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.
