[Sam Kapasi]

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html


Just thought some people would find this very interesting.

I'd like to state further for the record that the article on this webpage is somebody's personal opinion and that team-BHP does not advocate or demean any product from any brand.
(Just to be safe guys)

[Rehaan]

As they say,

Theres no replacement for displacement!
I guess that kinda applies to ICE too!

cya
R

[Rtech]

I gotto show this to my Dad. He has always pined after a Bose system.

[shuvc]

I read this one a couple of months back .. and talked a colleague out of buying a set - she ended up buying Yamaha + Klipsch Cinema 8 .. at half the price ..

My first exposure to Bose was in 1999 .. I was hell bent on buying some acoustimass speakers .. I remember my big bro made me see reason and practicality and talked me out of it .. I got a low end Sony setup with which I have been very happy since and am eternally grateful to him !


OT : Of late the Sonodyne Avant series has taken my fancy .. but am wiser now and will soon see reason again

[nitinbhag]

10 years ago, I actually went and bought myself a set of Acoustimass speakers.. Only then I realised how much they suck..
I have since seen the light and today I run a combination of Energy & Definitive Tech speakers at home..

[Fuelled]

Hurray!!!!
that means I own one of the better speekers in the market**.. the Cambridge Soundworks.

Thanx Sam


**Conditions apply - for details refer to the link provided in the first post

[bigman]

They are costly but not the boss. The gadget show in the UK did a test which involved sound engineers etc blind auditioning systems including the Bose one. It did not come top and in terms of value for money was abysmal.

[ksethuram]

Sam, a good find.

BOSE has good a marketing team within.. They make their products appealing to the user and use a few jargands to sell ... Ultimately they are not VFM.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

BOSE is the BOSS in sound systems.....
They are really good......
But too costly....

obviously you didn't read the post.

[navin]

In the mid 80s a cousin of mine (we were both living in the US) bought a pari fo Bose 301 Series II. A few years later he called me up and told me the speakers were making odd noises esp when the volume was turned up. Anyway (on the promise of free food and beer) i drove up to his place and found that the surrounds of the woofers had disintegrated.

A quick search (there was no Internet then) and we found a company called A&S Speakers that would sell us a pair of Bose woofers for $7 each retail. I later found that the tweeters for this speaker were available for about $1.50 per pair (each speaker had a pair). Anyway we got the woofers and I opened up the speaker only to find that the crossover was a single capacitor!

Total cost of drivers and crossover (in the retail market) was about $20 (this would be lower in the volumes Bose buys stuff). Add cabinets and you have a speaker that cost about $40-50 per pair to make and are sold at $300+ retail.

Ofcoruse there are dealer and distributor margins and cost of marketing and research etc.. but does it traslate to a markup of 500% esp since research and marketing is amortised over huge volumes of speakers.

[Samurai]

Ah! The Bose issue again. Let me quote some lines from an article I wrote in early 2004 in some other forum, I had reposted it in Team-BHP last year.

I am a former Bose Home Theatre owner and I have helped many friends and family setup their Home theatre systems. As I learnt more and more about Home Theatre systems, it became very important to get rid of my Bose satellite HT system so that I can design a good HT system from ground up. Bose speakers are mysterious since their specifications are never published except for power and impedence which are meaningless without futher info (more on that later).

1) The power handling vs performance of speakers can be very misleading. The sound level produced by a speaker doesn't just depend on the power, but also on the speaker sensitivity. For example, a speaker with 83dB sensitivity driven at 100W will produce the same sound level as a speaker with 86dB sensitivity driven at 50W. For every increase in 3dB sensitivity, the power required to produce the same sound is halved. In other words, 83dB speaker running at 100W sounds same as 95dB speaker running at 6.25W power. Amazing, isn't it? So, what do you think about the Bose speakers that claims to handle 200W while shying away to mention the sensitivity. What does that really mean without sensitivity value?

This was written with US resident Indians in mind.

First let me deal with the Bose issue. With desis, Bose is a big attraction, don't know why, but it is considered a prestige to have a Bose Home Theatre system. Even if you have a 10 times better HT system, your desi visitors and friends will still say "Hmm, not a Bose". No matter how much you defend your system, you won't convince them. That's the power of brand name.

If prestige factor is important, you would want a Bose HTS, and your choice is simple. Pick a dollar figure for your budget, and then look for the most expensive system within that budget. You are done.

[naveendhyani]

had thought last year of buying a home theatre system but cancelled due to financial constaints, guess it was a wonderful stroke of luck.

also now that i m a member of ever growing TBHP family, where each member is a doctor & engineer in his/her own capacity, i surely will make the right choice when the need arises.

[sk456]

Dont even get me started.......!!!!!!!...!!!!

[chetan]

guys i dont know how good or bad a BOSE is...recently my cousin bought a Acoustimass16 he looking for a good reciver can you guys suggest a good reciver for the 16 the budget is 70k

[quadra]

My frnd just bough bose headphones for 9k. One word, AWSOME.
There might be certain bose products which may not be good but those headphones are damns good