"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

Well, I guess that in the end, it all comes down to opinion...

No, it doesn't. As the elderly Chinese man says in "Gremlins"... "To hear,
one need only listen."


but if I were slagging off Bose, I'm not sure that I would be admitting
to owning a TEAC. Some of their stuff is some of the worst I've ever
had the misfortune to work on, and it also is not what I would call
cheap.

I'm no fan of TEAC tape recorders. (I've owned one, and heard others,
including TASCAM.) They just don't sound very good. But some of their
stuff -- such as their executive systems -- are decent.


When I was talking about "visitors to my workshop", I was referring to
other
service engineers, so not just "off-the-street" casual observers. Whilst
we
might not be loony audiophiles, we have between us collectively, a great
many years of experience in the business, and unless we knew what
basically sounded "right", we would not have survived as independant
repairers, as long as we have. Therefore, contrary to your opinion of
these
people, I have a great deal of time and respect for their observations.

Of course... They're your customers. How else would you feel about the
people who purchase the services that keep you in business?

My problem is that your/their description of the sound of the Wave is so
at
odds with, not only what I've actually heard, but the obvious limitations
of
two small speakers sitting almost on top of each other in a little box,
that
it's simply unbelievable. You can't get good imaging out of speakers about
a
foot apart.


Having owned your 901's, have you actually had much experience of their
other products on which to base your (apparently) heavily slanted
opinions?

"Heavily slanted" implies that my opinions are based on something other
than
a resasonably objective view of the issues involved.

I've had experience with several Bose products (see below), none of which
even began to live up to the exaggerated claims made for it. They might
have
other products that are of excellent quality. But Bose has a truly lousy
track record among serious listeners. When there is so much other "good
stuff" out there that costs the same or less, why bother with Bose.

About 20 years ago I bought a Denon DT-400. (I think that's the model.)
This
was a two-piece table radio that sold for $400. The speakers were two-way,
and had excellent sound -- far, far superior to the Bose. Furthermore, you
could separate them for "real" stereo.

I recently retired it for some Lux components I pulled out of storage and
a
pair of Mission speakers.


If it took you a year to figure out that they were no good (for you) it
begs the question of how you came to buy them in the first place,
and just why it took you so long to come to the conclusion that you
had seemingly been duped, and that they were crap?

Did you start out knowing everything? Has your judgement about things
always
been correct?

I worked for a year in a photo/hi-fi store. Bose was one of our top
brands.
I heard the 901s nearly every day, and brought in familiar recordings for
comparison. The 901s were better than anything else (including AR & KLH).
(We also sold the Bose 501s and 301s, which did not wildly impress me.)

I bought two pairs of 901s. (I had then, and still have, surround sound.)
When they arrived and I hooked them up, I was utterly surprised to
discover
that they sounded (overall) NO BETTER than my KLH 11 FM portable. They
were
not particularly clean nor transparent. It took me a year to figure out
they
were junk. Sorry about my "slowness", but we're all ignorant or hide-bound
in various ways.

I replaced the 901s with DQ-10s. The Dahlquists delivered almost
everything
the Boses only promised. They actually produced a plausible, layered image
in which you could hear the relationship of the ambient to the direct
sound
(in good recordings, of course). The 901s, in contrast, generate a
artificial ambient "spew".

The only "honest" review of the 901s appeared in Stereophile. Bose waited
several years to send Gordon a pair, because they no doubt knew he would
trash them. He did. Indeed, he didn't criticize them enough. You owe it to
yourself to read the review. You can find a link in this Wikipedia
article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation

By the way, I altered the Wikipedia article to correct a misquote from the
Stereophile review, and added an additional quote.


As far as listening tests go, my colleague's dealership has many high-
end systems from the likes of Yamaha and Pioneer and Technics available
for audio evaluation, alongside his Bose range, and still he manages to
sell
them, so I'm not sure quite how that stacks up ...

I've never considered Yamaha or Technics "high-end". Pioneer used to sell
high-end components; I don't know if they still manufacture them. The idea
that Bose equipment is "high-end" is ludicrous beyond belief.

I have plenty of experience with live sound and live recording. If I
thought
Bose 901s provided "the closest approach to the original sound", you can
bet
I'd own them, despite the fact they aren't horribly expensive. They don't,
and I don't.


I often wonder when attacks like this on a company start, just what the
attackers believe was the motivation for the creation of that company,
and
how they believe that it manages to keep going. I mean, do you honestly
believe that a couple of guys sat down over a beer a few years ago and
decided that they would produce poorly designed equipment, and charge
a totally unrealistic price for it?

Well, there are people who do that, but I don't think Dr. Bose was one of
them. Rather, I think Dr. Bose is a cloth-eared intellectual idiot who has
a
poor understanding of the (proper?) philosophy of sound reproduction.

The first Bose product was the pricey 2201, a kind of sophisticated "Sweet
16". Each speaker system was an eighth of a sphere containing 11
full-range
Carbonneau (sic) drivers. They were driven by a Hammond Organ transistor
amplifier, and used active EQ to flatten the response.

Or more precisely, to shape it. You see, the gentleman who founded
Soundstream (I forget his name) worked with Dr. Bose to determine what a
"perfect" sound source radiating from a corner into eighth-space would
sound
like. (I won't go into the technical details, but "on paper" their
research
made sense.) They claimed that the sound of the 2201 was indistinguishable
from a perfect eighth-space radiator.

In other words, within the context of eighth-sphere radiation, the 2201s
were perfect. (This claim, which was covered in moderate detail in Bose's
early literature, was an influence on my purchase. I had not, at that
time,
heard QUADs. Or Advents, for that matter.) I no more believe this than I
believe Emanual Velikovsky's writings. The only speaker I've ever heard
that
sounds "live" was the Plasmatronics. Even the best non-ionic speakers lag
noticeably behind, and the 901s are light-years distant.

Part of the Bose design theory (which applies to a greater or lesser
extent
to all their speakers) is that single overwhelming factor in a speaker's
sound quality is its omnidirectional power response. Though this theory
(which strongly inform's CU's speaker tests) has never been properly
discredited, it is patently absurd, as one can easily find speakers of
extremely high sound quality that have relatively poor omnidirectional
power
response.

Just because someone has a PhD and comes from a country noted for its
intellectual achievements, doesn't mean he actually _understands_
anything.

By the way, the current Bose literature ignores the original claim of
sonic
perfection. This is likely because they figure the non-audiophile reader
won't understand it, but it's also possible that such a claim would bring
the roof down on them.


Do you think that their accountant then agreed that this was a cracking
idea, and sure to be a long term success? Did they then go out and hire
a couple of designers from the poorest audio background that they could
find, and give them free reign [sic] to go ahead and design exactly what
they liked, no matter what it sounded like? And having established this
business model, have continued to be successful with it for many years?
In today's business environment, where anyone who cannot turn a
healthy profit rapidly goes to the wall, I rather think not.

There is at least one Website whose owner claims to have dissected Bose
speakers and discovered relatively cheap drivers of questionable quality,
as
well as inferior cabinetry.

You are assuming that high-quality products will be commercially
successful,
low-quality products won't, and their success or failure accurately
reflects
their quality. 'tain't so, McGee. The easiest way to make money is to lie.
Bose doesn't tell the truth, and is also probably lying (ie, consiously
speaking an untruth).


I might add that I have no particular allegiance to Bose, and I wouldn't
say that their kit represents particularly good value for money -- to me
at least, but I am interested to know just why their products always
come up for such a kicking on here, whenever anyone is naive enough
to post about one.

Because Bose speaks with forked tongue. Their products aren't very good,
but
Bose claims there are none better. Only one other audio company makes such
claims -- QUAD -- but it has real justification for them.

People need to be told over and over and over again that Bose's claims are
simply not true. And if all they want is a single-box plug 'n play unit,
they're getting exactly what they deserve.

Bose products are the market equivalent of the fruitwood stereo console of
45 years ago -- convenient, attractive, and mediocre. But at least the
fruitwood console was cheaper than separate compoents. Bose products
aren't.
The customer spends more and gets less.


They are certainly no worse sounding, or have any worse on-paper
specs than many other makes of high-end audio.

What in the name of heaven do you consider to be "high-end" audio? I have
a
true high-end system (Apogee/Parasound), and I'd be delighted to put it up
against Bose. I have no doubt what your reaction would be -- you'd smash
the
Boses with a sledgehammer.

I recently purchased a pair of (discontinued) Mission M71i speakers for my
bedroom. They listed for $250 when new. You could combine them with a
modest
receiver and CD player for a total of less than $500, and get much, Much,
MUCH better sound than a Wave radio.

As for paper specs... 30+ years ago I decided to buy a cassette deck. The
TEAC 450 was new then, and had gotten rave reviews from Julian Hirsch. I
could buy the TEAC for $360 at Stereo Discounters, or a Nakamichi 700 for
$700. I went with the TEAC.

Big mistake. Though the TEAC had very low flutter and reasonably wide
response (for a cassette deck), it didn't sound very good. It was
grainy-sounding and "flattened" the acoustic space. (Naturally, JH
mentioned
none of this in his review.) I replaced it with a Nakamich 700 II, which
was
almost perfectly transparent dubbing records. (Live music was a different
matter.)


The differences between good and poor equipment are easily audible. Don't
take my word for it -- go out and listen for yourself.


OK. Well, I'm not about to argue this one into the ground with you. Long
long ago, I learned from participation in other groups that those who
perceive themselves to be audiophiles, push their views with a similar level
of evangelical fervour to that of Jehova's Witnesses, to the point where
they feel that they can justify ridiculously priced cables and amplifiers
which cost more than a small car. That said, I will address a few of the
comments that you have made.

No matter what the on-paper specs say, whether one piece of kit sounds good
to one person, and another does not, *is* a matter of their opinion, in much
the same way that any other comparison is - cars for instance.

With reference to the opinions of visitors to my workshop, I think you need
to take the time to read what I said a little more slowly. I was at pains to
point out that these were not punters off the street - what you have taken
to be my customers - but other service engineers. That is friends and
colleagues similarly employed as professional service engineers, and with
many years of experience in repairing the stuff. This does not necessarily
imply that they are pedantic audiophiles, but that they have a good enough
ear to know whether something sounds correctly functional, as designed.

When I am describing the sound from the Wave Radio, I am comparing it to
similarly sized portable or semi-portable units, not mini hifi systems. I am
talking the likes of Sharps and Sonys and Panasonics, which also have their
speakers a foot apart, and many of which employ similar 'fiddle factor'
phasing of the speaker signals, to make the speakers *appear* to be rather
more than a foot apart. When you do this sort of comparing apples with
apples, rather than your sort of comparing apples with oranges, the Wave
Radio leaves most of those other standing for both overall sound quality and
spatial definition. Maybe it does do this by artificial colouration of the
sound, and maybe that doesn't rest easy with a purist such as yourself, but
in my opinion - there's that word again - it does make it sound more
pleasing than most other *similarly sized* items, albeit for a price
premium.

I do believe that your view of Bose is slanted, because you seriously
believe them as a company, to be liars and cheats, so no matter what anyone
else may say or think, you and your audiophile chums will shout them down
with those beliefs. I don't know what you call that. I still call it
'slanted'.

Did I start out knowing everything ? Was my judgement never wrong ? No, of
course not on both counts, but I fail to see how your story of having worked
in a photo store listening to 901's every day for a year, thinking that they
were better than anything else in the shop, explains how you then bought
some, took them home, and found yourself horrified by their apparently poor
performance. And then took a further year to declare them "junk" ???

As far as what I consider to be 'high end' goes, I am talking everyday
brands, that are purchased by everyday folks, but which lie at the top end
of the price range, and tend to be sold more by hifi shops than electrical
warehouse barns. I'm talking Jaguar rather than Honda, but not Ferrari or
Lambo. Most output from the likes of Sharp and Sanyo and Philips and
Goodmans and Samsung and Toshiba and so on, does not fall into that
category. Much, although not all, of Technics does. Much, although not all,
of Yamaha does. Most of Pioneer's efforts do. Some Teac gear does and so on.
The stuff that you are referring to as 'high end', I and most ordinary
people, would refer to as super high end, where the prices are nothing short
of ridiculous for what you are getting. In fact I would say that it is a
perfect example of the law of diminishing returns. Many of the super high
end tube amps that I have seen for repair, are little different from a half
way decent amp that you would have found on the end of a tabletop radio, 40
years ago. And people are stupid enough to pay $2000 for them ... Now in my
opinion, the companies that make and market this sort of thing are the real
liars and robbers, and the people who buy them are the real audiophools ...

As far as the differences between good and poor equipment being clearly
audible, I would not dispute that. I am a service engineer - I mend the
rotten stuff for a living and have for 35 years - so I have a great deal of
experience listening to everything from Korean transistor radios, to the
most expensive amps you can buy. What I would dispute is that you can hear a
lot of difference between a Pioneer $500 rig and a Bloggs and Bollockchops
9000 series Mark 64 monobloc as recommended by Sebastion Cringeworthy-****
in Audiophile's Weekly, and costing $2500 ...

And that's all I'm going to say on the matter for now.

Except I knew 'reign' looked wrong when I typed it. Let's try 'rein' instead
d;~}

Arfa