Bose and friends. - Page 5

AT ANC7

The people I know at school are pretty open; I'm surprised... They're not stubborn about bose being the best or anything. If they ask me about bose, I will explain to them bose's marketing tactics, and talked about other audiophile-related things... And they always take me seriously, probably because I had my cmoy (in an altoids tin) out at the time. And THEN they ask me about recommendations about which headphone they should get! Hehe, feels good.

First, yes, those people are absolutely wrong. If all you've ever eaten has been junk food, you wouldn't much like fresh vegetables, either.

If you've never played music, been to live concerts with people who play instruments rather than lip sync and dance, and mostly listen to music through crap car stereos, etc., you never learn what music actually sounds like. Further, with all the compressed pure garbage and MP3s, people have no idea what sound sounds like.

Even worse, Bose products are deliberately tuned to be strongest at the points where human hearing is most sensitive. They're a fraud.

It is possible for people to be innocent and free of bias yet be completely wrong. If you got each of them to spend 30 minutes of playing an instrument (even one they didn't know) recorded that and played it back through both pairs, they'd stop picking Bose.

In a live concert where the singer sings his or her songs it has echo right? I just want to know if you hear that strong echo is that a sign of clear sound? Im not an audiophile, Im using the Grado Sr 325is right and im lovin them

Few, an intelligent Bose Basher, finally!

thank you oarnura for your post but please let me correct you on a few things.

the first is all but one of my fellow art students had heard of the Bose.

whilst i agree with the agruement about the diferent types of headphones, this is where i feel the arguement falls flat.

as Bose haters, if i dangled my metro.fi's and my Bose OE's in front of you , i'm sure they would choose the UE's, tell me if i'm wrong Bose bashers?

Bose bashers would choose then, because Bose are (supposidly crap) adn UE are good! there, done, dusted no competition, UE wins.

the experts (us) would choose UE, but then how comes all 7 chose the Bose. i've any crude comments, yet no one has actually answered the question?

the answer in my mind is, that for some reason, all 7 thiught the Bose sounded better.

Thanks once again oarnura fro arguing the point so eloquently.

But can someone tell me why ALL 7 Chose the Bose?

Because they do not know a thing?

They see the word "bose" and then tell them self that they must be the best so when they hear the UE which does not sound like the bose they think that the UE does not sound good because they all think that bose makes the best headphones and anything which does not sound like them must be wrong.

A real music enthusiast wouldn't give a damn about bose, bose marketing, or other people they don't know or care about buying bose products.

It is all about the music. Brand fanboyism/hating is some sick side hobby that has nothing to do with music, akin to drunken Georgians getting in a brawl over whether a ford or chevy truck is the better vehicle.

It just seems like sour grapes to me. The Bose bashers can't accept that 7 out of 7 people actually prefered a pair of Bose than a pair of UE.

i wouldn't mind, but it's like the guy in the (well established national) hi-fi shop who siad to me, "Bang and Olufsen are all about style " to which i answered, "when did you last listen to a B&O system" 2 to which he couldn't answer, ergo, he ddin't really know what the heck he was talking about. typical!

benine, ignorant comment from someone trying to look like an expert, but being far from it!

if you make comments like that, you better back them up with something more than 'they're rubbish'.

if any Bose basher would spend the amount of time i have with the OE's testing them on varuious sources, amps, no amps, different headphones etc, then i could more readily accepts their comments, but i know this isn't the case.

don't get me wrong as a hd650 ulrasone 750 various grado's owner, i know of the Bose short comings but having spent 5 months testing and spending a majority of that time testing against the hd25's i concluded that on occassion the Bose could pick out the odd bit of detail better than the HD's. what was your conclusion after 5 months?

We really should stop doing that, but those stinkin, lousy, good-for-nutin [ford|chevy] lovers need some home-schooln' .

I don't think it is sour grapes. I still think comparing an in ear monitor to a On ear phone is an invalid test. All you have shown is more people prefer On ear phones to in ear ones, at best.

I do take your point that some Bose bashers go over board and dismiss a product just because of the brand name.


What would constitute an argument for Bose being good other than taste. Bose doesn't publish specs so we can't compare them on paper. The only way is to listen to them. Moreover each person will walk away with a different opinion. I might think they are good but not worth the $179 that's being charged and actually prefer a cheaper one that sounds better to me personally. Or if I was a in ear monitor kind of guy that always got a good fit with the UE 5EB and loved the isolation I might be unimpressed with the bose OE.

The problem is most people buy products after a short audition. The other issue is sometimes you might not like something at first but repeatedly being exposed to the same thing might make you used to it. Like songs on a radio that get repeated constantly, eventually some thing you don't care for much starts to sound decent.

Such A/B testing especially constant tests between two products is very hard, even more so in Audio. Your brain plays a lot of tricks on you. I have done this with speakers in my own home. Cheaper speakers sometimes make you notice details that you might not have noticed before but then you listen to the more expensive ones and they are there too but just a little different. I think the brain picks up on the differences. As test you could do a similar test with any two set of phones and come away with the same result. Part of it is your mind telling you "You know these aren't as bad as people make them out to be".

The best way is to listen to the cans that you like and can enjoy the music from in the end that is all that matters. All things considered do you pick up the Bose the most of all your 50 or so pairs of headphones when you want to listen?

Same thing here... All female vocals. Sounded nice to me, but I couldn't even see what the source was or change the track. When I used to go inside the BOSE store, they would have their speakers in a glass sealed room with the proper placement for optimal sound loading and run it again with something I couldn't see. I've since heard from past employees that they run them from expensive amplifiers hidden in a back room.

Many of us have heard what changes a huge recording can make. If I throw a binaural track on any decent headphones, the illusion of the sound coming to life makes you just say WOW. Its not fair to heap them on consumers without releasing specs or having an honest test trial.

thanks for your eloquant answer again oarnura, however to the rest of the Bose bashers, if i did dangle a pair of Bose and UE's in front of them, they would go for the UE's simply because they're not BOSE, which to me seems idiotic which ever way you look at it.

I take your point once again, but still the Bose bashers have yet to answer my question, becasue the simple conclusion is, that 7 out of 7 people prefered Bose to UE! Fact!

no Bose basher has presented any significant evidence other than to say "they're rubbish" which goes to show (or show up) how educated they are on Bose products.

if i'd never of owned the 5 EB's for many months, or had tried them at the shop for 2 minutes, you would think it an a front to give such a strong testimony against them.

i should imagine people would say "what the hell am i talking about" because of my lack of experince with them. with that i mind, i would never then hop on a super.fi thread, shouting all kinds of abuse, because i'm not qualified to do so.

this is what happens with Bose bashing. a "try" is not 5 months. i've backed up my comments with 5 months testing, and a sub 50 selection of headphones.

all i ask, is some decent, relavent arguements with people who know what they're talking about, unlike that idiot in the hi-fi shop who proceeded to slate Bang and Olufsen and then couldn't actually back it up when pressed for further evidence.

BOSE BASHERS, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FROM YOU? Obviously it is!

Why are you singling out Bose, and why should it be their fault

What other company overcharges and has a booth at all many retail locations to try out headphones that IMO do not accurately represent the product. It is not a BAD product, only considered grossly overpriced by others with experiences to compare. They have partnered with Apple, Target, and Sharper image, but won't compete in places like a hi-fi or musicians shop because they do no want other headphones available for demoing anywhere remotely close to these locations that would let people gain a fair opinion. They are the only company I can think of who charges more then $10 and does not put the driver specifications right on the package. That seems unethical in some way even if they do make great looking, good sounding desktop and living room pieces.

Its not completely their fault for how people see them today, no other even Mid-fi products are as widely available. They have capitalized on this and have vehemently fault for their reputation tooth and nail in the past, which you can also say is a companies job. It seems that BOSE refuses to compete to protect its reputation and even that is to be expected. I can't even look for an airline ticket without BOSE offering me frequent flyer miles for buying their headphones or turn on a late night channel without seeing an infomercial, their marketing beats the competition badly. Maybe I shouldn't dislike the company as its only protecting itself by creating a false image as having superior technology (that has possibly not changed in twenty years). I can't really dislike the average consumer either, as its not there priority to make sure everything they hear is true.

It upsets me that I have had at least one acquaintance (non head-fi) tell me that they were upset after buying the triports because another buddy had a PX100 that they liked better (also non head-fi) and I actually had nothing to do with that. Its fine with people buy it for reputation or looks, but some out there actually bought these for sound and build quality and came back disappointed. Some people who wear BOSE actually do compare (makes sense when you think you actually have the best and aren't trying to remain ignorant) and now they feel guilt. Isn't that a little to be upset by?

But that's just clever marketing, getting their product out in the market. what would you have them do, stand on a street corner shouting "roll up, roll up"

in the UK, where i'm not aware of any Bose booths or specific Bose shops, a hi-fi shop has to sign up as distributors, and have an account. Now, from what i understand, Bose are quite aggresive with with their distributors. The few shops i do know that stocked Bose products, stopped because they just didn't like how Bose wanted to push the gear.

but in an age where i get phone call after phone call at 8:00 at night from some person, whose first language isn't english, try to sell me accident insurance, that's just sales. Hard ruthless and very aggressive.

i can't really take issue with how Bose push there stuff in the market, that's life i'm afraid.

now if you deisgn and manufactured your own headphones, how would you get them out to market? for me other than starting my own website, maybe shoving them on ebay, maybe a bit of email marketing, i wouldn't have a clue. Bose have the clought to set up Bose specific shops, and booths, they've partnered with certain airline companies etc. is that wrong? it's like critizing costa coffee for partnering with sainsbury's so now (in the UK) you have a costa bolted on to most sainsbury's supermarket.

is that to be critizied, or is it just good marketing?

i don't see a porsche garage with a nice selection of ferraris to compare. a porsche garage is there to promote porsche.

when i was selling diamond blade cutters (used for cuting tar mack) i never sent a selection of the competitions blades to try. I'm there to promote the brand i was promoting. why would i want to compare with another brand, when i just want to sell what i have. Now, i have to say i personally saw (no pun intended) for my own eyes and used the diamond blades which i was promoting, and they were far better than our nearest competition, and quite a bit more expensive!

i don't see any headphone manufacturer purposely putting their product in the path of the competition, no one! i see hi-fi shops that have a number of products to bring you and me a selection of choices. I can't see the Sennheiser sales team getting excited because they saw a nicve selectionn of their products, with a nice selection Of grado's and AKG's. i can't hink a sales rep would say, "don't our headphones look nice next to the Grado and AKGs'" i should imagine Sennheiser would like their own display (which i seen in quite a few hi-fi shops) with a nice Sennheiser logo, and i should also imagine that senheiser would like a large chunk of the headphone display area for themslves. so according to some of your commnets, that would seem unfair, and so Sennheiser products would be low grade and not worth the money.

ABSOLUTE PISH!

anyway gotta dash.