[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chops /img/forum/go_quote.gif x2 on both accounts! I totally agree 100%. And I'm sure I'll get my fair share of bashing for defending Bose. However, I don't give a rat's booty what anyone else thinks. I've heard quite a bit of Bose stuff over the years, from their very smallest speakers to their Wave Radios to their flagship 901's. For the size and quality drivers they use in all of their products, they do a pretty darn good job. Apparently, Bose has been doing something right for the past 40+ years of being in business. Not to mention a lot of their products go for years and years unchanged, or with minor updates here and there. Personally, I see nothing wrong with Bose. It's your own stupidity to actaully think that two 5.25" woofers are going to produce the same amount of bass quality AND quantity (especailly with crap, urr... I mean rap) as a larger subwoofer would. It's also your own stupidity to expect small 2" drivers to produce a large, loud, fullrange sound as traditional bookshelf speakers with much larger drivers and enclosures. Bose's products do exactly what they say they do. They provide a fullrange sound for the average user in an average setup. Not once have you ever seen or heard Bose place their products in a dedicated 2-channel listening room or a dedicated theater room. No, you always see in their adds that their products are setup on a kitchen counter, or on a crowded bookshelf, or on either side of a smallish TV with comsumer grade video equipment that you would find at CC or BB. These systems are for the average person who perfers a better sound than an your average Sony boombox, but doesn't want to or care to spend big $$$ on a hifi/theater system. If you feel that you have to bash Bose every chance you get, then you HAVE to bash all the other comapanies like Cambridge Soundworks, Teac, JVC, Kenwood, Sony, etc, etc, etc with all of their little All-In-One mini-systems. People, it's about darn time you grow up and face the facts that not only is Bose aware of the stupid bashing that goes on every day of the week about them, but they really don't give a crap what you all say and think either. Obviously they aren't going to change anything based on a bunch of schmucks running their mouths. Have a nice day.

So you bash the bashers.. Hypocritical..

 

[dgbiker1]

I think Bose may have been a bona-fide high-end brand in its earlier days and just let the business & marketing side take over. I lost respect for the QC line when I built a noise canceling circuit with about $10 worth of parts that could plug into any headphone as a (2 week) class project.
I did have fun with a Bose rep at the Minneapolis airport when he saw my SR80s and said "those look old, wanna look at some new headphones?" We did an A/B test... the QC didn't fare so well.

 

[AgainstTheGrain]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgbiker1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think Bose may have been a bona-fide high-end brand in its earlier days and just let the business & marketing side take over. I lost respect for the QC line when I built a noise canceling circuit with about $10 worth of parts that could plug into any headphone as a (2 week) class project. I did have fun with a Bose rep at the Minneapolis airport when he saw my SR80s and said "those look old, wanna look at some new headphones?" We did an A/B test... the QC didn't fare so well.

lmao nice. that's right stick it to the man! lol

 

[oxymoron]

The comfort and fold-up engineering of the Bose On-Ears is better than any commuter-class non-IEM phones I had used. Sound is, well, debatable. But the rickety subway and bus system is a great equalizer. The comfort and hyped bass were actually advantages, in that the cramped and noisy environment would have destroyed the sonic advantages of a better pair of non-iem phones.

+1 on the above post that said Bose has its place.

 

[Cry Havoc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oxymoron /img/forum/go_quote.gif The comfort and fold-up engineering of the Bose On-Ears is better than any commuter-class non-IEM phones I had used. Sound is, well, debatable. But the rickety subway and bus system is a great equalizer. The comfort and hyped bass were actually advantages, in that the cramped and noisy environment would have destroyed the sonic advantages of a better pair of non-iem phones. +1 on the above post that said Bose has its place.

Either you hear the music or you don't.

With a good set of closed headphones, you might not hear everything on the subway or in a loud environment.

However, with the Bose, they aren't going to differentiate between frequencies well enough for you to hear them under the best of circumstances. And from experience, active noise cancellation doesn't do enough to justify the cost. Higher-pitched noises, even those at a consistent volume and pitch blast right through the noise cancellation. Try a loud vacuum near some QCs. You might as well not be using ANC.

From my experience at least, if you want to really hear the music, you either go passive or not at all. As for comfort, well that's just as subjective, isn't it?

 

[gritzcolin]

The Bose on ears sound better than the Triports from my own a/b tests. The Triports are very muddy sounding the on ears a tad clearer but both had bloated bass.

 

[strangemusic]

Everyone! Look! I am making a post in this High Quality Thread (TM).

I don't understand why people bash Bose. Sure, they might sound like ass, and sure, you might have better gear to let them try, but does the person wearing them care? Do you have a right to say "I'm better"? I see pairs of Triports and iBuds all over campus, but it's not like I get offended or anything.

 

[Cry Havoc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by strangemusic /img/forum/go_quote.gif Everyone! Look! I am making a post in this High Quality Thread (TM). I don't understand why people bash Bose. Sure, they might sound like ass, and sure, you might have better gear to let them try, but does the person wearing them care? Do you have a right to say "I'm better"? I see pairs of Triports and iBuds all over campus, but it's not like I get offended or anything.

Of course not. The audiophiles/fans of quality sound on head-fi don't have a right to think "I'm better than x because I have better headphones." That's ludicrous. The same goes for ANY material possession, because they state nothing about who you really are as a person.

However, this is a site about premium headphones and audio products. Bose has a reputation, as my friend put it yesterday in an AIM conversation, as "the be-all end-all of headphones and audio". That's exactly what he said to me. The problem lies in the fact that there is a massive misconception among people not in this comparatively small ring of users on head-fi (and sites like head-fi) that Bose is the pinnacle of definition in sound. It wasn't too long ago that even I thought the same, until I heard of a brand called Shure. That led me to more searching and inevitably to Head-fi.

There is absolutely nothing wrong, in my opinion, with stating truths or even vocally degrading a brand that purports itself to be the best, spends most of it's money on marketing, and is so inferior in sound quality that they aren't even MENTIONED on sites like these except to talk about how a pair of $70 SR60s sounds better than a $400 pair of Bose headphones. They talk about how superior their technology is in their products, and yet they are lagging far behind.

I consider these topics "newbie education threads". And no, they aren't the most constructive. But if you saw 4,000,000 people driving Pintos and A/C Gremlins around the streets of your cities, talking about how they were the greatest cars on Earth, wouldn't that make you want to scream a little bit too?

Bose is overpriced and incredibly overhyped. It's a credit to their savvy marketing division, but they hardly have a place on a site like this except to bear the brutal comparisons to true audiophile headphones that DO produce the world's best sound and DO deserve such notice. Anyone coming to this forum with an open mind will quickly realize that advertising does not equal good sound.

 

[ph0rk]

Ears differ. It is entirely possible that when you have random_bose_owner_x try your rig that they won't like it for reasons other than its unboseness.

But, most importantly, remember kids: Brand-hating is just another form of fanboyism. Don't be that guy.

 

[Cry Havoc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ph0rk /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ears differ. It is entirely possible that when you have random_bose_owner_x try your rig that they won't like it for reasons other than its unboseness. But, most importantly, remember kids: Brand-hating is just another form of fanboyism. Don't be that guy.

Yep. We're fanboys of AKG, AT, Beyerdynamic, Grado, Sony, Denon, Stax, Futuresonic, Sennheiser, Shure, etc. But really, we're just biased to those brands for no reason at all.

 

[oxymoron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cry Havoc /img/forum/go_quote.gif Either you hear the music or you don't. With a good set of closed headphones, you might not hear everything on the subway or in a loud environment. However, with the Bose, they aren't going to differentiate between frequencies well enough for you to hear them under the best of circumstances. And from experience, active noise cancellation doesn't do enough to justify the cost. Higher-pitched noises, even those at a consistent volume and pitch blast right through the noise cancellation. Try a loud vacuum near some QCs. You might as well not be using ANC. From my experience at least, if you want to really hear the music, you either go passive or not at all. As for comfort, well that's just as subjective, isn't it?

Yup, my post was purely subjective, as is suggested in the first line. I was referring to the passive On-Ear model. I see how that could've been unclear.

Two months ago, I replaced the Bose with AKG K81DJs. The AKG are better and they isolate even more than the passive Bose. For my big head, the Bose were more comfortable out of the box, and they folded into a compact, flat semi-circle. The AKG are clunky in that regard, and (again, for my big head) they had a painful clamping force. I say had, because they've loosened up quite nicely.

My headphones at home are K701's. The K81DJs approach the AKG house sound. Used as a home headphone, the Bose OE do not even come close.

For those with significant disposal income, I would still recommend the Bose OE for city commuting.

BTW, I tried the Bose OE on a couple of flights in small-ish aircraft and found them much less isolating or effective than on the subway. Do noise-cancelling phones work well on airplanes? How about IEMs?

 

[ph0rk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cry Havoc /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yep. We're fanboys of AKG, AT, Beyerdynamic, Grado, Sony, Denon, Stax, Futuresonic, Sennheiser, Shure, etc. But really, we're just biased to those brands for no reason at all.

recommending a product you have personally auditioned is not fanboyism.

recommending one you haven't because it is from a brand you like is.

I'm sure you can appreciate the difference.

 

[nin3th]

i hate it when people think their triports sound better than my a700s.

 

[oxymoron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nin3th /img/forum/go_quote.gif i hate it when people think their triports sound better than my a700s.

Things is, they could very well believe it does!

After many years of semi-audiophilia, I'd give anything to still believe that my 1981 3-way, paper-coned (12" woofer!), chipboard floorstanders sounded great...

 

[Desmohifi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oxymoron /img/forum/go_quote.gif Things is, they could very well believe it does!

Couldn't agree more, everyone has different preferences, and those usually change too