BOSE=BIG profit (1 Viewer)

[kevin_tomb]

Bose has some of the largest commissions of any product made. Its as simple as that. Both the salesman and the retail outlet and BOSE corporation make a huge profit on BOSE products. Trust me I do this as a living and know for a fact. Some observations:

1: older people love that damn WAVE radio !!

Dont try to tell them its not worth $400 dollars

2: Couples LOVE the cube systems cause the wife makes the

final decision and many husbands can only get home

theatre by giving in to what honey wants.

3: Bose is basically cheapo stuff that is marketed

extremely well. How many other speakers have ads in

magazines and TV??

4: BOSE will contunue to dominate the mediocre JOE 6 PACK

market because the average person who buys them is

convinced they are "just awesome" "its BOSE !"

5: Every time I sale one I just laugh to myself.......

 

[John Garcia]

1) The wave radio is actually not that bad at all. I was impressed with it. Is it worth the price is a different story...

2) I don't let my S/O dictate what the stereo willl be. If I want it, I buy it. Maybe I catch some grief, but I still have what I want. I'll compromise on something else, not the audio/video gear.

3) I wouldn't call it cheapo, there is a lot of engineering that goes into their gear, but I do think they are not even close to worth what they are charging for them. They want to keep them in a certain price range so that not every J6P has them. They want to have people to see them as a status symbol.

4) Agreed.

5) I saw a guy walking out with his "2 speaker bose home theater" the other day. I was saying to myself "He's so proud of himself, and he has no clue..." A salesperson overheard me...he laughed and agreed.

 

[Ron Shaw]

It really amazing that they are still milking (and I guess selling) the '901' direct/reflecting speaker system Amar Bose developed in the late 60's. Just a bunch (18) of 5 inch full range drivers not unlike the ones I can get for 5 bucks each, and requiring an equalizer that uses 18db of boost at 20 Hz! Talk about poor efficiency! (crappy imaging, too!)

 

[BrianWoerndle]

After owning an Acoustimass system (Only for a short time before I started to become more informed) I know their weaknesses. The only thing they are good at is giving you a large indirect sound field. As for the sound quality, It is fine, for what range it actually hits. 20-120hz, 250-400hz, 13000-20000hz are non existant in their Acoustimass systems. Those are som pretty big holes to match the ones in your pocket after buying them.

 

[kevin_tomb]

Yeah I remember hearing the 901s for the first time...talk about big disapointment !! No real imaging ,poor deep bass, muddy upper bass and mids....poor highs....Actually they use 4 1/2 inch drivers. Great speaker size for awesome high frequencies huh??.///..lol...Bose is great at making unusual speakers and having people think unusual is the same as great or better. Hardly any of their speakers have sounded better than just OKAY. I remember hearing the 601 in the late 70s and thinking it was good but that could be bad memeory...the old 501 was okay but had weak highs. actually my favorite BOSE product would have to be the AMIII (the bass cube with 2 tiny sats) It does sound "okay" but not worth the price, but its influence on other cheaper brands to move away from the typical "JOE 6 PACK" tower speakers with 4 tweeters and huge 15 inch woofers with silver surrounds etc alone has made it influential. Bose isnt horrible, actually not at all...just very average and living off a name that commands respect (sadly not true)Radio Shack in the seventies and early eighties made several speakers that were laughted at big time, but in all honesty they sounded not much different than bose and other than selling them at very low prices could have competed with BOSE. Replacement drivers for Radio Shack and BOSE speakers are laughably low priced, liek under $15 dollars for tweeters and under $25 for most mids and woofers. You get what you pay for.

 

[Marcus Lewis]

"2) I don't let my S/O dictate what the stereo willl be. If I want it, I buy it. Maybe I catch some grief, but I still have what I want. I'll compromise on something else, not the audio/video gear."

Amen brother!!!

 

[Scott Simonian]

The problem is is that they are very good whizzer cones.
I wouldnt mind having them free, built into mah tv.

 

[Kenny Booth]

I own a bose wave radio.

I'm reminded of the anti-drug commercial on tv in which a coke-head is snorting different items up his nose, I guess to represent what he could have had if he'd not been a coke-head. In one clip he snorts a radio. The reason it's not a bose radio is because the coke would be worth more. Nuff said.

 

[ling_w]

I walk into many high end stores that deals with many very expensive gears, and they will be carrying Bose. I guess they have to carry something that will walk out the door on their own, to the right kind of people.

 

[Jeremy Little]

There are some who will just buy BOSE even if you told them that the paper they were made from won't last a year. People think they are just THAT GOOD. I've never understood it, but I'd love to have been given the opportunity to invest in BOSE in the beginning. What a killing! I mean, when has anyone ever bought something that only the manufacturer itself brags about how good they are. Very few other reports have yielded similar results. That's the awesome power of marketing, I guess.

 

[Tom Brennan]

I don't know why you guys get on your high-horse about Bose. I don't think many of you are using speakers that are much better or much better made either. Do you guys really think those Madisound catalog plastic woofers and tragic domes with 8 oz mud magnets in most speakers are really much better than Bose drivers? Most speakers today are electrodynamic distortion and compression generators, Bose isn't much worse in that regard than most other brands.

 

[Thomas_A]

YOur right... Bose may hae same quality as some speakers...problem most have..is they charge way to much for it. Bottom line... value:

 

[kevin_tomb]

t

 

[kevin_tomb]

oops messed up my last post......above...lol

Tom its not that were on a HIGH HORSE. I own polk audio towers from the late 80s with a velodyne CT-120 sub. Hardly what id call "high end", but for what I paid for polks and velodyne a great value. What we are all complaining about is how bose tries to say they are a cut above all other normally priced speakers but dont have the "SOUND" to back it up. I mean take the BOSE 201 or 301 for example, they sound perfectly "OKAY" not bad just okay. Now sold at full price they are a joke. if they were about 25-30 percent less they wouldnt be made fun of then. With bose you arent getting what you paid for. You are getting a marketing GIANT and a corporate name. Trust me as I do this for a living, if you do a blind comparison of bose with many other low priced decent speakers BOSE hardly ever wins and many times people just dont know which is better. In the end a lot of times the cheapo speakers are the winner but they decide to go with bose anyways just cause of the name....their reasoning is: "well it must be made better even though the cheaper speaker sounds kinda better", or even better : "well ive never heard of POLK or INFINITY they must not be well known" THat one is a killer...!!!

 

[Mark Austin]

What's wrong with making a good profit, isn't that the American way?

 

[JerryW]

Making a good profit by selling quality product IS the American way.
Making a killing by selling a mediocre product is the BOSE way.
See the difference?

 

[ling_w]

I thought selling junk at high profit is the American way? Look at SUVs, dressing up a $15k pickup truck and selling it for $40k.

 

[BrianWoerndle]

Tom,
The materials Bose use are only half the battle. Sure they are the same as many other manufacturers, but it is how they are designed is where the problem is. I know this because I owned an Acoustimass 10 system for two years. Paper or not, a 2 1/4" wide range driver can not put out a full range of frequencies. I have seen actual test data on the Acoustimass 10 system. The cubes can reproduce a range of 400hz to 13,000hz. The Bass module uses 3 - 5 1/4" drivers. They are not able to produce low bass. You need a 10"-15" speaker to accurately reproduce anywhere near a 20hz frequence. It is the basic laws of physics and how it can manipulate the air to make sound waves. A small speaker can not do it. The Acoustimass module covers a range of 80hz to 250hz. So in the end you are missing 20hz-80hz, 250hz-400hz, and 13,000hz-20,000hz. That's alot. It doesn't even make a difference on how good the paper cone sounds when you are not even hearing almost half of it. As they say: "No highs, now lows, It must be Bose."
As for other manufacturers using the same materials, that is only partly true. Anything you buy at Best Buy will be the same, but there are high end shops that carry better speakers that are not that much more expensive. I spent $1000 for my Bose system, I replaced it with a $1300 Paradigm system. Here is what I have now:
Paradigm Monitor Series:
1" Pure Titanium Dome Tweaters
6 1/2" Injection-Molded co-polymer polypropylene cones with diecast aluminium chassis.
I have been there and done that, and moved on to better speakers. There is a hugh difference.

 

[ReggieW]

That's correct Tom. I think the problem with Bose is what they're charging for a mediocre speaker package. The popular JBL NSP-1 package uses mostly the same materials as Bose, but they are a QUARTER of the price of the Bose setup, and definitely sound better as they are capable of handling the frequencies you outlined which those tiny Bose cubes lose due to physics. I have the NSP-1 package and auditioned them along with the Bose package (with a run-of-the-mill Sony DE receiver) while viewing the pod race sequence in the Phantom Menace. It was no contest....The NSP-1 won hands down...and they were only literally a small fraction of the cost of the Bose set. I sincerely could not think of a worse value for your money than a $1,000.00 pair of speakers lacking the basic rudiments of sound reproduction, Bose or otherwise (afterall, Bose claims that their 3.2.1 system ALMOST gives you 5.1 sound from two speakers!?!?). Keep in mind that for what Bose is charging, they shouldn't even been in the same league as the NSP-1's, but up there with the likes of Atlantic technology, Boston Acoustics, Paradigm, etc, but could not even begin to compete with these similarly priced speakers. They should definitely be superior to the much cheaper NSP-1's in both sound and build quality, but no cigar here either.
Reg

 

[Jeremy Little]

I don't know why you guys get on your high-horse about Bose. I don't think many of you are using speakers that are much better or much better made either. Do you guys really think those Madisound catalog plastic woofers and tragic domes with 8 oz mud magnets in most speakers are really much better than Bose drivers? Most speakers today are electrodynamic distortion and compression generators, Bose isn't much worse in that regard than most other brands.

I am far from being on a high horse. When people tell me they like BOSE because of all the good things they've read on them, I ask them where they read it. It was usually that wonderful full page BOSE ad in some News magazine or perhaps it was that wonderful late night Infomercial paid for by BOSE. It was never a Magazine that knew what they were talking about. I purchased JBL speakers which do sound a lot better. I bought towers and a 250 watt PB12 sub for less than an Acoustimass system and am proud to say it would kick an AM-15's ass.

This debate will never die, I guess. What it really comes down to is their attitude and artificially inflated price.

$600 cd alarm clocks, space-age paper cone speakers (since when is Manila hemp space age, unless they are referring to the fact the technology was invented post 1960's after we've already been in space), specifications intentionally written to dumbfound their buyer (just what does "for recievers rated 10-100 watts and 4-16 ohms" really tell you anyway?), and sales reps that can't answer any questions you have (just ask the OKC rep who doesn't like to visit our store anymore. We asked too many questions. He got tired of skirting the issues).