BOSE=BIG profit (1 Viewer)

[Mark Austin]

Jerry,

Making a killing by selling a mediocre product is the BOSE way.

Isn't mediocre in the eye of the beholder?

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Tom Brennan wrote:
"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."
LOL My Midranges are made out of a blend of Magnesium and
Aluminium with a welded voice coil former, Hemispherical
cone (no dust cap),Die Cast Aluminium Basket, Butyl Rubber
Surrounds and they cost $75.00 each...
My Tweeters are constructed of pure Titanium with a Diamond
Harnening Process and Anodized for looks. The magnets on my
Tweeters alone would Dwarf the magnet on a Bose 6.5" Mid
Woofer.
Face it.. Bose uses garbage drivers with garbage paper cones
and garbage electronics and even worse cabinentry..

Real speaker companies show real specifications for important
factors like Frequency Response and Sensitivity rather than
say "You will love the Big Bold Sound"... Yeah if Bose published
specs then perhaps people would wake up... Why does it only
play from 150 Hz to 13Khz they might ask...
But I digress!

 

[Brian Bunge]

What if I said I can (and have) built a complete 5.1 speaker system using 5 cubes using 3" full range aluminum drivers (7"H x 5"W x 6"D) and a relatively small 8" sub (or bass module) that will extend down into the mid/low 30's with a 100W amp? What if I also said it would easily outperform any of the Bose systems? And what if I also said I could sell it for $500 and still make a decent profit?

Brian

 

[Mark Austin]

Brian,

That would be impressive, no doubt. The first thing you would need is an impressive marketing budget to get those puppies into people's hands. Of course, that would also increase the $500 benchmark.

 

[Brian Bunge]

Mark,
Nah, I'd do internet only! If it's good enough for SVS...

Brian

 

[Michael R Price]

Don't bash paper speakers. Kevlar (or other) reinforced paper pulp is a very stiff woofer cone material well suited to bass drivers and many high-class speakers including Scan-speak, I believe, use them. Not to mention the Shiva and Tempest subwoofers. (Of course I'm biased though since my own speakers use such materials, and I do like them.)

BTW, Brian, impressive system. I'd like to see more about it. What drivers and materials did you use?

I applaud Bose, they are a very intelligent company and know how to take advantage of the market to get the profits they want. However, if you're experienced and know where to look, you learn to avoid them. Sometimes you aren't as concerned with the quality of the product, and just want a quick solution. When you go to the grocery store you don't spend hours taste testing the foods and making sure you're getting the best quality stuff (as we do with A/V stuff). However, those are $2 products and not $2000 products. It's all relative, though... I'm sure there are many products people like us would just say 'Hey, it's xxx brand it must be good so let's get it' and spend money on it without careful consideration. This is just like people walking into a store and dumping $1k on a crappy Bose system without listening to anything else. I don't see anything wrong with it. We do it all the time, just not for HT.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Michael,

If I am not mistaken, the best speaker Scan-Speak has to

offer in the Mid-Woof category would be the Revelator Series

and they use Ribbed PolyPropelene Cones.

Paper is a cheap material... Once you add comosites like

Carbon Fiber or Kevlar to the mix you don't exactly have

a "plain" paper cone anymore.. Bose uses cheap paper with

hemp fiber.. BFD... They would be more stiff if they used

Spruce Fibers..

The point is, Bose Drivers probably cost a buck to manufacture

where as others cost signifigantly more..

 

[JerryW]

Isn't mediocre in the eye of the beholder?

No.

 

[Tom Brennan]

My point was that most of the small box speakers people tout as far superior to Bose share common problems with Bose--high distortion and power compression. Bose or Paradigm, they sound more alike than different to me. And compared to compression drivers from JBL, Altec, TAD and Radian even the finest dome tweeters are cheap and toylike. As to materials; paper is an excellent material for woofer cones, listen to a 40 year old Altec 515 before you judge. Titanium was first developed as a diaphragm material by JBL, the purpose was to get higher power handling in compression drivers than with aluminum diaphragms (which were used since the late 1920s) as titanium is more resistant to fatique. In their best driver JBL has now reverted to aluminum which has more extended highs than titianium. The proper way to build good loudspeakers was pretty much a done deal by the late 1930s, (with the exception of the Quad 57 in 1957 of course) the improvements since then have been mainly in making bad speakers better and not in improving the good ones. Thus the glut of small plastic, kevlar etc. drivers trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But small woofers in small boxes still sound bad, they just sound better than they used to.

 

[ReggieW]

Bose or Paradigm, they sound more alike than different to me.

Really?

Sir, you seem to have pretty good knowledge when it comes to speaker construction, but do you seriously think those tiny Bose cubes sound like Paradigm studio 40's? If so, I guess nearly everyone on this forum needs their ears examined, because to me, they sound NOTHING alike. I would venture to say that they sound much more different than alike.

Reg

 

[Tom Brennan]

Reg---Oh, I wouldn't say anyone needs to get their ears examined. But I think people have different frames of reference and differ in what is important to them in sound. To me the most important things are low distortion, clarity and lifelike dynamics. I want the reproduced sound of musical instruments to have the full dynamics and strength that actual instruments in my room would have and I want it done with no sense of strain, that's a tall order but doable. So when I hear small direct-radiators, which all have the common faults of high distortion and poor dynamics, they sound more alike than different to me and one is as undesirable as another. Now speakers with lifelike dynamics and very low distortion need not cost much, you can get a pair of used Altec A7 speakers on Ebay for about $1000. But such speakers will be very large. Most speakermakers (and customers) don't want to deal with precision 15" woofers in 14 cubic foot boxes and expensive compression drivers and horns. So they make the speakers small, use small inexpensive drivers like Vifas, Peerless, Audax, SEAS etc. and try to make a virtue of necessity.

 

[John Garcia]

Bose are marketed towards, and are successful thanks to, one primary factor - The Wife. "How Cute. And they make noise..." If they ran an add that said "Yes they're expensive for what they are, but you wife won't complain because they are small..." do you think they would still sell as many sets??

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Tom,

Stop please... You are cracking me up over here..

"But such speakers will be very large. Most speakermakers (and customers) don't want to deal with precision 15" woofers in 14 cubic foot boxes and expensive compression drivers and horns. So they make the speakers small, use small inexpensive drivers like Vifas, Peerless, Audax, SEAS etc. and try to make a virtue of necessity."

Small and inexpensive? Price any good Vifa or Scan-Speak

or Hi-Vi Research tweeters and mids lately?

What is any more expensive about Horns? From what I see..

The best horns you can buy (seperate motors and horn bezels)

are still only priced around $100-$150.00 each MAX... You

can easily spend that much on high end tweeters.. My 1"

Ti Domes cost $76.00 each and they are a far cry from the

most expensive.

I can tell just by the way you talk, that you are a vintage

speaker guy.. And hey that's cool.. But to say that there

have not been improvements in technology and materials in

the past 5 decades is just an absolute farce.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Brett---You are misinformed, a JBL 2426 1" compression driver costs about $300 each at Parts Express. A GOOD horn will run you about $150 each depending on how low you want to crossover, the lower you crossover the bigger and more expensive the horn. My Edgar saladbowl horns, allowing crossover at 700hz, run about $600 a pair. If you want to use 2" throat JBLs you really ante-up, about $500 per driver. And JBL horn tweeters run about $500 a pair. And if you want to use TAD drivers, considered by some the very best, expect to pay about $900 per 1" driver and about $1500 for 2" drivers and about $800 each for their tweeter. Even used Altec and JBL drivers are very expensive, expect to pay about $300 for used Altec 1" drivers and I've seen used Altec 515 woofers go for $900 a pair. Such high efficiency drivers are by nature expensive to make; 19000gauss fields call for huge magnets and very tight voicecoil gaps; edgewound voicecoils in underhung structures are needed and compression drivers need precision machined phase-plugs made of multiple small concentric horns. I'm unaware of any normal hi-fi drivers that cost this much, new or used, ScanSpeak or Dynaudio included. Brett, I don't deny that there've been vast improvements to small direct-radiating loudspeakers, unfortunately still none of them sound as good as a 1950 Altec or a 1957 Quad ES. (IMO of course .)

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Tom,
I am glad you added "IMO of course"

 

[Jeremy Little]

Isn't mediocre in the eye of the beholder?

Yeah, I wouldn't even say they meet this criteria.

I have a really good AcoustiMass question. If the "Bass Module" goes from 46 to 202 Hz and the Cubes go from 280 Hz to 13.3 kHz, where does the frequencies in between 202 and 280 come from? What happens to frequencies above 13.3 kHz? Wouldn't this be a major design flaw? I've heard bass is not directional, i.e. you can't tell where it is coming from. Well, wouldn't you be able to tell where 200 Hz is coming from?

 

[Tom Brennan]

Brett---Oh yes, it all comes down to opinion in the end, especially as home loudspeaker designers don't even agree on what a good loudspeaker should do, much less make one.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Tom,

Amen to that..

P.S I would like to see pics of your setup.. Do you have

any online?

 

[BrianWoerndle]

I have a really good AcoustiMass question. If the "Bass Module" goes from 46 to 202 Hz and the Cubes go from 280 Hz to 13.3 kHz, where does the frequencies in between 202 and 280 come from? What happens to frequencies above 13.3 kHz? Wouldn't this be a major design flaw? I've heard bass is not directional, i.e. you can't tell where it is coming from. Well, wouldn't you be able to tell where 200 Hz is coming from?

Jeremy:
It just is not there. You just miss out on what you should be hearing. That is half my argument aganist Bose. I don't care what they are made out of. Even if it were made out of some space age material, if I can't even hear half of it, I don't want it.
Bose are not just bad because of materals. It is the overall design that makes a bad speaker much worse.

 

[Steven Hen]

The only bose product that I have ever owned are a pair of Series I 901's. I have them mounted in my warehouse which measures 100' x 30'. These speakers are 30 plus years old and still sound quite good. Maybe it's just the warehouse environment that makes these things sound good or maybe bose made a better product back in the late 60's early 70's, I don't know. But I've never had any desire to replace them and they run every business day, 9 hours a day.