Opinions on my new system (1 Viewer)

[William_jones]

Kevin I would say that I like the way my system sounds with music as I previously stated. Its with home thater where it lacks, and I agree with many of the posters who who have suggested that it may be the surrounds. This weekend I am going to exchange the cubes and find something better.

Bill

 

[Angelo.M]

William:

You're on the right track. And don't worry about your 525 having "only 70 watts;" it's more than enough to drive most speakers in most rooms beyond the levels you will usually require.

 

[Steve_D]

http://www.ee.mtu.edu/ee/senior_desi...sign1/bose.gif

A Bose speaker freq. response chart. No bass, bloated midrange, rolled off (even non-existent) highs.

I would rather have White Van speakers.

 

[Chu Gai]

I wouldn't.

 

[Khoa Tran]

there is no way to savage anything that says bose on it.

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

I suppose it's time for me to share my own Bose story as well.

I purchased a set of Bose Acoustimass 10 speakers in December of 1997 for use in my dorm room. I bought these speakers for two reasons. One, I wanted a nice set of surround sound speakers for watching movies and listening to music. Two, I was completely sold on the Bose name. My brother had purchased a pair of Acoustimass 7's several years earlier, and, as a 12 year-old kid with no knowledge of what a speaker should sound like, I fell in love with them. When I purchased my own Bose speakers I didn't bother to audition other brands because I knew that I had the best I could get, based on what I knew at the time.

A couple years passed, and I found out about this forum from a friend. As someone who had just purchased his first DVD player, I had an intense interest in all things home theater. However, perusing through the Hardware section proved to be quite a surprising experience. I found several threads similar to this one putting down the Bose brand, calling it a rip-off for the high prices and poor performance. "What? Huh? What are these guys smoking? Have they even heard what good Bose system sounds like?" I simply couldn't believe my eyes. I immediately wrote off these opinions, assuming that the bozos who wrote them just didn't know how to set up their systems properly.

Yet, as the months went by, I quickly realized how much these bozos here actually knew about home audio. As I learned more and more, I discovered that these people did in fact know how to set up their systems properly. In fact, they did it with a degree of accuracy and perfection I never even knew existed. In addition, a couple of my dorm mates had surround sound systems of their own which sounded far better and cost much less than my Bose speakers. At this point, I knew that the Bose speakers had to go. So, I sold them on eBay, and purchased a set of Home Theater Direct Level III bookshelf speakers. For about half the money I spent on the Bose, I got speakers that sounded twice as good. Eventually, I replaced those with a set of Diva by Swans speakers, and those sounded even better, at only a couple hundred dollars more than the Acoustimass 10's did.

William, you are headed down the same path. You recognize that something doesn't quite sound right with your system. Trust me and everyone else here when we tell you that it is on the receiver causing the problems. It is the speakers. If you can, sell the Bose system on eBay. One good thing about Bose is that it has a high resale value and you can use the money from that to fund the purchase of a new set of speakers. Take a good look around and see what you can find. The difference in quality will astound you.

 

[Khoa Tran]

yes we are all smoking the pipe and eating the brownies

 

[Robert_Gaither]

When my friends ask what kind of speakers I have in my HT set-up and I tell them Bose they are immediately impressed.

No offense William I don't know you and don't consider you a friend, so I won't lie to you to protect your feelings like I might if you were my friend . Sell these Bose POS on Ebay (most of the people there aren't my friends either ) and use to money to upgrade your system. After than welcome to the club friend .

 

[dajaga]

im sorry if some one mintioned this but try to find a dealer who sells paradigm. i am pleased with them. try finding a local paradigm dealer. i bought a sub rears center and ffronts for about 1600 dollars canadian

 

[JeremyFr]

I can say as being someone who used to work in retail theres only one thing that makes bose great to a salesman generally almost 25% of the price in your pocket each sale. Next we used to have a little saying when I worked retail "if it's got no highs and its got no low's it's gotta be Bose!"

Bose is simply a marketing giant thats all they do is market market market, dont believe me turn your tv on at 2am and you're bound to find at least one of there infomercials on with the likes of some famous jazz musician trying to tout that "this little radio sounds just like the $50,000 Steinway piano sitting next to it!" and other BS. What other company do you know of that spends 10's of thousands of dollars to set up a special room at retailors with one of there reps and a system that is equalized and amplified out the ying yang to try to impress you into buying there speakers (please noone mention nuance! hehe)

The sadest part is you can buy the same parts that bose uses in there speakers and make the exact same speaker typically for well under $100 the cubes would cost you about $20 bux to make a piece and then say about $50 to make there "acoustimass" module (notice they never call it a subwoofer since that would just be out right lying) It's truely quite sad to see the masses of people that rush to by there products as if they are lemmings jumping off a cliff.

There are much much better systems out there that cost half as much and still can retain close to the same small size you get with Bose.

A few of these include the Energy Take 5+1's or Take 5.2's, also the JBL I believe NSP package is not much bigger and gives sound 10's of 100's times better than Bose each of these systems can be had for less than half of the cost of any Bose "acoustimass" system.

I can only hope that one day someone will finally put Bose in there place in a very public and embarassing manner.

One last thing look through trusted publications and see how many have ever actually had a chance to perform any type of actual scientific testing of Bose speakers, better yet email them or call them requesting information such as frequency response or power handling etc, all you'll get is nothing notta zip zilch, and hey if you want to try to publish test results see how quickly there legal staff contacts you. I smell a scam how about anyone else??? unfortunately a completely legal scam thats gone on for 10's of years now quite sad really that as Americans our government can allow us into getting suckered into buying such sub standard overpriced things.

Well thats my rant sorry if it seemed harsh.

Jeremy

 

[Steve Adams]

it's the same with bose in the car. my dad's benz with bose system sounds like crap! Im putting an alpine/boston/jl audio system in my benz when it gets here in the fall! Bose is junk! gotta love the marketing dept there! Lemmings is right dood!

 

[DaveGTP]

I love that frequency response chart someone posted above - from ee.mtu.edu - I went to Michigan Tech for a year, would still be there if it hadn't been for a bad car - I was an EE major, too. Trust the engineers!!

Trust the science over the marketing hype. There's a reason no one else makes tiny tiny surround speakers and sells them for $1000. Bose attempts to pass it off as technology. I am no audiophile, but I understand technology and physics of sound. There is a reason good speakers are a certain minimum size.

I have been in the market for a good budget system for the past year or so. I had the same H/K AVR-525 receiver picked out as you (I will end up going cheaper, though, due to budget constraints.

A little research on Bose on google or here on the HTF will find that they refuse to let their speakers be reviewed, and will threaten lawsuits, actions, etc, against anyone who tries to do so. I know sometimes that it is hard to admit you made an error. We all can be bamboozled by companies. If you don't want to believe the forum, try a few google searches. Look on Cnet.com - they have many audio reviews, yet no Bose reviews. Notice someone retail also chimed in on the thread that the speakers have a huge profit margin. It's all a marketing game.

 

[William_jones]

Talk about getting maulled! All I wanted was opinions on my system instead I am getting lessons on why Bose is such a bad product and I am thankfull for it.

I did some intensive auditioningg this weekend. I listened to several different speakers: Paradigm, PSB, Mirage, Infinity, JBL, and some other Bose models. here are my impressions (400 to 600 dollar range a few paradigms less than $400.00) I thought everything mentioned above that I could A/B test against the 601's sounded better except the infinity speakers I listened to. I was lucky enough to find a dealer that sold paradigm, bose JBL and Mirage all under the same roof. The sales person spent hours with me setting different speakers to the out puts on the same reciever I owned, All these speakers sounded much better than the 601's. I even found a $200.00 set of paradigm titan speakers I thought sounded much better. The clarity for the price really amazed me. I also really liked the Mirage speakers but they were a bit more expensive than the paradigms I was comparing them too. The PSB's were also very nice and had a similar sound to the paradigms.

When all was said and done I think I liked the paradigms the most for the price and have decided to purchase a set as soon as I get rid of my bose speakers (afriend is very interested in them and thinks i'm nuts for getting rid of them LOL)

I'll post some more once I decide which paradigms I will go with. Thank you all for your help. I love this place already.

Bill

 

[JeremyFr]

YAY!!!! I can now sleep better tonight knowing that I as others helped you find true audio nirvana and save yourself from the hell called Bose Let us all know when you get your Paradigm setup.

 

[William_jones]

I sure will. Just got off the phone with a friend who claims to be an audiophile telling me he never heard of paradigms. He asked me how they could be better than bose if they are so hard to find and if hardly anyone owns them. I offered to sell him my bose set-up for $100.00 less than what I paid and he accepted. Looks like I will be getting those 'digms sooner than I thought.

Bill

 

[William_jones]

I may just go for broke and get their reference series speakers.

Bill

 

[JeremyFr]

hehe sounds nice, you'll never look back! Just remember us all when you're sending out christmas cards! hehe

 

[gregD]

We've done a good thing here...

I'm proud of us.

 

[Steve Adams]

good, I have psb's and I love them. but pardigm is a sweet speaker as well. I just would not buy them because of the dealer here, bunch of lame asses! jack the price way to high..! good luck with those speakers in your setup. now, all you gotta do is ditch those bose in the dumpster!

 

[Jaime B]

To everyone who posted on this thread;

!

JaimeB