Here are the specs from Amazon, although I understand it might be smarter to buy it from Bose. I’ve lusted after it for years, but is it worth $450?
considering it likely costs them $25 to make, and relies on 1940s technology (transmission line speaker enclosure,) I’d have to say no. people get all wow’ed because they hear some mid-bass/low-midrange from 2" speakers and get all starry-eyed. Bose has been selling this thing since 1993 under a few different names, no idea why you’re “lusting” after it.
The guy at the high-end stereo shop said to us, as we were looking at/listening to systems, “No highs, no lows, must be Bose.”
This Yamaha system looks like a good alternative.
I asked a relative that was into electronics about these a few years ago.
He pointed out that all the ‘testimonials’ on their infomercials were senior citizens - they probably never heard a really good sound system and probably can’t hear the full range of sounds…
It’s actually hard to find a review that compare the Bose Waves to anything else.
Look into Denon D-M38 and Cambridge One+.
Shortly after we married, a friend of my wife’s came over to our place on what we supposed was a social call. Turned out he and his wife were actually trying to persuade us to sign a contract to purchase a Bose Acoustic Wave (at least they didn’t try to recruit us to sell them).
They were very enthusiastic about the sound, but seemed almost insulted when I asked to see a spec sheet.
Got one as a present. It has great sound for an alarm clock radio. Pretty nice for small footprint situations.
I’d use one for an office or bedside but its not going to take the place of my main entertainment system.
As with just about all Bose products you can get the same quality much cheaper if you take the time to do research. In my situation it was a case of my non-audio file wife wanting to get some quality sound and being willing to pay more than needed in order to insure that I’d like it.
Hey! I’m a senior citizen.
I will look at the ones you suggested. Several of the Yamaha reviews compare it to the Bose, saying it’s just as good or better.
You are a senior citizen? Then you must get a McIntosh. It is for old people, it has tubes.
People may find that $25 hard to believe, but with the economy of scale they get from the high production needed to supply all the old people watching Fox News (and ThelmaLou ), $25 may be high.
Was at a demo for some speakers that went for a cool quarter-million bucks a pair. The guy running the demo (the company’s founder and owner) said that the money was all in the design and the fine materials (faux stone countertop material because it’s very dense, laminated into 14"x14"x48" blocks because the material was only available in 3/4" thickness–those bastids were heavy!) and not the electronics. “We use the same $35 drivers (speakers) and outsourced crossovers as everybody else.” A few hundred bucks in materials, another few hundred more for labor, maybe $1500 each out the door. Three grand magically turning into a quarter mill, and why? Because people are willing to pay it.
He later quoted me “a buck and a quarter” for a theater surround system, but “only seven-fifty if you just want them painted black. Yes, the real wood veneer (remember that a veneer is less than 1/16” thick) for seven speakers and two subwoofers cost half a million dollars. That would be a lot of Beanie Babies (literally, in this case). I think in this one case my customer actually said, “You got to be kidding,” because the speakers we ended up using listed at a tenth as much.
What you should take from this is that what a company charges for a high-end product often has less to do with its true cost than with what the market will bear. Bose has marketed the Wave System masterfully, using its audiophile reputation (I lust after a pair of 901s, myself) to build the cachet of a product that is just a pretty good tabletop radio so that people are willing to pay over four times what would be its suggested retail price if it were made by a regular, mass-market company and sold at Target.
So my answer to the question in the OP is: It’s worth the steep price if it’s worth it to you. Just don’t be surprised to find your friends laughing behind your back.
Or you can take the same money and spend it on a much nicer system. Some of those microsystems (like the one you linked to above, though I don’t know anything about that specific one) do just fine. The biggest question is, what do you want to do with it.
If all you want is the radio or your iPod on while you’re washing dishes or moving around in the house and you want to be able to hear it from one room to the other and you’re really not all that concerned about quality. Save you’re money and just go spend a hundred bucks on something that looks nice. If you actually do want some real bass*, you either have to get physically larger speakers or a separate subwoofer. There’s some other questions to ask (budget, do you want surround sound for your TV while you’re at it, what are you going to plug into it (just the radio, or mp3’s/CDs as well)) but I think the first question is…what’s your intention with it.
Actually, the most important question is…is it something you’re going to use for long enough to make it worthwhile to you? If you’re going to play with it for 3 months and then forget about it, then it’s not worth it at all.
*By ‘real bass’ I don’t mean shaking the windows. Adjusted properly, you don’t even know it’s there, but turn it off and suddenly everything sounds a bit flatter.
Yes, I’m a Senior. And not being feeble-minded, I know the difference between speakers and turntables.
A genuine old person believes that a speaker is the entertainment for the week, and that a turntable changes the directions of a train or trolley. Whippersnappers.
Bohlander?
There are a few Dopers that have worked at Bose headquarters. I say the following as a person that is still pissed at them because they laid me off but I do know the way they operate. A lot of the criticism directed at them in general is not justified in the least and I would say it is completely misguided. Bose is not a company that runs consumer scams. It is basically an offshoot of an MIT research lab that Dr. Bose started and became one of the largest held private companies in the U.S. and by far the largest one that does true academic research as a part of its core mission. It has always focused on easy to use consumer products that deliver impressive results from small packages. In short, it is like the Apple of the sound world except it is older than Apple so maybe comparison should be turned around.
It is completely inaccurate to call any of their stuff junk. You have to see all their R&D facilities to appreciate why that is not true. It is like the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of the sound world. Bose invests a tremendous amount of money in the best R&D labs that money can buy. Quality control is an obsession. They make much of their money not through consumer products but through exacting products like military aviation headsets. They invented many of the sound breakthroughs that you see in other products like effective active sound cancelling headphones.
Their stuff could be considered over-priced because their are so many near copies out there for cheaper but they invented the ideas. Audiophiles tend to hate Bose products mainly because they tend to be mentally ill but also because they like tinkering with equipment to get just the right sound to their ears even though that is an impossible task. Bose doesn’t play that game. It is strictly plug and play and you get what your system does. Some people like that and some people don’t.
BTW, saying that Bose produce frequency charts of their equipment is missing the point. The whole idea is about psycho-acoustics rather than just acoustics. Simple acoustics are easy. You just pile a bunch of speakers backed up with a whole bunch of other equipment in a room and let it rip. Psycho-acoustics is way harder. It is a real branch of neuroscience that tries to mimic a large sound in a small package. That is what Bose tries to do and most people think they do it well.
I’m familiar with the Bose company, and fully support it. My RL has a Bose system in it, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
Both my parents have Bose systems for home audio, and I have no idea why. I know now.
They spent hundreds on something they didn’t need. I like Bose, but I hate how they have to market themselves.
I have tons of Bose equipment because my wife used to work for them.
I have two Bose Wave radios but only because I got them for free. They were prototypes for a Wave-based PC speaker system they were developing about a decade ago, and my wife was a big part of the project at the company. I agree with the above; it’s a decent clock radio that wouldn’t be worth the price they want at retail.
I also have a Lifestyle HT system she got cheap, and I think it sucks, especially for music. Instead of “no high, no lows” it’s more like “no mid-range”. Watching surround sound (which uses proprietary Bose surround, rather than industry standards), I always need to turn up the TV volume as well as the center speaker to hear dialogue.
I also have Bose environmental (outdoor) speakers – the better model – and they’re OK, but lack low end. I would really like to update these to some Definite Technology or Klipsch outdoor speakers and maybe a subwoofer to match.
My new car has a Bose system in it, but that’s actually pretty good. I know they spend time tailoring their system for each model.
You better smile when you say that, Bubba. I’m NPR all the way.
Actually there were more than turntables on the site, but you have to browse around.
Thanks. I’ve been shopping off and on for a radio to replace this Sangean internet radio. I really don’t like the speakers and/or amplifier on this model. There doesn’t seem to be any definition and I don’t really need the streaming/internet portion for my purposes as it turns out.
edit: plus I have yamaha receivers for hdtv and office areas. I have some complaints about the interface but they’re older models. Happy with the sound.
Then why would you need good audio? No snark intended, and I was the first one saying that us half-deaf old people need good audio more than young people, but my NPR station is almost entirely talk these days.