Are Bose products good enough to justify their prices?

[mattobrien]

If you wanted a good hifi for £600, you could get a lot or your money on eBay and better sounds than a new Bose kit.

I have a Bose system in the front room as it has small speakers and is all I could get passed the boss. I have a nicer bi-amped Arcam system in my office with B&W floor standing speakers and a Rotel pre and power amp system in the breakfast room with an Arcam cd play and B&W bookshelf speakers.

Both sound much nicer than the Bose system, but the Bose system does the job I need it to. One day I will be allowed to design a room around having floor standing speakers in it, rather than having to hide them away in another room.

 

[RhythMick]

Always makes me smile a topic like this one, cyclists by nature are normally extremely tight when it comes to spending money. Ask the same question on a Porsche or Ferrari forum and the answer may be different.

Haha. True.

But I didn't say expensive was bad. Just that most expensive products are overpriced cr@p which will make the system as a whole sound worse, not better. In the short term they will sound different, and it's easy to be fooled that because you can hear a difference it is better.

I build my own amps and favour valves by a long way. Simplicity and purity is all in my view. Anything which isn't necessary to amplify and transmit the sound should be stripped. But then buy the best components you can afford, just fewer of them.

My main amp valves are Western Electric 300B at £700 per pair. Just the valves. I'm officially not a tightwad I think. Slippery slope though and can waste a lot of money along the way. As I have.

 

[Archie_tect]

I have had a Bose radio.... cost me £5 from a car boot....

Aw Pete!!. Wonder where the person that sold it to you at that car boot sale had nicked it from...

 

[Archie_tect]

We got a TEAC CD/DAB unit with a sub-woofer [love that word!] and 2 micro speakers that I fitted into the kitchen units and it's incredible!

 

[accountantpete]

Aw Pete!!. Wonder where the person that sold it to you at that car boot sale had nicked it from...

It was a farmer type guy so I tried to knock him down to £3 but he played it hard and refused to budge.

Back to the op - Rotel or NAD make some great stuff.

 

[Drago]

I think it's over priced, trading on its carefully crafted image.

I'm a radio amateur and have far superior headphones from Pelotor for half what Bose charge, and in terms of circuit board real estate per £££ the CD DAB thing is woeful value.

 

[compo]

Many years ago in the days of transistor radios you could buy an extension speaker which was claimed to dramatically improve the sound quality. I bought one and have to admit it really did work. Certainly not hi-fi, but plug it into the earphone socket and it was like having a mains radio on. One day I decided to take it to bits and see what made it work. All it was was a cardboard tube with a small speaker in one end pointing along the tube. A bit of fancy trim at each end and that was it. I can't deny that the Bose radios are very good and I would love one, but having seen what they are they are inside they are the same principle as my cardboard tube.

 

[vernon]

It was a farmer type guy so I tried to knock him down to £3 but he played it hard and refused to budge.

Back to the op - Rotel or NAD make some great stuff.

I had a Sugden A51/C51 set up to play my vinyl on. It was a direct replacement for an Amstrad amplifier that gave up the ghost. I had the Sugden donated to me because its audiophile owner was irritated by the volume potentiometer causing a crackle whenever he adjusted the volume. He also had a record deck that was embedded in a huge block of concrete but couldn't bring himself to donate his redundant Linnsondek (sp) to me and I did't have the cash to make him a sensible offer at the time.

When one channel of the Sugden failed I investigated the repair cost - £200 and decided to put it on Ebay having spotted a Cambridge Audio amp for considerabl less at Richer Sounds.

The Sugden fetched £350.

And the point of this post - Amstrad amp, Sugden amp, Cambridge Audio amp representing a broad spectrum of performance delivered pretty much the same sound despite the wide range of costs. The Sugden apparently according to the Sugden factory was delivering £1000+ amplifier quality signals - I couldn't really tell.

I can afford to buy a £600 radio alarm clock with CD playing capability but question whether or not it delivers a performance commensurate with its function.

If I want to listen to CD's 'on the hoof' a cheap portable player in the kitchen or shed delivers a sound that is appropriate for the setting.

As a bedside accessory £600 is a lot to pay for something that gets listened to for a minute or so from being roused from slumber to getting out of bed to switch it off. A cheap Sony radio alarm has faultlessly performed that role for over thirty years.

In short I see the £600 s an expensive solution to low cost problem. I'd rather put the money towards the cost of the frame for my n+1.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Mmmmm old sugden amps .... fab!
For small/occasional room music (Kitchen/Bedroom etc) I find the Pure DAB's radios are excellent value, Sonus/Tempus with extension speaker plug in the MP3 and away!

 

[smokeysmoo]

I was put off by their first prototype headphones TBH

 

[rikki]

I'm told by electronic engineers that by the time you can afford the really good Hi Fi (with the extended range at the bottom and top of the audible range) your ears will be too old to hear those frequencies properly.

So God really does have a sense of humour!

 

[Archie_tect]

I was put off by their first prototype headphones TBH

I'd like a pair please... do they do them in red?

 

[albion]

Bose means decent sound in a confined box.
Add an inch or two to the box and the sound is matched or bettered for a fraction of the price.

Bose speakers are pretty rubbish compared to large, often cheap hifi ones.

 

[RhythMick]

I'm told by electronic engineers that by the time you can afford the really good Hi Fi (with the extended range at the bottom and top of the audible range) your ears will be too old to hear those frequencies properly.

So God really does have a sense of humour!

True

 

[RhythMick]

And the point of this post - Amstrad amp, Sugden amp, Cambridge Audio amp representing a broad spectrum of performance delivered pretty much the same sound despite the wide range of costs. The Sugden apparently according to the Sugden factory was delivering £1000+ amplifier quality signals - I couldn't really tell.

Yes they would all sound similar as they don't have valves.