Are my Bose no good? (1 Viewer)

[Pete_Jr]

I have had these for about 8 yrs now and when I finally got the money for them I thought I was king sh!t. I have the 501's series V for the mains and 3 VS-100's for the center and surrounds. I just purchased a HSU VTF-2 at the beginning of the year and have a Denon 4800 receiver to power all of them.

I have never really heard any other really good set of speakers(unless you ask my father and his heathkit) and was wondering am I going to be SHOCKED when I dump the Bose for something better? I was looking at the M&K S-150 setup and heard nothing but the best about these speakers.

I know the Bose never really had any base but the HSU takes care of that now and it made a big difference. I have a high end receiver which makes them sound alot better than my old sony. Also my DVD player has excellent sound quality(Sony DVP-S7000).

So is it possible with this setup that the Bose could sound good? Will I be shocked with the M&K's to justify spending 3500-4000? The range on the Bose, which is never documented anywhere, am I missing all kinds of sounds?
Thanks any info would be great!

Pete
PS I watch all of this on a Toshiba TW56F80

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

The best you can do is go and hear for yourself. Bose is usually trashed on this kind of forums, yet, I urge you to listen first and then read the opinions of those who don't like Bose.
I think that their most trashed systems are the ones that use tinny speakers, in part because the price. I have not listened to any Bose equipment so I don't have a personal opinion.

 

[BrianWoerndle]

Their old speakers are ot as bad as the current tiny cube systems. What you have are probably not as bad as the Bose reputation would lead you to believe. But, with the receiver you have, better speakers would definatly be better.

 

[Johnny Mac]

No. If you like them, then they don't suck. Personally, I like the way some Bose speakers sound. A friend of mine has some 301's and they sound pretty good to me. You aren't gong to get the twinkly highs of a pure metal tweeter but some people don't care for that sound anyway.

 

[Chu Gai]

well you've had them for a while and if you're thinking of making some kind of switch, the only thing i'd recommend is that you take your time, define a budget, and go listen, without your credit card!, to as many speakers as you can. consider where you'll place them in your room and when the time comes simply make sure whomever you purchase from has a reasonable return policy. the one thing I don't recommend is buying speakers one hasn't listened to. you may also want to investigate the 'slightly used' speaker market but that may require more of a leap of faith upon your part.

 

[Jason Co]

Pete,
I can relate to how you are feeling. I actually went and bought my Bose at the outlet. I was a victim of the "sound room performance". Yup yup, bought those little speakers right after I walked out of the room. I got the acoustimass 7, 3 double cubes and the bass module. I, like you, thought I was the baddest dude on the block when I set those puppies up. I thought they sounded pretty good until I spent $200 bucks on the center channel I convinced my wife I needed. Once I got that hooked up the sound pretty much went downhill (coupled with the fact that I listened to my first pair of Klipsch and Paradigm speakers.) I kinda feel bad because my neighbor saw my system and went out and got himself a more expensive Bose setup. Well to make a long story longer, I hooked up with Marc Hallam and now I run an all-Axiom setup (which rocks btw). My advice to you is if it makes you happy, who cares what anyone else thinks? There are a million different speakers out there, choose wisely....FOR YOURSELF!

Jason
p.s. Anyone wanna buy some Bose stuff....LMK.

 

[ChristopherD]

The only sure way to know is to A/B models in your home against the Bose.

 

[Ricky Hustle]

No. If you like them, then they don't suck.

I second that statement. Bose do have the ability to sound quite well, regardless of the fact that you may have overpaid for them.

 

[Richard Harvey]

Rick's assessment is correct. It's not so much that Bose are "bad" speakers, just that for the price you pay for them you could have much better speakers. This by itself does not mean the sound you get out of Bose aren't perfectly good and acceptable for many people.

I've been through the upgrade loop more than I care to think about, and looking back I think that too often I would get myself worked up because of threads on the boards here that some new miracle piece of hardware would revolutionize my setup, and I'd buy it just because everyone raved about it. In hindsight, the first question you should ask is "am I pleased with how my HT sounds and preforms?" If the answer is yes, it doesn't matter if you have a $300 HT-in-a-box setup from a no-name company -- you already have everything you need. If the answer is no, don't assume that what is working for the other guy is what will be good for you. Hit the stores, use your eyes and ears, and buy what YOU like. Ultimately you have to be the person happy with your investment.

Rich

 

[Angelo.M]

Pete:
Do your Bose suck? I'm not sure, do they?
Seriously, if you like them, then what I think shouldn't matter. In my opinion, however, Bose sound passably good, but nothing close to great, and you can do much better for the money that they're sold for.
I remember how proud one of my closest friends was the day he brought the 201 bookshelf speakers home. Hooked them up, played a CD, and I walked around the room to test out this "Direct Reflecting Technology" business. What a load of bunk. They sounded thin, the imaging was horrifying and the soundstage was underwhelming at best. But he loved them, so who am I to have told him what I thought, considering he didn't ask!
You pays your money and you takes your chances... That gives you the right to decide if you like them.
Adding to the confusion,
AM

 

[JoeyT]

Hope you guys can take a joke
If you put your hand over the mid-bass woofer port you can clearly tell Bose does not suck. Rather, they ...lol.
Seriously, if you like them who cares what anyone thinks. I think part of the reason they accell is b/c they:
a. know how to sell/market (which I respect)
b. they understand the importance of the almighty WAF.
Hope you didnt mind the little joke

 

[Doug BW]

I'm not sure that in this case I would agree with the people giving the advice that says "If you like what you've got, stick with it".

In Pete's original post, he says that he's never heard any higher priced system, and that he's (apparently) willing to spend up to $4000 on new speakers.

So even though he may be somewhat happy with what's he got, he really has no idea what he might be missing. And that seems to be what he's asking....is he missing a lot or a little?

I would guess that with that kind of budget, almost anyone would be able to find speakers that would give them considerably more pleasure than Pete's current Bose setup.

The best advice (as someone said previously) is for him to go audition some good speakers. And spend a lot of time researching and listening to lots of stuff. Worst case, he'll end up sticking with his Bose. Best case, he'll find some stuff he really loves and will end up kicking himself for not upgrading sooner.

Pete, whether you'll be "shocked" and decide that Bose "sucks" when you hear other stuff will depend on your ears, your taste and how much you get excited about good sound. But there's such a big chance that you will hear a big improvement that it's definitely worth your while to spend the time investigating. Good luck!

 

[Holadem]

I am totally with Doug. I think we are now witnessing a BOSE backlash backlash .
--
Holadem

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

Some of those Bose speakers sound so different due to their direct/reflect technology.

It's like setting "normal" speakers set to wide stereo mode or having them reflect sound off the back wall and to the listener.

I did notice their frequency response was rather bad at my friends house but that could be due to the room. Remember bose doesn't post specs on their speakers because they don't believe in them. They believe in better sound through research.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I used to own Bose 601 Series II tower speakers (purchased in the mid-1980's). When I first started building a home theater, I incorporated these 601's with 201's as surrounds and the VS-100 center speaker that you are using for center/surrounds. While the 601's and 201's were not bad, I think that the VS-100 (and VCS-10, which I also tried) are the worst center speakers I have ever heard, especially at the outrageous price that Bose charges. These are single-driver speakers, and cannot reproduce the entire audio frequency ranges necessary for the critical center channel. Everything sounded muffled, like something was covering the speaker. Voices were anything but natural sounding.

Do yourself a favor and audition some quality speaker brands. A few suggestions include B&W, Paradigm, Energy, Klipsch, JBL, and Boston Acoustics (I'm sure that other members can offer many more suggestions). You will be amazed at the difference.

The best thing about Bose speakers is that they have a rather high resale value. I sold my old setup to a coworker for a small amount of money (I couldn't charge "market value" for Bose to someone I knew). He kept the speakers for less than a year, and sold them for a profit on Ebay to pay for a speaker upgrade. He even commented on the terrible sound of the center speaker compared to his new budget Acoustic Research sub/satellite system.

 

[David Werner]

Pete_Jr-M&K make very good products and they offer a 10 year transferable warranty on their products Link Removed
I believe that their speakers are 4ohm rated and you should verify your receiver will be able to handle this. For me, I used to own M&K speakers, I liked them and they worked fine for me, I then became fascinated with ribbon tweeters and subsequently sold the M&K's and purchased Diva Swan M1's.
From my experience, (Take with a grain a salt) the people who have placed BOSE on the top shelf "Oh ya, Bose." "Can't go wrong with BOSE.", have not listened to much else (Besides what other speakers were at the Sear's store, etc.). I used to own BOSE 401 or 301's can't recall model, bought them at Daytons and thought "Right on!" A local electronics store salesman asked me to try out his Klipsch KG2.2 to see how they compared. My "Right on" attitude soon led the BOSE back to the returns department at Daytons, the KLIPSCH killed them.
The moral of the story is it's your money to spend and the speakers are for you to listen to. For me I like to do the research on the net first to narrow down a list, then take it from there. If your in an area without many brands to listen to, you can always look into internet direct as they typically have a 30 day trial. Good luck.

 

[DennisMc]

LOL... I bought my Bose am-7's at Daytons (now Marshall Fields) 11 years ago and I'm now finally going to retire them. At the time I didn't know any better, I bit like so many do. If they still had an electionics dept., I'd try to return them

 

[JoeyT]

Have you guys seen this link? Makes an interesting read.
http://www.intellexual.net/boseframes.html

 

[Lew Crippen]

Thanks, Joey. Its mostly very well done, with only a small amount of the emotion that must have driven him to this much analysis in the first place. I’ve never seen anyone quantity why Bose (especially the system considered) is not worth the money before.

 

[Mark Romero]

I have 2 pair of 301's and a pair of 601's. I have had both for almost 10 years. My 601's are connected to a small Aiwa shelf system and my 301's are for my HT setup. Maybe not the best speaker system but I have been happy with them over the years. I will be ready to get some new speakers sometime next year. I will let you know then if my Bose suck or blow or whatever.