosks and thier carefully picked selections for showing off thier systems. Compare that to the other makes/brands just piled up on a shelf and no way to test it unless you could get a decent signal on the FM tuner (assuming the set is even plugged in and hooked up), or happen to have a CD to listen to. If you were really lucky, it may even have an iPod dock that you could plug an iPod/iPhone in (if you so happen to be carrying one).