How are BOSE speakers like??

Question

My uncle got a $1000 BOSE speaker system and he says that he LOVES it while my church switched from BOSE to a different brand.

Some people say that purchasing a BOSE system is like selling a Kia Rio at a BMW M3 price. I just want to know what people think.

Answer 1

Sounds like you already know what other people think.  Bose sound like a cheap system for a large amount of $$$$.  You can get a lot more for your money if you do your research.

Answer 2

Go to Magnolia HIFI and see which speakers you like best and why some cost so much. I do not think that Bose compares with Kia, but I don't like the Bose price.

The science behind the Bose system is elegant, like a choir instead of a barbershop quartet.  I wouldn't try to run a Hammond B3 through a little $1000 Bose system, though- it would have to be Leslie or Altek Voice Of The Theater, and they're, of course,  pricier. You wouldn't have those in your living room along with a few heat-throwing 100 watt MacIntoshes.  You could be cool with Bose, but to shake things and disturb the neighborhood, it takes more. Your good Uncle doesn't get the cops called on him, I bet.

Answer 3

I've posted this before, but here ya go.

As Somebody who has installed well over a hundred HT systems and I keep up to date on alot of Audio Visual forums, I can tell you that Bose is pretty much some of the WORST speakers out there. If you do a simple search on Bose in any Audio forum and you will see that Bose is disliked pretty much by every single one of them.

I suggest you check out AVSForum.com or SoundandVisionmag.com heck do a simple search on any forum and you will see how bad these speakers are.

Here is the main problem. Physics dictates that a drivers (speaker) size can achieve a certain frequency response. The human ear can hear pretty much anything between 20Hz (low bass) and 20kHz (high frequencies). Or think of it as a simple 100 points on the hearing scale.

Now because of Physics, those tiny cubes pretty much have a frequency curve of 95Hz to 13kHz (and 95Hz is being very, very generous) and their "Bass Module" which cannot be called a subwoofer, because to be called a subwoofer it has to achieve a low frequency response of at least 35hz or lower. So the Bose Bass Module has a frequency response of 47Hz-80Hz (normal crossover point). So if we crunch the numbers we see that Bose is missing 20Hz-47Hz (27 points on 100 point scale). It is also missing 80Hz-95Hz (15 more points) and is missing the upper frequency of 13kHz-20kHz (7 more points on the frequency curve. So if we add those missing points it comes out to missing 49 points on the 100 point frequency curve. You are essentially missing almost half of what you can hear.

So how come Bose cubes sound so good in stores? Aha this is a good question. What Bose does is they find music and demo movie scenes that basically hit upon every frequency that the Bose can handle. If you bring in your own music or movies, you will find that it sounds pretty bad.

You will also find those tint little Bose setups, where the speakers are hanging on branched arms and completely surround you. There is a reason for this. They are very close to you and don't have that much space they need to fill. With speakers all around you at a distance of four feet or less, the cubes don't have to fill that much space, because in a normal listening room, those cubes have to be cranked pretty loud and those tiny drivers will now introduce distortion into the mix.

Bose is all about marketing and a simple search in any audio video forum will confirm this.

Here are some great links.

AVSForum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/i...

and the most techincal data confirming the frequency response of the Bose speaker system.

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html