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Ok tell the truth, weren't most of you impressed when you 1st heard a Bose AM system? (1 Viewer)

Brett DiMichele

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Jim,

Actualy if Bose's goal was to take the bass transducer out

of the enclosure to make the cubes small, then Bose still

failed seeing as how there is a HUGE hole in the FR from

the "Bass Module" to the "Cubes"!
 

Chris Tsutsui

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Yeah, I saw that bose sold full towers, but I never hear about them. I think Boses focus is on the market of their small cubes and "subwoofer". Maybe if they focused on developing larger speakers then their market would include the ppl on this forum.

Call it whatever, but my eyes and ears both agree... that it is a sub.

Subwoofer -- This is a separate speaker used to handle the bass of movie soundtracks, and can be used with the Low Frequency Effects channel in the new digital sound formats. These speakers can sometimes handle frequencies as low as 15hz.
 

Jim A. Banville

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Look at the "holes" in these frequency response graphs from some other system's simialr to the Acioustimass... http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/pdf...nstant_lab.pdf . The Bose system may have a bigger "hole" in an anoechic(sp?) chamber, but what about in a real room? Has anyone made measurements on the system when placed in a room?
Call it whatever, but my eyes and ears both agree... that it is a sub.
It's funny how many people would agree with this. They just can't grasp the concept of a "bass module" that ISN'T a subwoofer. Odd. KEF used to have a non-powered floorstanding speaker that had a woofer completely inside the speaker that vented through a tube. Would you call that a built-in subwoofer? I hope not :)
 

KeithH

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Jim, why can't Bose make normal speakers and subwoofers that perform like everyone else? Enough with the cubes and bass modules already! The point is that Bose, in its quest to make something different that it could put a marketing machine and new terms (e.g., cubes and bass module) behind has made a number of lousy and overpriced products.
 

ReggieW

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I agree with Keith and others. I have never said that Bose sounds downright awful (I've heard worse) per se, but that they don't compare to similarly priced speakers - and in some cases, speakers which sell for a FRACTION of the cost. The 999.99 3.2.1 system which I had the opportunity to thoroughly listen to and tinker with at Best Buy last week should sell for a quarter of its price. Period. I could hear, nor see anything that would convince me that this unit warrants its one grand asking price. I don't even want to start with their Lifestyle systems which are laughingly overpriced, with their flagship Lifestyle-50 system literally going into Martin-Logan territory!?! I bought a JBL NSP-1 package with the N-26's as my mains two years ago and was considering a Bose Acoustimass setup at the time. The JBL's were a fraction of the cost of the Bose, and to this J6P's ears (at the time), the JBL's simply sounded MUCH better through a Yamaha 5250. There is no question that Bose has the resources to design better speakers at lower prices if they decided, however, since they have become the most profitable speaker company in the world selling the over-priced junk they sell, I don't think they'll be tailoring their company to engineering better speakers anytime soon. Hell, their motto should be "better sound through marketing" instead of "research" imho.

Reg
 

Chris PC

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Maybe what would be more entertaining is if someone could make something "almost" as small as the Bose system but with sound quality that would crush Bose in a comparison. Perfect example would be a small cube speaker with one KEF driver with the tweeter inside the midrange driver. Yes it would be bigger than the Bose, but smaller than most any bookshelf. Then mate a nice REAL subwoofer to it. Bring it to a store that has the $1200.00 BOSE super ripoff system set up and do an A/B double blind test with customers. If only you could take over a store that sold Bose, just so you could save the inexperienced from the Bose sound :)
I remember hearing a system with the 901's and it was "impressive" because it played loud and had a "spacy" character. But that was 16 years ago when i was a green high school student. My neighbour actually has a pair of 901's and he turned it up to impress me and the other neighbours and so to be polite i half heartedly agreed by saying "cool". Of course, back at home, even my humble 2 way Boston Acoustics had better sound with particularly more clarity in my opinion :)
I have also had to say to another one of my friends who owns the Bose cubes that its pretty cool for the size. He was majorly working on the WAF, so you can't argue with that and he is no audiophile. Yes, Bose could sound worse for the size, but why the heck doesn't Bose actually invest a dollar or two and realize you can't blend a 2.5" tweeter/midrange with a (sub)woofer the way they have.
 

shankar

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Jim, why can't Bose make normal speakers and subwoofers that perform like everyone else? Enough with the cubes and bass modules already!
On the contrary aren't many speaker manufacturers trying to emulate the cube bass module concept? BTW, if we are all going to identify speakers as "small" in our 5.1, 7.1 HT setup, (of course with a subwoofer present) why would we buy tower spakers any more?

Incidentally, I read this other thread about Bose using some high priced systems behind the screen in one of their lifestyle DEmos. Yesterday, I was in a local ABC Warehouse store where they were running a Demo with Lost in Space playing. The unit was in the middle of the room and they had no expensive amps hooked up to it. It sounded pretty good actually.

The sound field was large, but but it was not clear. The roaring spaceships did not travel seamlessly from speaker to speaker as it does in my HT. It was just all over the place.

There was a LOT of bass but it was not LFE. Since the bass module works even at 150+ Hz, the real bass effect was not felt. What I mean by this is that when there was an explotion, it did not "feel" a lot different than when a space ship flies by. At home, the explosion hits my stomach...

They are overpriced by at least 500%
 

Ted Lee

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heck...

i used to be a bose FAN! i've owned the 201, 301, & am 7's.

i just thought the acoustimass setup was awesome!!!

"Hi....My name is Ted. I used to be a Bose fan."
 

Chris PC

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All I have to say about the subwoofer or bass module thing is....you've got bass becoming directional above 100 hz or so and you've got a woofer module that doesn't go lower than 40 hz and you still have a hole between the woofer box and the satelitte cubes. At least if the cubes could put out frequencies low enough to blend with the bass woofer box module or whatever the heck you want to call it, then it wouldn't sound so bad. We know the module can't plumb to depths, but it can't go up too high either or you'll localize it. Hole. i've heard it. The sound you do hear is not totally distorted, but the hole is there and some sound is missing.

Looking at that graph link you can see how the Sony speakers are, well, crappy, but they aren't sold as leading edge technology and thats fair, and yet, the Bose which are so high tech, they're response is no better than the cheapo Sony speakers. Incredible but true.

But again, was I impressed the first time I heard Bose? I think its the first time I learned about what i was told affecting my judgement. I was told they were good, so i guess I was impressed that I was staring at a small cube but hearing some 50 hz music. Bose is Bose.
 

Chuck C

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When my dad brought home an AM-5 stereo CD player system in 1991, I was floored (just a little punk kid at the time).

I'm glad it broke in 1995.
 
Joined
Mar 25, 2002
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My 15 year old AM-5's were unplugged last night. The Paradigm Monitor 7's are on the way. I did plug in my Mini-Monitors after the AM-5's were unplugged and was sorta shocked. Could it be that the Mini Monitors sounded better than a full AM-5 system? Yep... But, I've owned the Bose for 15 years, and when they came out, high end good stuff was so expensive ( not that 650 for the Bose was cheap then ) that I went with what I thought was newer and greater stuff. But, enough about the past. The AM-5's are unplugged, and I'm waiting for Monitor 7's and my Velodyne sub. I'm moving onward and upward.
Thanks to all you guys for the entertaining Bose bashing. Maybe I'm a loser, but they did make some noise for 15 years. The quality of noise was probably not good when hooked to audio testing equipment, but they made some noise nonetheless. Goodbye Bose, Hello Paradigm. :D I can't wait.
Thanks Guys,
Kevin
P.S. Anyone want a set of "slightly used" AM-5's? ~snickering~
 

Alex F.

Second Unit
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Aug 29, 1999
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I can think of no other loudspeaker company that has been in business for so long and offered, to my ears, such minimal performance. I heard the original 901s when first introduced, and many of their cube models since. I am still waiting to be even slightly impressed.

What do their research and development people do all day to keep busy? To these ears, everything other than developing high-performance loudspeakers for consumers.

It's a shame, too. Their enormous profits could go into developing some wonderful speakers, if the company so desired. I've waited about 30 years for this, and I'm still waiting.
 

Sebastien David

Second Unit
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Dec 4, 2001
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I'm proud to say that I wasn't fooled.

Without much experience in the audio realm, I stumbled upon a Bose demo where they had the sats coverd with a big box covered with cloth, to make it look like big speakers might be hidden inside...

Well, my first comment to my girlfriend was "no way big speakers like that sound so tiny". I could tell right away that there was a bass module or other sub somewhere, and even though I didn't know anything about Bose, I can recognize when big speakers are playing as opposed to small sats and a "sub".

But that's probably due to bad calibration, at least in some way.
 

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