What is your opinion of Bose equipment?

[BoxCar_Willie]

Wonder if those dogging Bose actually own the product?

I have a Lifestyle 30 and Acoustimass 20 (powered add-on set) running together in the living room. 201's in the garage, 151's in the back yard, and 601's in the basement.

The two Bass modules in the living room really get it cranked up for movies. I think the problem that most have with Bose is that they are not set up for monster Bass. The sound on all my speaker sets is amazing. Completely crystal clear and with enough kick to make guests to my house go "Wow." I would certainly recommend.

I had a set of 301's back in the day and they were nice but not great. Lots of sound distoriation if turned up too loud. Decent sounding at Television watching sound levels though they lacked bass.

My next system will likely be some of Boston Accoustic's high end stuff.

 

[Dryden]

I would say that speakers are like wine. There's no need to spend the bucks for Chateau Margeaux if a) Ripple makes you happy and tastes good to you. b) you don't like the taste of fine Burgundy

An excellent analogy. Different people have different wants and needs from their stereo setup, whether its a music system, home theater, headphones, or something for your car. I would say the #1 thing is don't be bullied by the "wine snobs" -- the real audiophiles on this stuff. Get whatever sounds good to you and be happy with your purchase.

Now, my $0.02. I think Bose is grossly overpriced. They are the "top end" for mass consumer electronics when it comes to general name recognition, but that reputation in unwarranted. If you go to a real audiophile shop (not a Best Buy, Circuit City, etc ...) you will find equipment from 100 different manufacturers you've never heard of nor knew existed, with prices everywhere from half of what a Bose system would run up to stuff well into the six figure range. A lot of people will choose "Brand X" gear without being able to actually discern a difference from product to another. I've got JBLs in my car, and am very happy with those. I've got 4 old skool Fisher towers in my home, and have been abusing those since the mid-80s. They still crank.

From my experience, the best purchase I ever made wasn't an amp, brand X speakers, or a "special" type of cable ... it was a BBE Sonic Maximizer. The 362 is a good, simple entry level setup that will make a lot of speakers that would otherwise be considered "crap" sound incredible. Once I heard the difference a $100 362 made I found I saved over $1000 by not buying some overpriced name brand speakers I realized I didn't really need.

http://www.bbesound.com/products/maxim/maxim.asp

 

[Muck]

I have a Lifestyle 30 and Acoustimass 20 (powered add-on set) running together in the living room. 201's in the garage, 151's in the back yard, and 601's in the basement.

Do I own any Bose products? No (with one small exception *see below), and that's by choice. However I have heard plenty of their EQ in the homes of friends.

Taosman & Dryden are spot on.

The problem is that for the 4k you dropped on a Lifestyle 30 + AC20 you could put together a system that sounds an order of magnitude better.

Bose doesn't make the absolute worst speakers ever, they just charge far more than they're worth.

Take some of your favorite music go to a decent HiFi store and sit down and listen to it on some of the similarly priced setups available. You won't regret it.

* Anyone want to buy a Bose Wave Music System II that I got as a gift, 'cuz otherwise it's headed to eBay? lol

 

[strohs]

I have heard many a Bose speaker over the years and I wouldn't trade their sound for any other product.
I cant even begin to remember how many times someone has dogged Bose and had me listen to their equipment, and never once was there a comparison.
Bose > *

 

[Muck]

...and strohs rules.

 

[strohs]

...and strohs rules.

.


For the price

 

[Muck]

.


For the price

lol

 

[Hodge]

Klipsch are some of the better speakers out there...

I have to agree with that. My roomate has a 4.2 system from Klipsch (two 2.1 systems...). Anyway, they sound great. I was recently at a Bose store and picked up a pair of Triport headphones. I've never heard better sound (including bass), even out of my roomate's 4.2 Klipsch system. The Quiet Comfort headphones are simply amazing, but I don't have $300-350 to spend on them. The Bose stuff is rediculously expensive, but I believe they put out some of the cleanest and most accurate sound out there--and depending on who you are and your taste for music, that counts for a lot.

 

[Muck]

I was recently at a Bose store and picked up a pair of Triport headphones. I've never heard better sound (including bass), even out of my roomate's 4.2 Klipsch system.

Try a pair of Sennheiser or Grado headphones.

I believe they put out some of the cleanest and most accurate sound out there

Below is the measured frequency response of an Acoustimass-15 ($1300)...

This is the measure FR of a $200 pair of Onix X-LS bookshellf speakers:

You'd think with all that "engineering" Dr. Bose could manage to come up with something approaching a flat FR. :)

A major part of the problem is that no one knows what music is even supposed to sound like anymore. Compressed MP3s played over cheap earbuds or in a noisy car with the bass artificially boosted doesn't exactly lend itself to high fidelity. :(

 

[Hodge]

Try a pair of Sennheiser or Grado headphones.

I know, I haven't tried everything out there....who has. I've just been very happy with the Bose product that I own. That being said, I'll probably go with a different brand whenever I set up a home system since Bose is way too pricey.

Below is the measured frequency response of an Acoustimass-15 ($1300)...
This is the measure FR of a $200 pair of Onix X-LS bookshellf speakers:

It's kinda funny that they show the Onix pair responding up to 40khz (assuming that I'm reading that right). The human ear only responds up to 20khz. Plus, I don't really see all that much wrong with that chart. There's no way a sub should be putting out treble, and no way that a tweeter/midrange speaker should be pumping out bass. The difference between the two is that the Onix graph is an average of the both speakers (tweeter and driver) and the Bose graph is separated into the pieces of the system. Now, there’s now way that I’m going to argue for the $1300 vs. $200 part of this one. It’s just beating a dead horse, Bose is overpriced.

A major part of the problem is that no one knows what music is even supposed to sound like anymore. Compressed MP3s played over cheap earbuds or in a noisy car with the bass artificially boosted doesn't exactly lend itself to high fidelity. :(

I couldn't agree more with this, except that saying "compressed MP3's" is a little redundant. The fact that a file is an mp3 implies/requires that it is compressed. I'm no crazy audiophile, but I like my music to be the highest quality possible and that's not always easy to do.

 

[THEWOOD]

I have a lifestyle 30 system that I am looking to sell. It just isnt loud enough for me. I would much rather buy some component pieces and put it all together.

 

[Muck]

Plus, I don't really see all that much wrong with that chart.

The 6db bump around 3khz, the 10db swing between 10k & 20k and the gap between where the "bass" unit & cubes cross over are all nasty.

I couldn't agree more with this, except that saying "compressed MP3's" is a little redundant. The fact that a file is an mp3 implies/requires that it is compressed.

Sorry about that. Fell into the trap of just using mp3 as it's own term out of context. :)

FWIW there are decent compression methods out there that eliminate most of the tradeoffs inherent in mp3s.

LAME + EAC or some of the various lossless codecs (APE, FLAC, WMA etc) are all worthwhile.

 

[Dryden]

LAME + EAC or some of the various lossless codecs (APE, FLAC, WMA etc) are all worthwhile.

'lame --preset extreme' for VBR or 'lame --preset insane' for CBR are good enough (overkill, in fact) for WAV/CDDA to MP3 compression.

At those levels, no matter what equipment you use, you would not be able to distinguish the MP3 from the CD source in a double-blind test.

The iTunes/MusicMatch/Real-type insert-disc-and-rip programs give MP3s a bad name -- that and the "pirates" that have propogated millions of 192 kbps/JS files or worse.

 

[Taosman]

A nice set of (cans) is a great way to get started in the Hi Fi hobby!
I have 2 sets of Grados! It's hard to beat Grado SR70s for the money, $70! :tongue2:

For stereo speakers on a budget. Names like Epos, Usher, Polk, NHT, just to name a few reasonably priced speakers.

There are some nice sounding DVD players that do a fine job as CD players.
Toshiba and Oppo are the "hot" names. $70-$150.

You should visit AudioAsylum.com for some suggestions where to start.

Most people say , "Start with the speakers!" That's the voice of your stereo! :tongue2:

 

[Hodge]

The 6db bump around 3khz, the 10db swing between 10k & 20k and the gap between where the "bass" unit & cubes cross over are all nasty.

Right....sorry about that. I was thinking about that today and realized what you were talking about. I do think that those jumps are unacceptable, especially for the price. I was pretty tired as I tried to respond to that one...