| Originally Posted by Bilavideo /img/forum/go_quote.gif given that their impedence is 73 ohms |
| Originally Posted by Bilavideo /img/forum/go_quote.gif I honestly don't know what Bose uses to power their headphones when they're set up at a demo station. But given the fact that Bose is selling a relatively expensive product at places like Target and Best Buy, with no salesmen around to push their expensive product, it's hard to imagine that Bose would leave anything to chance. It would be in Bose's best interest to power their headphones with the best equipment they could find. If you've ever been on a Bose tour, the presentation is as slick as a Disney Main Street Parade. In fact, the songs chosen for the Bose demos are carefully selected to highlight the "strengths" of Bose cans while avoiding their obvious weaknesses. You can go online and find the songs. I did. Then I downloaded them off iTunes (most of them, at least). They were such perky pieces that they made all of my other headphones sound like magic. Bose even includes a narration where you're told what to look for in a piece, often suggesting for you what to make of it, even when the piece hardly supports the claim. I remember one such hypnotic suggestion, that I should "notice the clarity of the vocals." What followed was a muddy piece where the female vocals sounded like Jodie Foster with a chest cold. Despite Bose's association with aviation headsets, its own literature includes a disclaimer that these headphones are designed to be used in the passenger section of a commercial jet, not the cockpit of a private plane. The active noise cancellation really focuses on bass (the engine hum) but relies on passive cancellation for high frequency issues. The problem is that the low-frequency cancellation runs about 20 dB while the passive cancellation runs just under 5. The other problem is that you have to power these headphones with batteries, which run you about 35 hours. My bet is that Bose runs these with the best equipment it can afford to stock with these demos. Together with the selected tunes and the moronic suggestions telling you what to make of what you hear, this is a highly manipulative experience. You may well need an amp to properly run these phones, given that their impedence is 73 ohms, which is a tad high for phones sold to people who've never heard of headphone amps. My experience with Bose headphones has been mixed. Years ago, when I'd never heard of any brand, I listened to Bose at these demo stations and was quite taken with what I'd heard. I had no background or experiences to draw from. I was easy prey. Fortunately, I lacked the funds to waste on the product. By the time my finances had changed, so had my understanding of headphones, enough to not be taken in by the blue smoke and mirrors. Bose's major means of providing the paltry five dB of passive cancellation is to use pads that resemble bean bag chairs. The squishy pads are made of leather or leatherette. They form a good seal on the ears and make it difficult to hear around them. That's their best quality - their ability to isolate you from the shoe bomber sitting next to you on the plane. The only reason you hear anything through them is the miniature hole in the center. Your ear has to be over this hole to hear the music. Unfortunately, this gives the presentation a bloated, bassy, muddy feel to it. The music in the Bose demonstrations avoids playing to this obvious weakness. The selections tend to emphasize the bass and midrange. Unless you know what to look for, you're an easy score for these tactics. If you want a slightly less obvious presentation, get out of the Bose store in the mall, get out of Target, get out of Best Buy. Go to the Apple store. Apple teams up with Bose. It stocks its Apple stores with ample supplies of Bose headphones. In doing so, Apple is just looking for a partner. It knows that Bose has brand value and it's trying to seed its own brand by hooking up with another "winner." It's at these Apple store where you'll get the closest thing to a fair shake. Why? Because the Bose headphones aren't connected to a demo. They're hooked up to iPods and iPhones. What's more, if you have an MP3 device, you can easily bring it to the Apple store and hook it up to the Bose phones - so you can test their quality for yourself. I did this, myself, bringing with me an RS-1 for reference. I'd listen to the Bose headphones hooked to my own iPod with my own music. I'd switch off and listen to the RS-1. The difference was fairly obvious. While the Bose had meatier bass, the high frequency was muddy and lifeless. Since Grado RS-1's sell for $700 new, I've since gone back to the Apple store with other phones - including the $79 SR-60 (which is now the SR-60i). For boom-boom, Bose held the day. For everything else, it went down in flames. So, to sum up: (1) I don't think Bose headphones were meant to be used with amps, at least not by the customers; and (2) I do think that Bose uses something behind the demo. My bet is that the company employees amps to give their demos an added oomph. |
| Originally Posted by m11a1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Where did you get this figure? |
