xr7segfault Posted May 10, 2001 Share Posted May 10, 2001 I went to a Bose outlet for the first time today.. My KG3.5s never sounded so good! I listened to their lineup of stereo speakers; the demo music was Brubeck's "Take Five". My favorite out of the 201 thru 901 lineup were the 701s, but they were a far cry from my Klipsches. I thought that, even with Bose's bad reputation, the higher series might outclass or at least compete with my $200-from-uBid KG's. NOPE! The most annoying thing was that the speakers had this odd tendency to resonate with horns, the best way to describe it is the sound that you hear if you blow across the top of a jug. And the stereo imaging was terrible. There was a little bit of stuff from the right speaker, a little from the left, and a big random pile in the middle. The worst was the Acoustimass though. Piano music sounded nasty because tinny highs came through the sattelites, then as the notes went lower the sound would suddenly leap into the "bass module". For crying out loud, my $60 Yamaha sub/sat computer speakers handle that music better! If the 901's topped out at about $400 and everything else was priced proportionally, they would at least be competent. At least all that ridiculous overcharging allows for some really cool flat-panel touchscreens and other goodies in their stores. It's just a shame that so many people throw their money away like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted May 10, 2001 Share Posted May 10, 2001 quite a few of my friends have the Bose systems, much to my chagrin, I suppose that they do not like my big old horns and we have a Bose HT theater store at the mall along with a B&O home theater store ($6K for $2K sound) but they love the looks and the slim floor space Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boa12 Posted May 10, 2001 Share Posted May 10, 2001 hey colin, i believe those B&O stores sell velodyne subs. maybe just the lil ones though ------------------ Klipsch KLF 30 (front), KLF C-7, Cornwall I (rear) Velodyne HGS-18 sub woofer Monsterbass 400 sub interconnects & Monster CX-2 biwire & Z-12 cable Marantz SR-8000 receiver Sony DVP-C650D cd/dvd player Sony Trinitron 27" stereo tv Toshiba hi-fi stereo vcr Technics dual cassette deck Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 digital cable box Boa's Listenin Lounge: Klipsch RF-3 (front), RC-3, cheap little Technics (rear) Monster MCX Biwires Sony STR-DE935 a/v receiver Kenwood KR-9600 AM/FM stereo receiver Teac PD-D1200 5-disk cd changer Technics direct drive turntable Sega Genesis game player Sub: None yet rock on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bensilb Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 I had the Accostamas 6 and then 15 (Bose's best HT system). I keep buying more expensive receivers. Of course it was the reciever after all Bose is the best!!! Then I went into Tweeter and listen to some of their OK ($200) speakers...much better than the $1500 I spent. I decided to trash the crap and spend the same money on the Klipsch Reference series. I haven't been happier. no his, full range of music great crisp sound...Am I being too picky? NOT A CHANCE. FOR $1500 I should get at least good sound. Laugh at Bose, don't buy them. PS I wish there was a Bose store near me. I would love to hear their sales pitch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xr7segfault Posted May 11, 2001 Author Share Posted May 11, 2001 quote: Originally posted by bensilb: PS I wish there was a Bose store near me. I would love to hear their sales pitch! That's another thing--I didn't *get* a sales pitch! There were 3 salesmen at the Bose outlet. One was sprawled out on a couch in a demo room watching a movie, another was helping the only other person in the store, and the third was wandering aimlessly, occasionally chiming in with the second salesman's pitch. I asked the wandering salesman to let me hear the other speakers since they are locked to the 901s by default and you need a passcode to switch freely between speakers, he did that and walked away without a word. I guess since I'm only 18, they didn't consider me "good enough" to revel in the glory of Bose. The really funny thing is that the people at the local Klipsch dealer are very nice to me, and that store is full of $5000+ amps and such. By the way, has anyone here ever seen "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"? If so, what kind of stereo did the snotty neighbors have? Was it a B&O? I didn't know they still sold stereo stuff, I thought it was an 80's fad that was driven out by Bose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 B&O definately still sells stereo. A LOT of stereo. Their market is people looking for the high-tech, north-western European look who want to make a visual statement - something like this: The surprizing thing is, the products actually sound pretty good, in spite of themselves. For the sound quality you get you pay a LOT of money, most of which goes into the design and construction of very esoteric looking cabinetry. If you have friends who have a lot of money, are really into interior decorating, would like a system that sounds halfway okay, but don't want boxy - looking speakers in the room, B&O is usually a safe bet. Ray ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oosting Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 B&O only does electronics well. I listened to their latest speakers and was not impressed. High distortion, NO dynamics, little bass very low effeciency. The salesman tried to impress me by telling me that the maximum output of their speaker was 103 dB! That's 103 dB at FULL POWER! My old Radio Shack Mach II's are better! Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 I have a B&O turntable, which I bought the same time I upgraded to my first pair of Klipsch speakers (KG4) and an NAD receiver. It has performed flawlessly, and IS a work of art -- thin tonearm, tiny little stylus, flush mounted buttons, automatic speed (33 1/3, 45) selection... You have to admit that their 5-cd changer that is a tower with the CDs all lined up and exposed is VERY cool looking. It even returns the CDs to their original orientation after it plays them so they look proper when they are not spinning (text right-side-up and all that stuff). Their stuff looks great in my SOHO loft and Rive Gauch pied a terre . Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 oosting, Not to start a lengthy thread here, but that was my point. Compared to what most of the people frequenting this forum consider minimally acceptable sound, the B&O speakers will come up short. People who are NOT really into music, who want some slick looking decorative high-tech stuff that also has the ability to make halfway decent sound (maybe not as good as those Radio Shack Mach IIs, but certainly better than a Bose Wave Radio ) may find B&O right up their alley. As far as maximum output goes, to a LOT of people 103dB is HIDEOUSLY, HORRIBLY, AWFULLY UNACCEPTABLY LOUDs>. My parents, for example. They're retired, live in Tampa, and the last time they visited, I had the La Scalas on playing some DMX Lite Jazz in the background. My mom put her hands over her ears and begged me to turn down the volume as she couldn't hear herself think. Just out of curiousity, I turned the system off without moving the volume control, and checked the sound level later with my Radio Shack meter. It was between 85 and 90 dB depending upon the cut they were playing. ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Phare Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 I went into one here at the mighty mall of america for about two minutes. Just long enough for me to over here the salesman attempt to impress a potential customer with their plexiglass subwoofer moving styrofoam peanuts around. I smiled and walked away. By the way, I saw Herbie Hancock selling the acoustimass on an infomercial. How do they stuff 9 feet of transmission line in that thing is beyond me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boomer9911 Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 anyone up for bowling with cubes........Those are not speakers, a joke maybe. The only thing Bose made that was any good was the old 901's of 10 years ago and maybe still now. They must be spending all their time marketing that little clock radio set up they sell on TV. My neighbour has the Bose Lifestyle 30 system and it sounded like crap, as he jumped up and down with joy. I took him to my place and he took one look at my Khorns and almost....you get it. His friggin jaw hit the floor and total silence fell upon the room. I had to inform him my LaScalas and C7 are being waited on. I fired em up through my Marantz and he still remained silent, face hanging, but silent. Bose, now thats funny!! Khorns(93) LaScalas (sometime soon I hope) C7(same as above, Hersey's will replace as future 6.1) Adcom AC-515 Enhancer Marantz SR18EX A\V Receiver 2-Marantz MA700 mono block amps(Khorns) Marantz DV3100 DVD Marantz MV5100 S-VHS hifi Marantz CD4050 dual casette deck Marantz DR4160 3 disk carousel and single tray CDR Toshiba 50HX70 HDTV DVDO iscan line doubler (great add on) This message has been edited by boomer9911 on 05-11-2001 at 10:39 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdm56 Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 I have visited the Bose outlet store in Osage Beach, Missouri a few times. Sat through the official HT demo one hot summer afternoon. They had the little cubes hidden in what might appear to the casual observer to be three relatively large speaker enclosures mounted on the wall above the video. Of course, after the demo, the cloth covered framework "enclosure" was revealed to be emty, except for the "miracle cubes". And then the little bass modules were pointed out as the source of all all that "rich, glorious bass" The thing about their whole pitch that sticks out, to me, is that there is absolutely nothing else there to compare the "Bose Sound" to, except the tinny, mono TV output. My kids' Sony clock radio would even sound good compared to that. ------------------ JDMcCall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Blorry Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 JD- You are oh so right. These poor dumb bastards who actually think "bounced" sound is superior have: a. been hoodwinked by a salesman or a friend who was hoodwinked by a salesman, and b. never took the time (nor wanted to) audition different types of speakers and make an informed decision. It's like a magician doing sleight of hand; you're initially impressed, but if you see him do the trick often enough, you begin to realize it is just that--a trick! The sad part is that most of us force ourselves to like something we've purchased because we don't want to accept the fact that we've made a bad decision! I am as guilty of this as anyone. The poor Bose owner who has sunk $1500 into nothing more than a novelty will be hard-pressed to admit defeat, chuck the worthless garbage, and go look for something that truly suits his needs. And JD, Osage Beach? Where in the hell is there a beach in Missouri??? You about a thousand miles from the ocean, ain'tcha? This message has been edited by Mr. Blorry on 05-11-2001 at 11:29 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted May 11, 2001 Share Posted May 11, 2001 About 16 years ago I worked for a local stereo store that sold these God-awful things. The Life Style systems weren't out yet but I do remember the 301's, 501's, 601's, and 901's. At one time I actually considered getting the 601's 'cause they looked neat with the grilles off. The 501's looked and sounded like some sort of room dehumidifier. There was a young man that would take three busses from across town to my store just to hear Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" on the 901's backed up by a dbx 20/20 eq. while using a Yamaha M-80 amp. Aaahhh, the days of having all the demos going through Audio Authority switching bays. If anything needed an eq it was/is the 901's. Bass? Some. SPL? Little to none. He would ask me to turn on the signal generator just so he could feel the air moving from the ports. I thought it felt like the exhaust from my grandmother's 60' Ford Falcon (about as effeciant too). It was really hard to try to sell those things at $1,200 when they sat next to a pair of Yamaha NS-1000m's, NS-500's and Celestion 444's. 444 was an interesting piece, 4 1/2 foot tower with a 12" woofer, 12" passive radiator, 1 mid and one tweeter. Looked a lot like a KLF-30. But then again that was the first tower I'd ever heard. I don't think Klipsch even existed around here yet. I first heard about them from a friend my brothers'. He just came back from being stationed over seas and had heard them there. That was back when I wasn't even worthy to say the name "K*****". One thing I haven't heard anyone touch on was Bose's marketing stratagy. What I'm refering to is that you don't buy their product ANYWHERE at a discounted price unless it is the same price at ALL stores everywhere. Now that's arrogance! ------------------ Tom KLF-20 Mahogany Carver C-1 Rotel RB-1080 Yamaha PF-800 Turntable/ Sure V15 Type V Cartridge Carver TL-3100 CD Yamaha K-1020 Cassette-on the fence weather to mothball or not dbx 1231 EQ H.H. Scott 830z Analyzer Monster Interlink 400 mk II Monster Interlink 300 mk II Original 12ga. Monster Cable This message has been edited by tblasing on 05-12-2001 at 11:53 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted May 12, 2001 Share Posted May 12, 2001 Do not make me do it do not make defend that other horn company, the one so righteously despised by tweaking audiophiles everywhere. Of course, I am talking about Bose. Some of my friends have 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 doesnt 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 audiophiles 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 plain vanilla ice cream by 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 a 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 $2500 Morgan workhorses; not $20,000 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdm56 Posted May 13, 2001 Share Posted May 13, 2001 Bose has made a mint selling sound reproducing equipment to people who a)don't care about sound; and b)don't care about the equipment. They sell sound appliances. Face it, almost everyone want's some kind of a stereo in their home. But, "almost everyone" is NOT a music lover, much less an audiophile. So, the smaller and simpler the appliance is, the better joe and jane average consumer will like it. And for some reason, (Paul Harvey, listen up!) Bose has been able to convince the American public that their products sound great! I think it's like Mr Blorry said; We all have a hard time admitting we made a bad choice. So, people choose Bose for all the non-musical reasons, and because they've HEARD of them. And then, it's like a co-worker of mines experience. His wife buy's him some lifestyle cubes and a bass box. He hooks it up, fires it up, and says "yeah, these sound pretty darn good". To which I'd say, "Compared to what?" Which is the point. Comparison shopping for audio gear is just a pain when you DON'T REALLY CARE ANYWAY! In fact, that should be Bose' new motto: Bose - for people who just don't give a s--t about sound. Oh yeah, Mr. Blorry; Osage Beach is on beautiful Lake of the Ozarks. WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' OCEAN! ------------------ JDMcCall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted May 13, 2001 Share Posted May 13, 2001 Like Bose, they too deliver plain vanilla ice cream by the bucket for the price of premium Haagen-Dazs. Wow, such a turn of phrase. Nicely done. TM mark too. How do you do that? With the Alt Key ? No, I'm not being sarcastic. It is interesting to read a passionate statement well crafted. I'm in agreement with some of the above, but coming from a different angle. It seems to me that Bach and Beethoven were as much bass fanatics are we are. JSB's organ pieces and LvB's symphonies certainly show it. Unfortunately, most consumers have not hear such works "live". It is understandable that consumers will accept a stylish small system to listen to music just like they've always heard it. And think this is good. About once a year I visit the CSO to hear a big work at Orchestra Hall. Like PWK says, calibrate your ears. Never does the experience bring to mind small speakers, like a Bose cube. Even with a sub. Always a K-Horn. Styling aside. If someone wants ALL of JSB or LvB in their living room, the reproducer is going to have to be of a large size. The average consumer might not like that, but tough. Some blue nose might have said to JSB that they like the music, but couldn't you make the organ smaller. Nope, can't be done. Regards, Gil This message has been edited by William F. Gil McDermott on 05-13-2001 at 10:10 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Blorry Posted May 15, 2001 Share Posted May 15, 2001 Gil- Yup, you're right. Just hit ALT +0153 and you get the trademark sign! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avaddict Posted May 15, 2001 Share Posted May 15, 2001 I had a Bose LS30 System for about ONE DAY! Watched one movie, listened to one cd! I could not get back to the Bose outlet fast enough to get my money back!!! BOSE BLOWS!!! ------------------ Sony 333ES Receiver Sony 36" Wega Sony DVP-C650D cd/dvd Klipsch RP-5s Front Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch KSB1.1 Rears Boston 10" sub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cirqueoc Posted May 15, 2001 Share Posted May 15, 2001 Looking for a good time? Or should I say Laugh? Go to a local Fry's Electronics. They are in California everywhere south of San Jose. Bose has spent some big money to install "Bose Theaters" in every Fry's. Customers of the store (Fry's sells everything from Baby Strollers and Pepsi to HDTV) are rounded up and sat down in a nice 40-seat theater and shown a slideshow/musical demo of the Acoustimas (sp?) system. It's a very controlled environment and they have spent some serious time trying to make the tiny speakers sound big. The speakers are given what I would call a very unchallenging music and voice; most of the dynamic range is squarely in the middle. If anyone is interested, I will give a detailed account of the "Bose" experiences and my questions to the salesman. Just place a reply here and I'll go to it. Take care, Illya ------------------ -------------------------------- Klipsch KSF-8.5 Towers Klipsch SC-5 Center Klipsch S-5 Surronds Klipsch KSW-12 Subwoofer Sony V series 27" Sony DB-930 Receiver Panasonic C220 5 DVD changer Toshiba 6 head VCR SL-9000 Universal Remote Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.