It was an amazing technical tour-de-force in loudspeaker design at the time, a landmark product. The chief designer and project manager for the AR9? Tim Holl. Snell Acoustics has certainly earned numerous audiophile accolades for a succession of brilliantly-designed speakers through the years.
Any number of Snell speakers are deservedly high on the list of any serious audio enthusiast as examples of some of the best-sounding speakers anywhere. David Smith. Smith is now at Bose and has been there for quite a while, many years. Bose even has a large anechoic chamber on premises, which most speaker companies do not. Whether mechanical, electrical, acoustic, materials, transducer, certification or any other area of engineering, rest assured, Bose is at the very top of the heap.
The is intentional. The process rules for the audiophile as much—if not more than—the actual sound itself. But to non-enthusiasts—like the Bose customer—specs are unimportant. Those customers respond to the experience, not the specs. The process is not the issue.
The final result as perceived by them is what counts. A good parallel to Bose is the way Apple markets their products. The process and specifications are not their marketing focus. And it sounds great—clear and lifelike. They described a great user experience, without mentioning a single specification, material or manufacturing method. This is exactly what Bose does and why specifications are unimportant to their appeal.
However, sometimes their tightly controlled marketing message would run afoul of a troublesome audio writer or critic and sparks would fly. Bose was famous for its tightly-choreographed, dramatic, almost theatrical press events when introducing a new product.
The AM-5 was particularly noteworthy in this regard. Bose knew the AM-5 was a winner. The bass module was hideaway in nature—so it was hidden away. All the sound that was thought to be coming from those floorstanders was in fact coming just from the cubes! It was one of the most memorable audio presentations in audio history.
At another press event for a different product, the late Peter Mitchell—the brilliant, Boston-based researcher and engineer who founded the nationally-known Boston Audio Society—was so pointed and unyielding in his questioning as he pressed certain technical points that Bose clearly did not want to discuss that Mitchell was banned from all future Bose press events. Mitchell, like all audiophiles, was a process guy. What was the process, how did it work, what are the specs, how was it made, what was the background research.
The process. Remember, the process rules in the rolling green hills of Audiophilandia. Neither do its customers.
Bose is an experience marketing company, not a process marketing company. That is simply an observation of the different paths successful companies can take. The AR line—despite great reviews in the magazines and strong customer demand—received poor support from the dealers themselves. Bose wanted to avoid that at all costs. Soon, Bose was dictating to their dealers that they set up a separate Bose section of the store away from the other brands of products in order to give Bose equipment a proper demonstration.
Bose felt they were dealing from a position of strength, since customer demand for Bose was very high and dealer profitability on the line was quite good. Years later, Bose would do nearfield 5. Some dealers went along with Bose, but others willingly gave up the line.
This was an effective way for all Bose dealers to be able to offer a discount on the unilateral pricing of the AM-5 and it ensured a level playing field for all the dealers. It was wildly successful. In , Bose introduced the Wave Radio. More than any other single Bose product, this was the item that made Bose a widespread household name, far more than just a speaker company.
Amar Bose had always wanted to do a really nice-sounding table radio. Audiophiles can hear the difference between a crappy sound system and a great one. Audiophiles also care a great deal about what they are listening to.
They would rather hear how the artist originally wanted their music to be heard. Their products can sound great to an average person for a fraction of the material cost of what you would find in a proper audiophile system. It is common to find audiophile forums discussing and bashing Bose for not publicly displaying speaker specifications on product listings.
Some people see this lack of transparency as a sign of distrust, and that is totally understandable. The problem audiophiles have with this is, there are many audio brands in the market much better sound quality. And yet, they often cost less than something similar made by Bose. Thus, audiophiles generally hold a strong opinion that Bose products are not worth it for the money when considering absolute audio quality.
So you may be wondering… If Bose is so bad, then why are their products so expensive? The answer is right in front of us. Ive been into around 15 bars and pubs over the festive season and they all use Bose speakers. Some of the more upmarket bars have the Bose Commercial series. If they have such bad reviews in the AV world then why do so many establishments install them as they are not cheap! Thanks Dave. Wild Weasel Distinguished Member. Snob value. Don't knock it. Sells a lot of products.
Good marketing basically and the money to do it, my brother thought the same till he bought a pair and couldn't understand why the sounded so rubbish, as he thought the same thing that they were everywhere and everyone bought them.
Helicon Banned. The professional side is a little different to the domestic one. I myself would never have a Bose system in my home, but as far as stylish one box 5.
It's what most people want nowadays. And the multi room works, unlike many others on the market. Click to expand YellowSphere Well-known Member. I think Helicon more or less hit the nail on the head, especially with regards to commercial vs domestic. It's also good to see that Bose finally realized they've actually got to replace their product line though doing it all in one go was an interesting move. Though it's still overly complicated.
Their dominance could be curtailed by other brands, however; Pioneer's all in one RCS-LX60 , for example, is pretty good, not to mention versatile and reasonably priced. The Denon Smart Series are a lot nicer than the , in my opinion. No experience with their multi room stuff, so can't say about that.
What I will say is the main reason I dislike them is their advertising. The adverts they're putting out at the moment for the are absolutely ludicrous, the notion of a subwoofer as a "hideaway module" being the most obvious. Bose Domestic: well advertised, 'lifestyle' looks, well known name, some products sound good, some sound ok, some sound bad.
As Helicon says, most people in hifi circles knock them because they do so well despite their shortcomings generally on the actual sound quailty compared to other kit.
Bose Commercial: Rock solid equipment, very well known and liked by a lot of people in various trades. The reason they do so well is because the best audio brand in Joe publics eyes is Bose. Just a couple of months ago i spoke to a person in work about my speakers and he started going on about his kit he had in his car with watt amps and 4x 18" subs and he seemed to know a bit about the audio side of things.
Never seen them on tv before. Because Bose is prob the only audio brand above Sony, they have ever heard about. They are well marketed, they are unobtrusive, and they sound good enough for people that don't want to invest a lot of time into picking out a system. Even though one of my speakers costs more than an entire Bose system, I can admit that they are fine for the market they cater to and for the most part they sound decent.
If they just made a better sub, they would have gotten my money. I needed a small system to use in my small gaming room and I was close to choosing an Acoustimass system until I heard the Monitor Audio Radius line. You did answer your own question I think. I do not think people are bashing Bose, but there seem to be an agreement that you can get better sound quality for the money from other brands. Uncle Erik Uncle Exotic. Joined Mar 18, Posts 22, Likes You can find many threads on this here.
But I'll take another whack. Primarily, Bose gear performs badly. I've been a musician over 25 years and Bose gear simply does not sound like the real thing. Measurements and a lot of others tend to agree. Second, Bose uses cheap parts and materials. The rest is all profit. Third, Bose heavily markets itself as the best. Clearly, it is not. You can buy natural-sounding equipment made with better materials for less money.
Fourth, Bose has the ability to make quality products and chooses not to. Bose has plenty of capital, engineers, test facilities, manufacturing, everything. If management wanted, Bose could make excellent, high-quality gear. Instead, they make garbage and sell it at the highest possible margin.
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