The last time I have heard Blows 901s at a store, they were a joke. Even my wife was like, they sound like trash. Oddly enough, some of the older stuff I have heard, have sounded decent to pretty darn good?!?!?
Has Bose quality changed over the years? I really don't know, but I've heard both trash and rather decent stuff with the Bose logo on the speaker.
Lucky for me, I have only been suckered in to owning some Blows 101 about a decade ago. Oddly enough, the boxes, with a DIY baffle work rather well for a tang band full range driver.
I will never buy or recommend a Bose speaker to anyone. They are over priced and not all that.
To add to conspiracy theory crap. Has some of the good stuff I've heard been higher end demo stuff that was sold used?
Has Bose quality changed over the years? I really don't know, but I've heard both trash and rather decent stuff with the Bose logo on the speaker.
Lucky for me, I have only been suckered in to owning some Blows 101 about a decade ago. Oddly enough, the boxes, with a DIY baffle work rather well for a tang band full range driver.
I will never buy or recommend a Bose speaker to anyone. They are over priced and not all that.
To add to conspiracy theory crap. Has some of the good stuff I've heard been higher end demo stuff that was sold used?
ratman542 said:
Friend of mine wanted me to help him set up his HT system which included a pair of 901s as main speakers. I was doing some low frequency sweeps to integrate the sub. Noticed that when the Bose equalizer thingy was switched in there was a lot of waveform synthesis going on. Sounded like a square wave or sawtooth wave. I suspect that is part of the way the 901s extend/produce low frequency response. Psycoacousticbabble?
MKM
Mr. Navin 
It is all about perception, perception, and perception.
America is a very different market than that of India. Bose works well for folks who don't want to spend the type of "family vacation budget" for a pair of speakers.
Bose works well for military guys who move around a lot and therefore there is no reason for them to spend a hell lot of money for a pair of speakers. And Bose is the brand of choice for folks who do not drive to mom and pop audio salons to try something new for a change. For someone who do not care much about the tight, clean, and accurate bass coming from their speakers as long as such speakers can fill the room with sound, Bose is the way to go. Of course, for someone who never really spend a few hours on weekend whenever they have the chance to visit the local audio salons to listen to different brands of speakers, to that consumer, Bose sounds just as good as NHT, B & W, Totem, or even Dynaudio.
It is inappropriate to compare Bose to Benz because it is like apple to orange.
I have owned both the commercial and consumer lines of Bose speakers (Bose 802 and Cannon Bass Module and Acoustimass Series 5) and I can see why many Gs here do not respect Bose as you do.
I have been very disappointed with Dr. Bose and his company. For a professor who teaches at MIT, he can do much better than Vince Bruzzese of Totem or Richard Lord of REL but obviously Dr. Bose cannot. His products are overpriced, the Lifestyle system, and underperformed, Bose Acoustimass and again the Lifestyle system. There are several wonderful products out there that outperform Bose and still do not cost a limb or a first born to own. I can name a few companies out there that do provide consumers like you and me more values for our hard earned cash than Bose. Take NHT, Hsu Research, PSB, Mission, and even JBL for example.
You know, ages ago when I decided to go back to school for a college degree, I switched from JBL to Bose and boy I have always deeply regretted my decision.
Bose may be a good brand of speaker to own in Mumbai as you have repeately stated. It is an insult to compare Bose to NHT or PSB let alone B & W, Totem, and Dynaudio.
I am not an engineer but I understand that if you want to fill your room with dynamic sound, you should give the credit to the amp and not the speaker since credit should be given where credit is due.
Speakers owned: JBL, Bose, JBL, Mission, B & W 805, Totem Model 1.
Subs owned: Hsu Research and REL Q line.
It is all about perception, perception, and perception.
America is a very different market than that of India. Bose works well for folks who don't want to spend the type of "family vacation budget" for a pair of speakers.
Bose works well for military guys who move around a lot and therefore there is no reason for them to spend a hell lot of money for a pair of speakers. And Bose is the brand of choice for folks who do not drive to mom and pop audio salons to try something new for a change. For someone who do not care much about the tight, clean, and accurate bass coming from their speakers as long as such speakers can fill the room with sound, Bose is the way to go. Of course, for someone who never really spend a few hours on weekend whenever they have the chance to visit the local audio salons to listen to different brands of speakers, to that consumer, Bose sounds just as good as NHT, B & W, Totem, or even Dynaudio.
It is inappropriate to compare Bose to Benz because it is like apple to orange.
I have owned both the commercial and consumer lines of Bose speakers (Bose 802 and Cannon Bass Module and Acoustimass Series 5) and I can see why many Gs here do not respect Bose as you do.
I have been very disappointed with Dr. Bose and his company. For a professor who teaches at MIT, he can do much better than Vince Bruzzese of Totem or Richard Lord of REL but obviously Dr. Bose cannot. His products are overpriced, the Lifestyle system, and underperformed, Bose Acoustimass and again the Lifestyle system. There are several wonderful products out there that outperform Bose and still do not cost a limb or a first born to own. I can name a few companies out there that do provide consumers like you and me more values for our hard earned cash than Bose. Take NHT, Hsu Research, PSB, Mission, and even JBL for example.
You know, ages ago when I decided to go back to school for a college degree, I switched from JBL to Bose and boy I have always deeply regretted my decision.
Bose may be a good brand of speaker to own in Mumbai as you have repeately stated. It is an insult to compare Bose to NHT or PSB let alone B & W, Totem, and Dynaudio.
I am not an engineer but I understand that if you want to fill your room with dynamic sound, you should give the credit to the amp and not the speaker since credit should be given where credit is due.
Speakers owned: JBL, Bose, JBL, Mission, B & W 805, Totem Model 1.
Subs owned: Hsu Research and REL Q line.
ETEAM said:Mr. Navin
It is all about perception, perception, and perception.
Speakers owned: JBL, Bose, JBL, Mission, B & W 805, Totem Model 1.
Subs owned: Hsu Research and REL Q line.
I never said anything about MY preference for Bose. I a DIY nut.
My speaker systems are all DIY. Using drivers from Audio Concepts, ScanSpeak, Focal, Morel, Audax and SEAS. My Amps are DIY too and my CD player is a 63KI with a few mods (see the 700 page long mod thread on another section of this forum) taken from this forum. The only component in my system my soldering iron has left alone is a Marantz CD recorder.
ETEAM said:Mr. Navin
It is all about perception, perception, and perception.
America is a very different market than that of India. Bose works well for folks who don't want to spend the type of "family vacation budget" for a pair of speakers.
Bose works well for military guys who move around a lot and therefore there is no reason for them to spend a hell lot of money for a pair of speakers.
It sounds like you're saying bose is affordable- that's my main gripe about bose, is it's not. Most little $200 home theater in a box approach (and sometimes exceed) the performance of their acoustimass schlock.
To me, the only place bose works well is in the minds of the people foolish enough to overpay for it and who are secure in their thinking that they have 'the best'.
badman said:
while I am certainly no BOSE fan and doubt I will ever own anything with their name on the front I disagree with that statement.
It should be noted that when the Acoustimass systems came to market there were no such thing as $200 1 box systems or even $500 1 box systems. Bose pretty much defined that market segment.
Its fun to bash BOSE but most owners of them over the age of 15 offer no pretense that it is a high end system. The Acoustimass is usually found in family homes in the rec room. The vast majority of people want a simple system. Simple to find, simple to buy, simple to setup and a recognizable brand sold by a reconizable brand store. They would like the entire process from choosing the system to installing it to take no more then a Sat afternoon becasue they can barely afford that much time.
The vast majority of people have never even once in their lives ever sat down and done what we would call serious listening and that is not a fault. We are the abnormal ones.
Most have very buy families and lives that keep them busy. In short its people like my parents that buy BOSE and you know what, its the perfect system for them. Relatively cheap and easily integrated into their room and tough enough that when the kids,or the cats or the dogs knock over the speakers nobody cares. It's not like my dad ever bragged about his system even once in his life. As long as the ******* thing turns on and it causes the kids to shut up he is in auditory heaven.
From my perspective its the perfect system for him and it does sound far FAR better then every $200 1 box system I have ever heard and I've heard a crap load of them. It's still BOSE though, no highs, no lows, must be BOSE.
ETEAM said:Mr. Navin
It is all about perception, perception, and perception.
Bose works well for military guys who move around a lot and therefore there is no reason for them to spend a hell lot of money for a pair of speakers.
Well, it might work well for people who move alot due to small size, but I wouldn't say that cost is the reason. Back 13 years ago I bought an AM-7 Acoustimess system for about $750 solely on the Bose "reputation". Now for the same amount (in inflation adjusted dollars) I could buy a 5 piece set of Magnepans and a DIY sub. Not exactly cheap when you can pick up a pair of Insignia bookshelf speakers for $50. Around 2002 I built my first set of DIY speakers - two Goldwood 5.25" woofers with a paper cone tweeter paralleled to a piezo (sort of a reverse 2.5 way). Rather poor performing and peaky, but when I switched between them and the Bose, the person I was talking to on the phone immediately noticed that the DIY ones were far better. If you can hear that kind of difference over a bandwidth limited phone line, then that shows just how poor the Acoustimess system is. I eventually gave it away to a friend who's wife is enamored with the small size. This is Bose's strength (like Apple) - good industrial design and lots of marketing. Both also have fixed pricing and controlled distribution. At least Apple makes well built (but not upgradable or cutting edge) gear.
Bose spends more on advertising than every other speaker company put together. They do have some fantastic labs and produce some great technology, but the marketing and bean-counters have taken over and almost all that ends up in the consumer market is overpriced crap. Some of their psychoacoustical techniques (direct/reflecting) aren't necessisarily bad and do have a place. But I've also been to one of their dedicated stores and watched the highly scripted and optimized demo, and it still wasn't as good my HT setup.
Mr Fenris
I second your term for the BOSE "acoustiMESS" because it is
But at any rate, I bought those BOSE speakers because of the place that I have them, space is at a premium, a tiny little coffee shop
Just my own speculation, by and large, you get tired from high end frequency response from your speakers rather than the low frequency response, is my observation off? Maybe that is why when I played music from those poor speakers, most of the customers did not even bother to notice. They go there just to mingle, watch sports, and talk to the girls. So much for a well thought out design plan of mine
The AcoustiMess bass module system is bulky and the quality of the bass coming out of those two tubes that I purchased for the business was that of a Yugo cars, if you Gs here care to remember
I second the thought of the Gs who's stated that BOSE is run by a bunch of marketing and bean counters. All they think about is the dollar sign but well...
I second your term for the BOSE "acoustiMESS" because it is
But at any rate, I bought those BOSE speakers because of the place that I have them, space is at a premium, a tiny little coffee shop
Just my own speculation, by and large, you get tired from high end frequency response from your speakers rather than the low frequency response, is my observation off? Maybe that is why when I played music from those poor speakers, most of the customers did not even bother to notice. They go there just to mingle, watch sports, and talk to the girls. So much for a well thought out design plan of mine
The AcoustiMess bass module system is bulky and the quality of the bass coming out of those two tubes that I purchased for the business was that of a Yugo cars, if you Gs here care to remember
I second the thought of the Gs who's stated that BOSE is run by a bunch of marketing and bean counters. All they think about is the dollar sign but well...
binarywhisper said:
I once bought a $200 HTIB style speaker system (Cheap KLH), and it was significantly better than acoustimass system. Same small satellite and bandpass woofer setup, but had the ability to play significantly louder without distorting (much). I'd not give them a second thought for a serious system, but the point is- they were better than bose while fitting the same design constraints.
Bose isn't the only game in town for small speakers, many manufacturers offer the same sort of setup very inexpensively. There's nothing about acoustimass that is unique besides the markup.
Of course, that's all in my opinion.... I'm a big fan of large speakers, so bose is in trouble with me to begin with.
www.mcmelectronics.com is where I send anyone looking for a decent setup on a budget, they have a variety of small, affordably priced speakers that make bose look as bad as I think it is.
Heck, for near bose prices, one could get radian in-wall coaxials and have a heck of a setup! And they'd be just as 'out of the way' http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=294-718
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