Their reputation in the US, as far as I've observed, is that they produce the best designed (in the UX sense) and highest quality (in terms of sound) audio equipment in the consumer price range, albeit at the high end of that price range.
As others in this thread have stated, their reputation online seems to be much less positive. There seem to be two main groups of people who contribute to that less positive reputation: (1) those with expertise in audio equipment who state things like Bose doesn't have nearly as good range of sound as professional equipment and (2) those who don't provide an explanation beyond "Bose sucks" (analogous to the anti-Mac vitriol that was widely seen until the late 2000s).
stonemetal presumably labeled the latter group as "audiophile hipsters" because their behavior appears to be the result of thinking it's cool to criticize products that are popular among mainstream consumers but which they believe to be deemed inferior by experts.
> Bose doesn't have nearly as good range of sound as professional equipment
It's not about "range of sound", it's about producing sound accurately. A more accurate frequency response won't sound exciting, but you'll hear slightly more of your music because nothing is hyped. It's a matter of personal taste and suitability to the task. I wouldn't mix a song on any Bose equipment, but I wouldn't be frothing at the mouth if I went to a friend's and they had a Bose system. I'd still prefer a £300 pair of studio monitors over an equivalent Bose setup, but that's my opinion.
They produce decent quality gear outside of my price range. Is there better gear out there, sure. Is there gear out there that is both unequivocally better quality and better priced not to my knowledge. Bose is competitive with other high end consumer grade audio gear.
When it comes to Bose I have only come across two opinions pretty good but expensive or utter crap let me tell you how my hand built tube setup is so much better.
Could you please list those better quality and less expensive alternatives for my edification? :) Especially active noise-cancelling headphones that are better quality and cheaper than QuietComfort. The Audio Technica ATH-M50s mentioned in this thread look like a pretty good less expensive alternative if you don't need low-frequency cancellation, but I'd love an affordable pair of active cancellors for flights.
Corrective upvote since you answered half the question. XD But yeah, I wonder if Bose's consumer-level reputation of having no competitors that are both better and cheaper is deserved. Hopefully Eikenberry can answer that.
I've never liked the Bose sound, but I recognize that they do some things well; those just aren't the things I care about the most. I wouldn't say they're overpriced, though -- it's hard to argue that when their products sell so well. Maybe some of the others are underpriced ;-}
I have a pair of on-ear Bose headphones that I bought when I didn't know any better. In hind sight they don't sound great.
BUT, they are the most comfortable on-ears I have ever owned and possibly the most durable headphones I've owned. The model was recently updated, and I think the changes are improvements.
In that light, if you want a really comfortable, quite durable pair of portables, They are a reasonable choice.
Anything half the price will outperform what Bose has to offer. It’s all based on deception and marketing. For example, in store Bose displays have to be set far away from other speakers so you can’t make a fair comparison and the demos are played very loud to mask the thin sound quality.
You have to stand in awe of their excellent capability to convince so many that their cheaply made 1000% markup junk is worth the money.
> Anything half the price will outperform what Bose has to offer.
So, if "anything half the price" is supposed to outperform Bose, would you be willing to point out something half the price of an equivalent Bose product and show me some kind of unbiased test that demonstrates it?
I feel like I hear this kind of sentiment a lot, but I almost never see any evidence to back it up.
Bose doesn't cater to the high-end audiophile market. They don't sell big, bulky, expensive equipment that audiophiles go for. Instead, they sell small stuff that's expensive for it's size but cheap compared to audiophile equipment. And I think that it it does pretty well for its size and price. Sure, you can get better sound quality out of bigger, bulkier, more expensive equipment. And you can get reasonable audio quality out of other small, cheaper gear. But I'm wondering if you can get gear that beats it in every way; smaller, cheaper, and better?
I have never done any kind of blinded experiments, or measurements of frequency responses, or other such scientific comparisons, so I can't say for sure. And that's why I'm asking if you know better. Is there something out there, at a similar size and price point, that is better than what Bose offers? Do you have good evidence for this?
At the constraints you provided (same size) the whole notion of "better" is extremely subjective. Small speakers can only reproduce a certain range of frequencies (think of it like trying to make 10 m high waves with a spatula) so they will all produce "colored" sound i.e. distort the signal. People perceive some coloration as being better than another and Bose's technology is all about making their coloration pleasant for most people. However, "most" is not "all" and some people don't like their coloration. Not to mention that any set of big speakers produces orders of magnitude less coloration.
Jellyfish won't be able to give you such a product because they don't exist. Your comment is 100% accurate. Bose is not the absolute best, but the absolute best is 10x or even 50x the price.
I would maybe agree that Bose has cultivated a reputation among ordinary consumers as "the best" which is not accurate. There are other equally good brands with a similar price point that don't get as much attention. There's also audiophile gear which is much better, but also much more expensive. What does not exist, though, are products superior to Bose as half the price. (Assuming you're not factoring in used gear or some kind of blowout sale) That goes for any brand, though.
I've never put on a pair of Bose so I can't attest to the sound quality, but I have held a few pairs and it bothers me that headphones in that price range can feel so fragile. There's this cheap plastic feel to it. My Sony MDR-V6 feels like a tank compared to them and these are plastic too.
I love my sony's over my boses. The sonys have survived 3 years of being sat on, run over by the chair, yanked on and off, cable tied around me and dragging my aeron across the room and out the door, etc. And you CAN get replacement parts for them. Heck they come with a diagram of how to take them apart and replace parts.
My bose QC's lasted 6 months of mild air travel and then the headband broke in half. Only way to fix em was buy a new pair. Also I could wear my QC's for about 4 hours and then my ear would hurt. I can wear the sonys for 12+ hours no issue. But that's just my freakish shaped head so it's personal.
That said I don't really give a crap about the sound quality. They sound good to me and they're a good price. My previous pair lasted 10 years.
All the audio engineers I've ever asked have a set of the sonys because they're supposed to be a good representation of a middle of the road system that everyone has. They're good but not amazing. But that's what you want when mixing. A representation of the middle and one of the high end. Most people will be listening on the crap to good stuff.
Hmm, interesting. My wife has a pair of the noise canceling headphones. They seem fairly sturdy to me.
Those Sonys are great phones designed to be tough. They're mean to be used in a studio, get sat on from time to time. Have the cables yanked, etc. They don't have noise canceling and they don't run on batteries, so I consider them a different piece of gear from the Bose noise canceling phones. But I have no doubt they're probably tougher than most phones, Bose included.
An audiophile tube amp is not going to take abuse either - it's meant to be treated in a delicate way. The tradeoff for that is that it will deliver pristine quality. The Bose stuff is not quite that fragile, not quite that good either. But the point is that all gear is designed for a certain purpose and comes with certain tradeoffs.
B&W MT Series, Kef Eggs, Orb Audio, Anthony Gallo, Focal Dome, the list is enormous, but most people don't get to hear (and see) them because they are not always sold in box shifting electronics stores and they don't have the Bose marketing budget. But all of them better designed and sound better.
Bose in-car and Bose noise cancelling headphones are a different matter, as their noise cancelling is first rate.
What are good sources for this kind of evidence? I'm actually interested; I find it hard to find good information on audio quality, because there's so much audiophile garbage out there.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. I worked at the Stanford Bose store for a year. On many occasions we'd let customers bring in other products and put them side by side with Bose. Bose won every time. This was especially true for the Wave Radio and SoundDock. It was also an outdoor mall so if the door to the store was open, which it almost always was, there was a ton of background noise. Didn't matter. Bose always won.
Bose is completely overpriced. As is Apple, Monster and a ton of other "high end" electronic brands. But there is no better audio equipment for the average person than Bose. For a home theater or headphones or bedside radio, Bose wins every time....if you're willing to pay. And like I said, I worked in the store, A LOT of people are willing to pay for that quality.
My experience, not working in retail, but about Bose speakers and SoundDocks is somewhat different, I say also check X and Y, and Bose usually is dropped.
In fact I don't know anyone that has bought Bose (apart from coming in their car or for headphones in noisy environments) that has done serious listening to other systems.
The over-ear Quiet Comfort 'noise canceling' headphones are one exception, and I gnaw my own liver whenever I have to replace a pair I donated as a "seat back prize" to the passenger on the next flight.
That's something I've always wondered about. It seems like at some point it became trendy to hate on Bose - hence almost every online discussion about them having a dozen people show up to say they're overpriced and sound like crap, yet I don't think I've ever seen one of those threads where someone actually names speakers that are better AND cheaper.
To my (granted mostly non-audiophile...though I am the type who insists that vinyl sounds better...) ears, they've always sounded pretty good and aren't that expensive compared to most high end offerings.
>That's something I've always wondered about. It seems like at some point it became trendy to hate on Bose - hence almost every online discussion about them having a dozen people show up to say they're overpriced and sound like crap, yet I don't think I've ever seen one of those threads where someone actually names speakers that are better AND cheaper.
In my experience every thread which criticizes Bose offers better alternatives. This is true at least for reddit's r/audiophile.
I would not say they sound like crap, but they do not possess a 'transparent' sound or offer a flat audio response curve that most audiophiles love. Also, the use of noise canceling technology does degrade sound quality to some extent.
Of course, these are all audiophile nitpickings that a casual user would almost never consider.
My mom got a wave radio several years ago and honestly I was really underwhelmed by the sound quality given the price of the device. She liked it though so whatever.
I don't really understand the hatred because, compared to true audiophile gear, Bose is absolutely dirt cheap.
There's a boutique audio store down the street from me that sells RCA cables which are more expensive than a Bose iPhone dock. An entire "audiophile" system is easily in the 6 figure range. If you're into that kind of gear then obviously Bose must be low end equipment for you.
For the rest of us, though, I think you pay a little more for Bose and, for that, you get a little bit better sound. It's one step above consumer gear, but still well below audiophile gear. I think it's priced appropriately.
I am an audiophile, and you're sorely mistaken. You can get _really_ good sound quality for very 99% less than what you claim. A 6 figure sound system is a high end system. I don't believe in those expensive cables or directional ethernet cables, or power conditioners. But, like most things there is a sliding scale and diminishing returns. A 6 figure audio system would be a 100% of what you could achieve but for 2-3000$ you can get 90+% of the 6 figure system.
I can't remember what magazine it was, but a couple of years ago competing against very expensive gear, a ~300$ NAD amplifier beat out other 5 figure amps for sound quality. and 2000$ speakers were the runner up up 40.000$ speakers.
You don't even have to go quite that far up the scale. A small NAD integrated amp (or even the 7225 BBE receiver if you really want a tuner) paired with, say, a pair of Paradigm Titans (or the equivalent-range PSBs or similar) and the sources of your choice would be quite satisfactory at about the same price as the Acoustic Wave with CD changer. The problem is that now you have to pay attention to placement to extract what the system has to offer. That, in a nutshell, is where the Bose all-in-ones make their living — they're nearly oblivious to placement. Imaging? Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but as long as you'r in the same room as the system, it has some. There's no sweet spot, but there isn't a sour spot either. Same deal with interference suck-out.
$5K-ish, spent the right way and set up properly, will give you a system that will let you imagine you can tell whether or not the stand-up bass player had a beard. But to really get to that level, even with an unlimited budget, you really have to care about the system as much as the music it plays. Placement matters. The room matters. And I'm as willing to play that game as anybody (nobody who isn't would ever have bought a Basis Debut Gold Standard turntable with a Wheaton Triplanar tonearm mounting a Koetsu cartridge back when it mattered), but I understand that arranging your speakers, your furniture and your life around the requirements of a stereo system isn't for everybody. Frankly, a Bose box (or, in a time long past, a set of 901s instead of "real" speakers) gives better results in most cases when placement is an afterthought (if it's ever a thought at all). Does it cost more than it "should"? The markup over materials may be high, but it sells well enough at the price that nobody's been inclined to reduce prices, so I'd say not.
You completely missed the point. For what Bose products cost you can buy something with better quality sound or you can buy something with equivalent sound for less. Audio Technica, Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, Sony, and others make better products for less money.
No they don't. The other brands make equal products for similar price, but they also make cheaper products for less money. Bose just doesn't have the cheap product line. You can buy a piece of junk Sony stereo or you can buy an expensive, high quality Sony system that is as good as Bose or any other consumer brand. With Bose you can only buy their top-of-the-line version, which is "pro-sumer" level stuff. They don't offer cheap products, and they don't offer audiophile products either.
Now if you want to debate about sound quality, yes Bose has a very distinct sound that may or may not be desirable. Particularly audiophiles do not want the signal processing that Bose stuff tends to give you.
i generally agree with you, but when you look at the details it's a bit more complicated:
i was surprised when i saw the (low) price of some of their stuff (i have never bought bose, but i looked on amazon to see what people were comparing to). but, at least in the uk, there's quite an industry of small firms producing "budget audiophile" gear that is comparable to more expensive equipment. eg mission, creek, music fidelity value series. and there are new chinese builders like audio-gd who are trying to get in on the market too.
also, they are most famous for their headphones, i think, and those tend to be more mainstream (there are not so many boutique headphone manufacturers - i guess you could call grado one, but otherwise sennheiser, beyer etc are pretty mainstream). headphones are common and easy to compare - when you do, bose headphones appear expensive, poorly made (maybe that's not the right description, but they seem "delicate" compared to the sennheiser HD25s i use for travelling) and not that great-sounding. but then their noise cancelling is good, which is what they are charging for. so it's true when people say the sound quality is relatively poor, but also true when people say they are hard to beat for noise cancelling.
finally, their music systems seemed to be aimed at "home theatre" (ie tv) while much of the audiophile scene is music-oriented, and the sounds are quite different (especially at lower prices). audiophiles typically care most about mid-range detail, while home theatre is all about the bass.
so it seems largely to be comparing apples to oranges and / or people with specialised knowledge being able to find better (but relatively obscure) value, which is often true.
[edit: listening to good music on good equipment is a real pleasure. as i said above, you can find this kind of thing at bose prices, if you look around. try asking at audiophile shops - they're not idiots, they know that the top end stuff is not for everyone, and they may well have some lower priced kit too (which they probably sell to their friends, since people who work in retail typically can't afford high end audiophile gear anyway....)]
Bose is what you might call "pro-sumer". Bose products to not hesitate to alter and color the sound of the output, if Bose considers the result pleasing. Audiophiles and audio professionals are generally more interested in high fidelity.
Bose products are kind of like Toyota Prius. It is a car for people who do not like driving. Except that Bose products are much more overpriced than Prius.
I'd compare Bose to a full-size sedan, something like a Toyota Avalon. Toyota designed the Avalon to provide a smooth and calm ride in a luxurious package. So the Avalon's suspension/steering/engine are all tuned for a smooth ride, which is the exact opposite of what car enthusiasts want. An active driver would be happier with a BMW or a Subaru. But if my grandparents drove a Subaru WRX, they'd hate the same qualities that make it enjoyable to the enthusiast.
Bose actively processes the input, which does improve the sound quality to the casual listener. It's exactly what those kind of listeners want. Audiophiles want exact reproduction of the original source, so it's not a good choice for their preferences. But by dissing Bose, audiophiles are doing a disservice to the casual listener, the same way as if I pushed my grandparents toward a WRX.
this is unfair. most people don't buy cars for the pleasure of driving. bose is like most cars - trying to appeal to "normal" consumers, giving them something "special" (small speakers with big sounds, or noise cancelling, say - things that are easy to demo) within a price.
audiophile equipment is more like the ariel atom - an awesome car to drive, but no-one normal would get one. where would you put the kids? or the shopping?
and i say this as an "audiophile" - i love messing around seeing which dac pairs best with which speakers/amp (or hanging rugs on walls...). but i know that makes me not-normal.
I love driving but I hate commuting. A loud manual shifting two-seater is great for recreational driving in the twisties or a track, but not so great for stop & go commutes and 3+ hour road trips. A Prius is perfectly fine for the latter two and I've been subjected to a number of worse cars with sloppy suspension and jerky slush boxes.
Here's a small list of companies that make better audio gear in the same price range: AKG, Audio Technica, Beyerdynamic, Etymotic, Grado, PSB, Sennheiser, Shure, Sony, Ultimate Ears (Logitech now). There are plenty of others I've missed.
I'm not sure any other audio company could make such a claim in the UK.
Every electronics megastore has an elegant Bose section showcasing the hardware in an Apple-esque way.