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The Case Against Bose (long)

Posted by Dalancroft (A) on September 10, 2002 at 10:14:36

A co-worker of my wife's casually mentioned that he was lusting after some silly Bose speaker set to accompany the very nice 43" Toshiba HDTV he'd recently purchased. Since one of the mottos of this forum is, "Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Bose," I authored the following document. May it become part of the anti-Bose canon, and corrections/suggestions/feedback welcome.

THE CASE AGAINST BOSE
Or, “Why Marketing Genius Does NOT Equal Good Sound”

Bose FAQ:
http://home.earthlink.net/~busenitz/bs.html

My main distaste for Bose is two-fold:

1) They are insanely overpriced given the quality of materials (drivers, binding posts, cabinets, etc.) used in their construction. A five-speaker set such as AM-10 that retails for a grand or more literally has about a hundred bucks of parts. Now, I know speaker companies need to make money to stay in business, but a ratio of retail price to build costs of 4 to 1 is more in keeping with the industry standard.

2) The speaker sets for which I have seen actual measurements (Bose won’t publish them, for good reason) show HUGE holes and inconsistencies in frequency response. In their top-of-the-line AM-15, the “subwoofer” (really just a woofer, not a true sub) goes from about 46 Hz to 200 Hz, then the satellites pick up at 280 Hz and go to 13.3 KHz. That’s with a very ragged response curve with variances of +/-10 decibels (clearly audible — most good speakers are within +/-3 db and very good ones vary by 2 db or less) and also leaves a hole from 200 to 280, which is a critical area of midrange, especially for male voices, piano and acoustic bass/guitar!

Some technical background is in order. At 20 Hz, a single sound wave is 57 feet long! (That is why the thud of those lowered Honda Civics playing rap music through dual 15-inch subwoofers seems to go right through your walls.) That wavelength halves logarithmically as the frequency rises, so at about 80 Hz, the sound waves become smaller than the human head. At that point, the human ear can pinpoint the source of sound waves, which means that one will be able to hear voices and music coming from the Bose “sub.” That is why a true subwoofer of any quality will go down to about 25-30 Hz and then hand off to satellite speakers at around 80-90 Hz. Many A/V receivers have built-in crossovers at this point for just that reason. So Bose’s lows are faulty.

Another consideration: a driver of 2.5 inches in diameter is incapable of reproducing neither midbass to that 80-90 Hz threshold, yet is too large to reproduce high-frequency signals (above 10 KHz) effectively either. Bose’s highs are faulty as well.

All of which has led to a saying among audiophiles: “No highs, no lows, must be Bose.”

It’s important to note that you will read some good reviews and even some outstanding ones — however, they are almost unanimously from magazines in which Bose spends significant advertising dollars. For many magazines, Bose is their largest ad buyer. And they’re not going to risk biting the hand that feeds them! But here are some reviews from more objective sources:

http://www.t3.co.uk/rev_print.asp?rev_id=1792
http://www.graskinhometheatre.bigstep.com/generic.html?pid=9
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/SoundAndVision/FrameSet/0,1670,_sl_SoundAndVision_sl_Article_sl_0_cm_1653_cm_105_2127_1_cm_00,00.html [specs]
http://www.home-entertainment.co.uk/grouptest_read.asp?GroupID=739&ArticleID=741
http://www.homecinemachoice.com/frame.html?http://www.homecinemachoice.com/testbench/SpeakerPackages/Bose/BoseAcoustimass10A.shtml

General information and review sites:
www.audioreview.com
www.audioasylum.com

Conclusion: Many people buy Bose for two reasons: first, Bose’s huge marketing budget has convinced the general public that they sell a superior and/or high-quality product, when it is in fact neither; and second, many people (particularly women) prefer the small, unobtrusive nature of their sub/satellite speaker sets. Yet there are other products in this price range — and even much less — that are also small and unobtrusive yet absolutely stomp on Bose for sound quality. These include:

-Klipsch Quintet (comes in white; I used two for surrounds at 4943 Chateau Drive [my previous address-Ed.] and was quite pleased with them for a small space. Mounting brackets are integrated for easy installation and placement)
http://dvd.ign.com/hardware/19.html

-Definitive Technologies ProCinema 80 (also comes in white. This is the package my Bay Area friend bought when his wife was convinced that Bose was the answer to her aesthetic requirements. They listened to them side-by-side and both agreed that the DefTechs were FAR superior.)
http://www.definitivetech.com/reviews/PrCn80HT.pdf

-Paradigm Cinema series
http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/paradigm_cinema70.htm

-Energy Take 5.2
http://www.audioenz.co.nz/2001/1003.html

-JBL NSP-1 (I now use two JBL N24s for my rear speakers. There is an all-weather model that is slightly more expensive and comes in white. Perhaps the best budget deal out there, as the street price is $300-350 for the whole package minus subwoofer. Includes mounting brackets too.)
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/SoundAndVision/Article/Features/priceright0130/priceright0130p06.html

-KEF KHT-2005 (suggested retail is pricey, but eBay often has them cheaper. These are my favorites but I’m partial to the warm, smooth, “British” sound, not to mention their very trick UniQ technology)
http://www.homecinemachoice.com/testbench/frame.html?http://www.homecinemachoice.com/testbench/SpeakerPackages/KEF/KEFKHT2005.shtml
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1379747936

Feel free to use at will. As the cliche goes, forewarned is forearmed!

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The Cable Cooker

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