Not for nothing, but in the current economic climate, finding a company that will not only honor their warranties but will do so directly and without any handwringing at all, as well as putting out a world-class product that is also affordable, is indeed a rare and wonderful thing.
I bought a set of Bose over-the-ear headphones for travel. I don’t much care for the so-called noise-cancelling-with-white-noise kind, I’ve found every brand I’ve tried inferior to those that insulate and cover the ear including, I hasten to add, Bose.
The little plastic circle dealie broke, rendering the set less headphones, more headphone, with dangling earcup.
I called them today, the set broke in November, the warranty was up by a week, says the surely beautiful and definately helpful Audrey at Bose. I sank, thinking “shite, how much is this gonna cost…” and before I can finish the thought, Audrey chimes in and says: “Of course we’ll replace those for you, free of charge, here’s what you need to do”.
They stopped short of sending someone to the house to pick them up.
I will, henceforth, purchase as many things Bose as I possibly can. They have a customer for life.
I bought a set of Bose 301 speakers in the '70’s. A friend of mine had a set of 701’s. Best speakers ever. I love Bose, if you can afford them, buy them, you will not regret it.
I have Companion 3 speakers that had some sort of component go on New Year’s eve, about an hour before my party, which was a shame.
They’re out of warranty so I have been trying to buy replacement parts - and have been on hold several times for up to an hour with nobody picking up. Not only that, but they won’t even undertake paid repair work for units purchased outside the UK.
There’s nothing quite like having a company totally surprise you and do even more than “the right thing” in modern times of terrible customer service.
Last summer one of the temples of my Maui Jim sunglasses snapped off. The sunglasses had cost a few hundred dollars back in 2000, but they were definitely out of warranty and I was just hoping that the cost to repair would be less than buying a new pair. I shipped them off, expecting a repair bill of ~$100 or so.
Imagine my surprise when I received them in the mail some weeks later, with a new case and both temples replaced, and a “free of charge” receipt!
You’ll get no argument form me that BOSE is the epitome of excellent marketing, ease of use, and customer service.
Too bad their product is overpriced to comparable products, uses cheap materials, and refuses to publish any type of specs on their items.
There are several Dopers, myself included, that have worked at their corporate headquarters in Framingham, MA. It is called “The Mountain” and the research facilities are quite impressive. They have been working on a supposedly revolutionary car suspension for years but I don’t think that it has hit the marketplace yet.
There is a legitimate reason why they do that. A lot of their products like the Acoustic Wave are developed using psycho-acoustics rather than plain acoustics. Regular acoustic specs look all screwy for those types of products but the human brain interprets them differently which is what matters.
Could you give me a few examples of comparable products? I am going to have to replace my system, and would love to get something of equal or better quality, for less dosh. Thanks!
You’d be better off getting something 2nd user if you want the most.
I don’t think all that much of Bose stuff, it has a tiring sound, good for a little while but not for long periods - dunno why that should be.
Look at Quad stuff, too expensive new, but second user is fine.
Revox 2nd user is still quite pricey, but is very good.
You could also look at certain KEF, or B&W speakers, some are very good, or even the Bang & Olufsen speakers, however they went to active speakers and anything you get would be fairly old - still very good though, chances are you would have to do some work on the spekaer suspension, which is costly and sort of gets away from what you are trying to achieve.
If your looking at something like the Bose Sub/Sat systems I’d much prefer something like Polk Audio’s system. The sub is actually powered and the satellites have a tweet and a mid.
Cambridge Soundworks also sell decent sub/sat systems which rival Bose and are half the cost or less.
Dr. Bose is the only billionaire that I have met personally. He was still an MIT professor when I worked there and yet he owned one of the largest private companies in the U.S. The research facilities there are well beyond impressive. They have whole buildings dedicated to cutting edge sound performance and most of that comes from some of the best engineers in the world dedicated to that. They are not a shoddy company at all and their headquarters employees about six thousand people. They even have whole auditoriums dedicated to sound performance for large groups of employees and they encouraged us to use them. You can make fun of it all you want but the company is marketing based but also for bleeding edge research in psych-acoustics.
It’s good to hear something good about customer service nowadays. Bose does put out a good product, though I always feel like I can get something as good for much less.
My first Bose purchase were speakers for a stereo. They were small for the time period, but put out a sound that was beyond the larger speakers in that price range.
When the noise cancellation became available and I was going to be flying abroad, I bought a pair and have loved them ever since. Two football games is my limit in one day. My husband will watch every game and commentary. With the headphones I can still spend time with him and read while he watches the games. I can also play electronic eyeboards if I choose.
It’s a good thing I bought them for my flight. Our seats were right at the wings.
I was just about to post the link cheapbastid did. I am glad to hear Bose has good customer service, and am not surprised. Bose has always been about the perception of high quality (not actual quality) and good customer service is part of that.
But…fif you are considering buying speakers from them, like a home theatre in a box setup, read the link and just don’t do it. If you are willing to have larger speakers there are so many brands that are better for the same or less price it is mind boggling…my favorite bang for the buck is internet direct speakers like Ascend Audio. For those that want similar sized speakers to the Bose, most of the major speaker manufacturers make lines of small speakers that will sound as good as the Bose for less money (Orb Audio makes really good smaller speakers). There is a big tradeoff on size versus sound quality, so you will never get great speakers in a compact shape, but sometimes you have to make the wife happy. Remember friends don’t let friends buy Bose.
For what it is worth, I think their headphones and the wave radio, while pretty badly overpriced, are decent products.