Home audio & video: BOSE good or bad?
Price should not be the criterion
by gurman--2008 - 9/30/06 7:51 PM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84Do not judge a system by its price. Don't ask what others think. Judge for yourself. You have to be happy with the speaker system. Go to a store that has a sound room and listen, listen, listen. Take with you at least 3 different CDs that test the full range of what you like to (or intend to)listen to.
Harvey has stores that have high end systems and Best Buy and others have lesser cost speakers. And don't leave out Cambridge. Consider them as Bose at a lower price. If you have a small room, you probably want small speakers, but if you have room and want clean sound down to 20 Herz, you'll need larger speakers. That's it Buddy.
Yes Folks, It's Time Once Again To Post This.....
by RoadRunner6 - 10/1/06 10:19 PM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84.....enlightening article concerning the truth about Bose speakers in response to the devilish lies and untruths that some of the above posters have been spreading.
AMEN!
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html
RR6
That's the word.
by gurman--2008 - 10/3/06 8:50 AM In reply to: Yes Folks, It's Time Once Again To Post This..... by RoadRunner6Roadrunner6 is right on. No need to say anything more. Read it all. I have. Simply, You have to check it all out as he recommends (real listening rooms, preferably one that is the size of Your room, and considering Your room's acoustics)OR select from his compiled charts.
BOSE good or BAD?!!!!!!!!
by jcrobso - 10/16/06 9:26 AM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84One the weekend I was at a friends house for an anaversay of Sal Solo( Sal is the Catholic youth evanlgists I travel with) coming to America. It had been about 3 years since I was last there. He had remolded his family room about 6 months ago. He had a very nice Hacthi Plamsa and Bo$e speakers.
Sal brought his new music DVD of his songs, gave a copy to eveyone there.
The host played it on his "new" HT system. I have heard the songs many , many times over many different PA systems and my own home system. I know how they should sound!!!!!
This is the first itme I have heard a Bo$e home system with out using the "special demo" CD and in a home setting. The sound was just AWAFUL!!!!! The true Bo$e sound, No highs, now lows!!!!! Muddy base, muddy midrange, As RR6 said white van speakers. This is the worst HT surrond setup I have EVER heard!!!
When I got home I played the DVD on my 26" CRT-HD TV just using the built in speakers,,the sound was cleaner that what I had heard comming for the Bo$e.
My 2.1 PC speaker system sounded better!!!
Sunday I was at Sam's club, they had rearanged the AV section, all the HT systems are toghter, side by side, even the Bo$e. I did a comparson, not realy easy beacuse of the Bo$e locked down demo set up. But still I could tell the difference.
I dare Bo$e to do a shoot out. No speical demo CDs, no speical EQ, level playing field. John
BAD
by defensorfortis - 12/20/06 10:21 AM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84Bad aesthetic design and outrageously expensive. Good sound, not great... but good.
Re bose good or bad.
by chbipp - 12/23/06 12:54 PM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84I have listned to a bunch of people bash on bose endlessly. First of all I have all definitive technoligies speakers and Macintosh amps pushing, a pioneer elite 50" A elite reciever also. If you wanna spend 17,000 on your home video system go ahead It sounds kick ass I can assure you of that. In my other room I have a 42' panisonic plasma fwith a Bose 3-2-1- GS system for my X-box. It sounds great FOR THE MONEY... Listen any thing you buy for a thousand dollars is not gonna be top shelf any way. Bose is good for the price It has a 6.5 inch sub which can only get so low anyway. It sounds real good for two speakers and is neat and clean. As far as htib goes it is the best bang for your buck... I have the money to buy what I want and I still choose this system. Bose bashing is trendy and it has some faults but for the money you do get a pretty good sound. And dont compare it to speakers of different sizes either. Remember one of the nicer parts of a bose system is the size of the speakers relitive to the sound reproduction that they give.
Overall the 3-2-1 GS gets the thumbs up for the price and sound quality. Just know what you are buying. If you want bigger sound shell out the cash for some real equipment, otherwise go with the bose and be happy knowing a thousand dollars and 2 little speakers will still make u smile........
BOSE...
by bluekitten - 12/29/06 7:18 AM In reply to: BOSE good or bad? by aloha84I think Bose sound great and I love to sell them where I work, BUT I wish they would come up with some kind of all-in-one that had a up-convert dvd player with a HDMI input, it would make it so much easier to sell with people's HDTV's...
Interesting post.
by jcrobso - 12/29/06 7:37 AM In reply to: BOSE... by bluekittenI'm all wise amazed at how many first time posters find this year old string about Bo$e and make it their first posting.
You do have any interesting point about the up converting HDMI port. I agree that for the arm and leg that Bo$e charges for their HTIB units that they should have every bell and whistle and the kitchen sink to boot. John
Not convinced by Bose
by niceblokedave - 1/2/07 6:09 AM In reply to: Interesting post. by jcrobsoI have owned some quite nice home cinema gear over the last 15 years (up to THX ultra) so i guess am entitled to my opinion on Bose. I have sold most of it off recently due to moving house and the wife complaining about the size of the system (yes that old excuse) so decided to buy an old Bose lifestyle 8 series 2 and not a new Bose due to the mixed reviews. I actually think the sound quality is quite good. Ok not as great as i am used to but i have not experienced the lose of clarity i hear so much about. There is a slight drop in mid range (the gap between the small speaker drivers and the sub i guess) but this is not my major concern for its price range or speaker size. The big problem is the terrible setup system that impacts on the sound heared. No test tones for individual speakers !!, no volume control setup over individual speakers !!, the surround volume setup buttons on the hand control are massive and to easy to press by mistake messing up your best attempt at a set up. The quality of the over priced speaker cable and interconecting cables is dire. I honestly believe they are the worst quality i have ever used but they sell for a small fortune considering.I know right now there is someone itching to type ' it's a 5 year old system !!' but even my first Dolby Digital amp 10 years ago had these basic essential functions i have listed above. This is not an anti Bose message more a be very careful one. We dont all live in perfectly shaped rooms and are prepared to design our living room around our cinema systems but that is what Bose appear to expect us to do with such an uncompremising setup system. The small speakers only make speaker positioning even more vital.
+ small speakers and unit
- Price, setup, Poor Customer support
It's not just the speakers
by crnmail - 1/2/07 9:08 AM In reply to: Not convinced by Bose by niceblokedaveDave makes some good points. I bought one of the higher-end Denon AV receivers a year ago, initially feeling that dropping $1000 on a receiver was a bit stupid. However, the 5 channel-by-channel set-up controls of volume, phase delay and mid-range were eye-openers. Typical rooms have terribly uneven acoustics, and speaker placement is compromised by furniture, room shape etc: being able to make all those adjustments made an unbelievable improvement in realism and sound stage.
All 5 of my AV speakers are Bose. Just to say that you have to look at the whole system, especially for home theater where there are five independent sound sources and lousy acoustics.
Still saving up for a good subwoofer...
I have one - Love it but has LIMITATIONS
by Azzuro10 - 1/4/07 8:37 PM In reply to: It's not just the speakers by crnmailHere is my 2 cents:
I have a 6 year old Bose Lifestyle 30. But I always look at Bose's new products. Here are the generice Pros and Cons of all of the Lifestyle systems:
PROS.
1) Small speakers and nice simple design.
This is very important to me. I personally believe that a good looking room, uses furniture or art to make it look good. Your sounnd system and speakers SHOULD NOT be the room's big feature. In that respect, Bose system looks discrete.
2) Good sound especially considering the size of the speakers. Generally, music is where it really excells relative to surround sound. Both are pretty good but for less money you can get much better sound in both departments.
CONS:
1) Mid-range sound. Like all small speaker systems that rely a lot on a sub-woofer, you lose detail in the mid-range. While the Bose system is perhaps the best small speaker sound system available (due to patented technology), it still doesn't truly eliminate this problem. A proper large speaker system is always going to be better in most cases.
2) Lack of expandability. This is by far the biggest limitation in my view. Bose systems have limited inputs and outputs and limited sound decoding capability. This means that if one day, you want to upgrade to 7 channels or add a Blu Ray or HD-DVD player or add anything else it becomes very difficult to do. When you buy a component system, you can upgrade your receiver, your speakers, your woofer etc.....you cannot do this with a Bose system.
My lifestyle system only came with coaxial input for digital 5.1 surround sound. As you know a lot products such as the PS3 and the Xbox 360 only have optical outputs. This meant that I had to purchase an expensive Optical to Coaxial converter. I also only have 1 digital input into my Bose. So you can see the limitations here.
3) Expensive. For what you get, its a huge premium.
CONCLUSION. Given that aesthetics are very important to me, that is enough to warrant the Bose system. However, if you don't care about looks, then go with seperate components as you can probably get better sound and more flexibility for the money this way.
What I have noted from all 114 posts.
by jcrobso - 1/5/07 11:50 AM In reply to: I have one - Love it but has LIMITATIONS by Azzuro10Many of our fellow members have older (5~8 years) Bo$e systems and like them given the limitations of the small speakers.
But for the most part the vast majority really don't like the NEW Bo$e speakers and HTIB. BIG $$$$$$ to but them, limited inputs and outputs and very low quality of sound.
I have listened to a Bo$e system in a friends home, the speakers that are in my HDTV sound better. John
i doubt it.
by lmckines2 - 1/5/07 3:49 PM In reply to: What I have noted from all 114 posts. by jcrobsoi haven't heard every single bose configuration but i do agree that for the price of most of the lifestyle systems you can put together a better group of separate components that sound comparable, if not better. i actually have the am10 v. IV hooked up to separate components in the den. i have a system with mirage speakers in the living room which costs twice as much. i can hear a difference but it's not so great that i would call the bose crap. that's just not the case. and there is no television on the planet that sounds as good as the am 10's. that's taking the joke a bit too far. i honestly don't know what most people are hearing or not hearing but no high's no low's muddy bass and invisible midrange pretty much equals no sound at all. come on fella's stop the hyperbole, it doesn't help.
I haven't heard all the Bo$e systems.
by jcrobso - 1/8/07 8:58 AM In reply to: i doubt it. by lmckines2And I don't want to! But the ones that I HAVE heard pale in comparison to really good speaker systems.
Mose Of the Bo$e systems that I have heard are the Pro systems and they create a vacuum. I have heard a couple of the newer home systems and was totally under whelmed and YES I like that sound of my TVs speakers better! Which is not saying anything good about the Bo$e is it.
Sound is a personal thing, I have been listing to speakers for over 45 years, there are a lot of speakers I like and a some I don't and Bo$e has the top 5 places on the list of speakers that I don't like. If Bo$e speakers cost one half of what they do I wouldn't be bother with them. I feel you should get what you pay for, If you pay a premium price you should get premium speakers!!! Not cheep little speakers in case hardened Peanut butter cases. John
The BOSE Myth
by EXCON - 1/17/07 5:11 AM In reply to: I haven't heard all the Bo$e systems. by jcrobsoNo I have never owned a BOSE product. WHY? Because I am an educated consumer who listens to the products he purchases and reads reviews. BOSE as stated in my previous post has the best marketing scam going since Debeers created the myth that diamonds are rare. Bose was is and probably always will be marketed to uneducated consumers who also tend to buy US Automobiles. There was a study a few years back that clearly showed that "educated" people tend to buy Japanese and German cars because of superior quality. I woult tend to believe the same holds true with buyers of BOSE. Ask yourself this question: What QUALITY Audio Component Company has STORES IN SHOPPING MALLS! Its geared to suckering in the uneducated consumer who simply doesn't know any better. The best part is that BOSE is such a ripoof that for all the money you spend on the garbage they manufacture, you can easily buy QUALITY audio components that actually will provide a TRUE HOME THEATRE EXPERIENCE.
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