[Nak Man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by john_jcb Bose IMO are not necessarily bad, however I do feel they are overpriced. . . While I won't be getting Bose speakers anytime soon I think they are far from the bottom of the barrel as some would have you believe.

I should've been more clear about my comment above, which was centered on AM-7, which I finally bought and regretted the moment I went to try DCM sub sat in the next room. I agree with you that they're not on bottom of barrel since there are many bad sounding mass market speakers - that are priced accordingly.

And here I disagree that they are merely overpriced ... they are way much hugely overpriced that it's almost a crime to charge $1000 for that junk. My friend has a blown driver and it costed him about $5 to get replacement driver. Nice, fat margin anyone ? Well it's not their fault that people buy crappy products as long as they're priced high enough - and those tiny cubes are real neat anyway. How they can make people to believe hearing midbass or high freq using 3" drivers is beyond my comprehension.

Sorry for the rant, and I know at the end it's my ears to blame. But if you actually spent the money for this kind of 'better sales through research' misinformation, I'm sure you would feel more or less the same way.

 

[PhilS]

A friend of mine who used to work for one of the big consumer electronic retailers told me that the Bose speakers were always placed outside of the main listening room where the other speakers were, and were instead placed separately outside of this room and a fairly good distance away on the retail floor in order to preclude a comparison of the Bose speakers with any other brand of speakers. If you go into the major consumer electronic stores, you will see that this is generally the case. The explanation given to me by this friend was that if the Bose speakers were in the same room as the others, they'd never sell the Bose. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me to find it is true.

 

[Nak Man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilS The explanation given to me by this friend was that if the Bose speakers were in the same room as the others, they'd never sell the Bose. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me to find it is true.

That was my experience as well. The store had three demo rooms with one assigned only for bose ... which created a kind of 'special' aura - and made a/b comparison impossible. While the other two rooms were jampacked with wall of speakers and components. Very smart and well thought marketing trick.

 

[sr20dem0n]

just show him this
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

 

[Yaboosh]

Bose is quickly becoming the most underrated brand in hi-fi audio. Not because it is good but everybody says that it is sooooooo bad that its underratedness increases.

 

[elrod-tom]

The Bose 901 is not a bad loudspeaker...but I wouldn't pay what they want for them.

 

[LFF]

Anything is better than Bose. A string attached to a tin can sounds better than Bose.

 

[morphie]

I dont think that Bose is underrated. Surely Bose isnt plain "bad", but imo the price paid is far from the expected sound quality, and that is a very important factor of rating imo.

 

[e_dawg]

I have Bose speakers. Sitting in a box in the basement.

They don't have any of that holographic imaging that you can get in varying degrees with most decent speakers, no soundstage, etc. However, the direct/reflecting "stereo everywhere" philosophy makes them good speakers for background music, filling a room with sound, etc.

With my NHT's for example, it's a little frustrating that you have to sit in the exact spot to hear the holographic stereo imaging with a rock solid mono signal strongly focused dead centre and the rest of the soundstage surrounding it. Whereas with my Bose AM-5, everybody in the room can enjoy a similar stereo experience watching a movie. Granted, it's not good stereo imaging, but at least I don't feel that the guy sitting in the designated spot is getting much better imaging and everyone is getting left out

 

[Nak Man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by e_dawg However, the direct/reflecting "stereo everywhere" philosophy makes them good speakers for background music, filling a room with sound, etc.

Hey yes, that's would be the reason I always wondered - how they can manage to sound quite good in music stores.