Home Theaters

    I am constantly amazed by the number of people who think, or are fooled into thinking, that the speaker systems from Bose are capable of reproducing anything close to the sound of real music.

    Yes, I am a snob about my sound. I don’t like mp3’s for that very reason. If I can tell on a $3 pair of Radio Shack headphones that something sounds lousy, what chance is there that using a multi-thousand dollar sound system will do anything other than point out the egregious flaws in the sound?

    Back to Bose, Dr. Amar Bose is a man I have nothing but respect for. He has sought and quantified more about the

ways humans hear, and interpret, sound than possibly anyone else. Beginning back in the 1970’s with the 901 series, he took a set of small, inferior drivers, designed a novel enclosure, and added an electronic equalizer to compensate for the limitations of both. The results were amazing. Many people of that era, never having heard live music, reacted with astonishment when first listening. The sound was dramatic.  

    Note that I said dramatic. I did not say excellent, accurate, or musical. When selling audio in the 1980’s, I heard more people wanting to sell Bose speakers after owning them for 6 to 9 months, than any others.

    As a lover of music then, not yet taken with most classical music, I only heard rock and pop music on the 901’s at first. They were bright, punchy, and slightly heavy in the mid-bass. all the things that make rock and pop music what it is. I knew that there was something I did not like, but couldn’t put a finger on it.

    I have also always liked folk music, so I also auditioned the speakers with that type of music, with the results that I heard all of the mistakes that the speakers were making with the reproduction. It was easy, with music containing guitar, small drum kit, and bass, along with vocals, to see what the problem was.

    Then, as now, Bose concentrates on the very low middle range of music - and mostly gets it right. If only listening to the middle 3 octaves of music, then Bose might be fine as a speaker of choice.

    Since we are in the age of home theater, I am not certain where Bose speakers could fit in. The ‘acoustimass’ module, which always gets mentioned in the company’s commercials, is something incapable of reproducing any substantial low bass, and when pushed fails miserably at reproducing anything the least bit bombastic in nature.

    But - it does sound impressive - doesn’t it? In a small bedroom, where volume will never move above that where conversation could comfortably take place, Bose systems could work as a home theater - stereo audio solution. The diminutive size of the boxes will make wives happy, and no one will have to walk around anything on those late night runs to the bathroom.  

    On the other hand, some Celestion, Wharfdale, or any other small, reasonably neutral speaker, paired with a 2 to 3 cubic foot subwoofer, would probably yield superior results, with much less listening fatigue, and less cringing from others when the urge to ‘turn it up’ occurs.