[Garbz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog Well, there's your problem right there. Why make an assumption like that, unless you like getting aggravated by companies you don't buy from? They are a R&D & marketing company. One of their big focus areas is "upscale audio lifestyle gear", that's what they do. If you want to make up stories about how they cater to a hifi audience, you can certainly do that. But that hasn't been true since soon after the original 901's. They do not cater to a hifi audience, which is part of why people here get so snotty about them. The simple truth is that Bose has many, many satisfied customers. I think it's hilarious that that one fact drives so many people around here crazy.

I'm sorry are you a reporter? Or is that some condition you were born with to take one sentence out of context and then crap on about it. You know damn well what I mean. They are a manufacturer of audio equipment. They ADVERTISE as a manufacturer of audio equipment mostly in audio magazines or at the hifi section of the local mall. Their slogan is "Better sound through research".

I can only conclude, you are either ignorant of the context of conversation which could be re-written as "why does everyone hate bose audio products" or you actually work for the guys hence the endless defence and claims that our arguements are invalid.

Quite frankly it is clear to me that even if Dr Bose came over and stole my first born, you would probably defend the company with some crap about there always being one bad apple. Frankly I don't care anymore. If you want to spend your money on over advertised, overpriced, missdirected, mostly crap then by all means. As for most of the rest of us, I think you know our oppinions already.

PeeeMeS Grado RA-1s are actually good products. I'd have no reservations dropping $30000 on speakers if they sounded worth the money. You are just in the realm of limited returns for gain. As for cables I've already likened Bose to cable manufacturers on an earlier page.

 

[applebook]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz I'm sorry are you a reporter? Or is that some condition you were born with to take one sentence out of context and then crap on about it.

Methinks his real name is "lap dog."

 

[music_man]

i can make this very simple.

for every product bose makes you can find a product in the same category from a different manufacturer that both sounds better and costs less.
amazingly, that is not subjective. it is the wide spread consensus amongst people that would know the difference in the first place.

their products are very inovative in design. however all of their respective innovation never seems to add up to good sound.

as has been said 20 times now, all of their money goes to r&d. research into demographics of how to market their products for maximum return on corporate investment! not research into better product design mind you.
their designs were fathered over 20 years ago.

granted, most audiophile products have like 500% markup on the finished product at retail. i do not care. audio is a luxury not a necessity. the point being that anything made by grado, while being grossly overpriced does in fact sound very good. that cannot ever be said of bose.

bose does not care either! all of our bickering will never reach the crowd that they market this stuff to in the first place. very carefull product placement has paid off tremendously for this company. in that capacity i cannot even blame them. they are an american company and this is called capitalism.
as a matter of fact they are a study in a sucessfull company.

bottom line if you do not like their products don't buy them!
they were not made for you anyhow if you would not buy them. their bean counters knew that before you knew it yourselves!

sheesh, 4 pages of this yet again? i am surprised the mods let it go this far.

music_man

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz I can only conclude, you are either ignorant of the context of conversation which could be re-written as "why does everyone hate bose audio products" or you actually work for the guys hence the endless defence and claims that our arguements are invalid. Quite frankly it is clear to me that even if Dr Bose came over and stole my first born, you would probably defend the company with some crap about there always being one bad apple. Frankly I don't care anymore. If you want to spend your money on over advertised, overpriced, missdirected, mostly crap then by all means. As for most of the rest of us, I think you know our oppinions already.

What in the world are you talking about? I've never owned a Bose product and AFAIK I never will. I have had occasion to hear some of them, and I was not impressed with any, except when I first heard the 901's about a hundred years ago. I don't know why you're getting all indignant and insulting just because I challenge what seem to me to be faulty assumptions and biases. I challenge your assumptions and you somehow assume that I must like Bose products and wish to buy them, or that I must work for their company? Where do you get this stuff?

I don't like Bose products, but they are not making products for me or for you. Yet everybody goes nuts when somebody points out that they do make good products for their intended audience, that their intended audience is happy with their products and don't object to paying the price, and that it's absurd to assume that everyone who likes a Bose product is either a heathen or an idiot. Then, it crosses from snooty to crazy when people in the hifi world (of all places) start claiming that Bose has unreasonable markups over component costs.

This thread has an excellent title and the OP asks a legitimate question. Too bad not everybody agrees with your answer. I guess anybody who sees things differently than you must be a "Bose lover", huh? 'Sounds like there's only room for two choices: your opinion or the wrong one.

 

[Garbz]

You're entitled to your opinion if I am mine. I just don't appreaciate single sentences of mine taken out of context and used against me, I am not a politician and I don't think you are either. I conceed to your opinion that bose has a target audience that they cater for, but as to why we hate bose, the price performance ratio or economic utility of their products is poor, and that is a very good reason to hate them. If I were someone who flies every month I may even buy some earphones, and if I live in a room the size of a 4x3 cell then maybe a lifestyle system may also find it's way into my house. But until then I do not find a single product of theirs justifies the price.

music_man is right this has blown out of proportion. I won't reply again.

 

[3lusiv3]

Can someone point me to a smallish portable circumaural noise cancelling headphone that sounds good? Aside from the price the Bose Quiet Comforts seem to fill a market niche that no other headphone can fill.

 

[milkpowder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3lusiv3 Can someone point me to a smallish portable circumaural noise cancelling headphone that sounds good? Aside from the price the Bose Quiet Comforts seem to fill a market niche that no other headphone can fill.

That's exactly what I've been trying to say for a very long time on these BB (Bose Bashing) threads.

 

[memepool]

Didn't really mean to start a flame war here.

My original question was prompted by the fact that from my perspective, being from the UK, Bose products do not seem worthy of being singled out for the amount of venom they get on this board and I found this curious.

I was interested in their clock radio as it seems a good product and I remember being impressed upon hearing it about 10 years back. As my own one is giving up the ghost I thought maybe that would be a good replacement. Of course the market has moved on and now there are a bunch of these uber designed 'lifestyle' New England radios filling a similar niche at similar price points or at least ranging from 3 to 6 times what you pay for an average consumer one.

I had a listen to a Tivoli one with the compete system including sub and it sounds nice although a little flat maybe and pretty poor compared to what you could get for the money if you just bought separates but that's not really the point. I am not at all convinced it's vastly superior to the Bose and it's certainly not any cheaper at least over here.

So even curiouser.

Digging a bit deeper, Bose stuff was well reviewed in Hi-Fi mags I have from 20 years ago but like B&O seems to have dropped off their radar entirely. This stuff just doesn't get reviewed. Come to that neither does Tivoli.
It might turn up in the odd Technology magazine or newspaper supplement but that's about it.

As far as I can see therefore Bose products were really good and very innovative until the 1980's or early 1990's and since then haven't bothered with the Hi-Fi cognescenti.

They probably noticed that the market was on a downward trend as most of the Japanese manufacturers did and switched their focus to Home Cinema or in creating niche markets like high end clock radios.

Again none of this seems all that remarkable.

And as somebody said earlier Bose products arn't really that expensive when you look at them in the context of what "real" Hi-Fi companies are charging these days and I suppose the same could even be said for B&O.

So they are not really Low-Fi which I would class as an average boombox or mid-fi which would be the average Japanese midi system. They are certainly Hi-Fi but just Hi-Fi for people who arn't really into music which sad to say it is what B&O are these days as well.

But all this nonsense about them being bad value for money or whatever is so wide of the mark. They serve a particular market and it's on the whole a pretty wealthy one, which might consider spending 1000USD on a Bose set up which is easy on the eye and fine for a bit of background music in the corner of the kitchen, as a sensible purchase.

Ask the same person to blow 6000USD on the latest McIntosh retro tube set up and they'll look at you like you need professional help...

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz as to why we hate bose, the price performance ratio or economic utility of their products is poor, and that is a very good reason to hate them.

Well, if that's really the reason, then wouldn't you hate companies that sell $1000 short pieces of wire? Wouldn't you *really* hate companies who sell $30,000 speakers that contain a few hundred dollars worth of drivers? ('Just curious...)

 

[applebook]

Quote:

Originally Posted by russdog Well, if that's really the reason, then wouldn't you hate companies that sell $1000 short pieces of wire? Wouldn't you *really* hate companies who sell $30,000 speakers that contain a few hundred dollars worth of drivers? ('Just curious...)

That depends on how much went into R&D, which is generally the most expensive part of technology. Remember that most high-end audiophile companies sell in low volumes, while a big relatively big corporation like Bose can afford to price products lower because of the number of units sold.

Also, I don't want to pay too much for advertising. If the $30,000 speakers break down like this, I'd be content:

- $1,000 parts
- $5,000 R&D
- $500 distribution
- $1,000 marketing

If the breakdown is something like this, I'd be incensed:

- $1,000 parts
- $1,000 R&D
- $50 distribution
- $5,000 marketing

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by applebook Also, I don't want to pay too much for advertising. If the $30,000 speakers break down like this, I'd be content: - $1,000 parts - $5,000 R&D - $500 distribution - $1,000 marketing If the breakdown is something like this, I'd be incensed: - $1,000 parts - $1,000 R&D - $50 distribution - $5,000 marketing

this whole R&D argument is a little naive at best if not a total red herring. Most small specialist Hi-Fi companies do bugger all Research and Development beyond recombining OEM parts from large manufacturers. They simply don't have the industrial capacity to undertake this kind of work.

Huge companies like Sony and Philips did the R&D for CD. Very little work has been done on the format by anyone else. What you are referring to is stuff like experimenting with different brands of capicitor and reprogramming the firmware for mass produced CD-ROM transports etc...
The smaller companies barely even entered the market until comparativley recently, almost after the format was defunct from the point of view of R&D.

The biggest advances in loudspeakers recently has been through Computer Aided Design packages which allow advanced modelling techniques to be utilised by many more small companies. This was inconcievable only a decade ago.

This has allowed designs like the Nautilus to come about. Imagine how long it would have taken to develop an idea like that without CAD? How many models would have to be built and tested? It was simply impossible for anyone but a huge industrial combine or a government to do this kind of work until very recently.

R&D into turntables? valve amplifiers? cables? is largely a joke from an engineering perspective.

 

[russdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool this whole R&D argument is a little naive at best if not a total red herring.

Of course it is. That guy is just a ranter-basher. He has zero knowledge about what any company spends on R&D. He's just making up aribtrary noise to try to defend his unfounded biases. (What's funny is that he's also dissing me in *other threads* as being some kind of Bose lover, if you can believe that

 

[Seamaster]

B&O are really cool like art, expensive that's Ok. But Bose are way over priced for what they are.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamaster B&O are really cool like art, expensive that's Ok. But Bose are way over priced for what they are.

B&O used to be much better than they are now. Their older systems up until the mid 1990's were proper Hi-Fi. You could quibble about the style of presentation being a bit laid back and more suited to classical music than say Naim but this was a matter of taste rather than quality. In fact B&O was better engineered than Naim probably.

Their 1960's and 70's stuff is really excellent well made and combines superb engineering with cutting edge design and great sonics. Some of their stuff was groundbreaking like the Beogram 4000 turntable.

check out http://www.beocentral.com/

What they make these days is not a whole lot better than Bose in audio terms, although the design is still lovely.

 

[jdimitri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3lusiv3 Can someone point me to a smallish portable circumaural noise cancelling headphone that sounds good? Aside from the price the Bose Quiet Comforts seem to fill a market niche that no other headphone can fill.

Almost none.. The senn PXC250/300 makes around the same sq but much less comfortable and you have to carry around one of those battery packs
QC2 is the best noise cancelling headphones i've tried.. it looks good, sounds alright, comfy and cancels out outside noise nicely
If i didn't like iems and travel on planes a lot i'd get one

Bose is a brilliant company. Without doing any more research for a number of years they managed to sell a great number of speakers and headphones, even establishing a name
'better sound through research' is taken by a general customer as better than what i now have, which is probably true
Now what they do is give the consumers what they want and not bother to do anything more. It's what the costumer is expecting and it's what they get, why wouldn't they be happy?

Oh and btw, their PAs are pretty damn good
Let me guess, you bose bashers are just going to ignore this post and continue with the bashing?