I have a Wave Music System here that won't take CDs. This unit is controllable only with a remote since there's no buttons on the radio itself. I know the remote works because I've tried it with another Wave Radio.
The eject button on the remote does nothing, neither does the "CD" button. I thought there might be a CD stuck in the player, but there doesn't appear to be. Strangely enough, pressing the CD or Eject button causes absolutely nothing to happen, not even that little dot lights up that normally does when an IR signal is hitting the unit. But, I get a response on the VFD when I press CD or Eject with the working radio even with no CD inserted. This seems like a logic problem, but all other functions work so that seems unlikely. Anyone familiar with these?
Asking for assistance with a Bose product is asking for trouble.
The Wave system (which I've heard) is a profoundly mediocre product sold at a premium price. This failure would be a good opportunity to listen around for something better. You should be able to find a $200 "executive" system at Costco with substantially better sound. It won't be a "single-piece" system, but a single-piece system that delivered really good sound would be large and unwieldy.
I don't know why everyone has such a 'downer' on Bose products. I do a lot of work for a Bose main dealer, so most of their product range crosses my bench at some time or another - although I have not experienced the problem that the OP is having with his Wave Radio, so am unfortunately unable to offer any particularly constructive advice on it.
Although I would agree that their products carry a premium sale price, I would have to say, purely from a service point of view, that they are well built, and appear to use quality components and PCBs. They are also thoughtfully designed from a mechanical dismantling angle, and their service info and backup, if you are fortunate enough to have access to it, is second to none, IMHO. What other manufacturer these days, for instance, has a proper paper manual, with a full text description of how every sub-circuit in the item works, full-sized fold out schematics which follow proper schematic drawing principles and are thus a breeze to read, and have full sized board layout diagrams from both sides, that are actually legible ?
I would also dispute that the Wave Radio is a "profoundly mediocre product". Compared to any other portable or semi-portable that I have come across in recent years, I think that the sound this little unit produces, is perfectly stunning, both in overall quality, and spatial definition. So much so, in fact, that I have on several occasions had visitors to my workshop comment on how impressed they've been when they have listened to one that I've had on soak test.
I don't know how much of it is 'emperor's new clothes syndrome', but most Bose owners that I've spoken to seem to be well pleased with their systems and what they cost them. Remember that proper Bose dealers have a listening room where the products can be fully demonstrated, so it's not as though purchasers of Bose equipment have been conned or fooled in any way by clever sales banter. They have bought of their own free will, having listened, played with, and decided exactly what product suited them, and with full knowledge of what the purchase price was going to be. They could just as easily have walked out and gone to Costco or wherever, and bought something cheaper, had they have wanted to ...
The current CD and non-CD radios both appear to be identical apart from the lack of a CD slot (at least externally). It sounds like it might think it's a non-CD radio. You would need the service manual to find out what the difference between them is. There might be a soldered jumper that tells it whether or not it's a CD radio, or the micro controller might be different. If it's not detecting the CD mechanism because of a bad cable, or failure of the CD mechanism, it might go into non-CD mode. Have you tried resetting it by removing the backup battery and leaving it unplugged over night? Andy Cuffe
"Which I've heard". So if you haven't heard it first hand then how the f*ck can you say for yourself whether or not it is a"profoundly mediocre product solt at a premium price."
If you can read, the original poster was asking about his CD player not functioning properly, not for an opinion about Bose products.
This is sci.electronics.repair, not rec.audio.opinion.
I've had enough of your shit and your off topic posts, a complant to Comcast should teach you some manners.
Because many of them are crap. This wouldn't normally be a problem -- lots of companies make crap products -- but for the fact that Bose products aren't cheap, and the company makes exaggerated claims for them. I owned Bose 901s, and it took me a year to finally get through my head just how poor they were.
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No argument, but who cares how well-built or easy-to-service a product is, if it's not a very good product in the first place?
No offense, but you've got to be kidding.
A few years back I went to a Bose-sponsored demo at a local hotel. They had a demo area where you could play with the radios. Not only was there a stunning lack of space and definition, but when you lifted the front of the radio, you could hear a noticebable _reduction_ in coloration. In other words, there is severe interaction with reflections from the table. (This ought to occur with just about any table radio, but the Wave seems to be unique in this regard.)
I have an inexpensive TEAC "executive system" which is my at-work stereo. It's hardly the greatest system in the world, but it handily beats a Wave.
I have some experience with live recording, and have owned really good playback equipment for over 30 years. I have little respect for the opinion of the average listenier.
The two might be intimately connected -- if something is expensive, you tend to like it.
equipment
The consensus is that Bose has a separate demo room precisely to _prevent_ a full demonstration. The belief is that they don't want their products being compared with other products.
It's not off-topic and your idea that a complaint is any way even remotely acceptable or warranted is idiotic.
Comcast will merely laugh at you. I suggest you look at ANY ISPs terms and conditions to look for the section that says annoying Lynn is a breach of the T's & Cs.
Well, I guess that in the end, it all comes down to opinion, but if I were slagging off Bose, I'm not sure that I would be admitting to owning a Teac. Some of their stuff is some of the worst I've ever had the misfortune to work on, and it also is not what I would call cheap.
When I was talking about 'visitors to my workshop', I was referring to other service engineers, so not just 'off-the-street' casual observers. Whilst we might not be loony audiophiles, we have between us collectively, a great many years of experience in the business, and unless we knew what basically sounded 'right', we would not have survived as independant repairers, as long as we have. Therefore, contrary to your opinion of these people, I have a great deal of time and respect for their observations.
Having owned your 901's, have you actually had much experience of their other products on which to base your (apparently) heavily slanted opinions ? If it took you a year to figure out that they were no good (for you) it begs the question of how you came to buy them in the first place, and just why it took you so long to come to the conclusion that you had seemingly been duped, and that they were crap ?
As far as listening tests go, my colleague's dealership has many high end systems from the likes of Yamaha and Pioneer and Technics available for audio evaluation, alongside his Bose range, and still he manages to sell them, so I'm not sure quite how that stacks up ...
I often wonder when attacks like this on a company start, just what the attackers believe was the motivation for the creation of that company, and how they believe that it manages to keep going. I mean, do you honestly believe that a couple of guys sat down over a beer a few years ago and decided that they would produce poorly designed equipment, and charge a totally unrealistic price for it ? Do you think that their accountant then agreed that this was a cracking idea, and sure to be a long term success ? Did they then go out and hire a couple of designers from the poorest audio background that they could find, and give them free reign to go ahead and design exactly what they liked, no matter what it sounded like ? And having established this business model, have continued to be successful with it for many years ? In today's business environment, where anyone who cannot turn a healthy profit rapidly goes to the wall, I rather think not.
I might add that I have no particular allegiance to Bose, and I wouldn't say that their kit represents particularly good value for money - to me at least, but I am interested to know just why their products always come up for such a kicking on here, whenever anyone is naiive enough to post about one. They are certainly no worse sounding, or have any worse on-paper specs than many other makes of high end audio. Their high cost can in some respects, although not totally, I would agree, be mitigated by the quality of parts used, the standard of quality of construction, and the service backup quality, should it be needed.
No, it doesn't. As the elderly Chinese man says in "Gremlins"... "To hear, one need only listen."
I'm no fan of TEAC tape recorders. (I've owned one, and heard others, including TASCAM.) They just don't sound very good. But some of their stuff -- such as their executive systems -- are decent.
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Of course... They're your customers. How else would you feel about the people who purchase the services that keep you in business?
My problem is that your/their description of the sound of the Wave is so at odds with, not only what I've actually heard, but the obvious limitations of two small speakers sitting almost on top of each other in a little box, that it's simply unbelievable. You can't get good imaging out of speakers about a foot apart.
opinions?
"Heavily slanted" implies that my opinions are based on something other than a resasonably objective view of the issues involved.
I've had experience with several Bose products (see below), none of which even began to live up to the exaggerated claims made for it. They might have other products that are of excellent quality. But Bose has a truly lousy track record among serious listeners. When there is so much other "good stuff" out there that costs the same or less, why bother with Bose.
About 20 years ago I bought a Denon DT-400. (I think that's the model.) This was a two-piece table radio that sold for $400. The speakers were two-way, and had excellent sound -- far, far superior to the Bose. Furthermore, you could separate them for "real" stereo.
I recently retired it for some Lux components I pulled out of storage and a pair of Mission speakers.
Did you start out knowing everything? Has your judgement about things always been correct?
I worked for a year in a photo/hi-fi store. Bose was one of our top brands. I heard the 901s nearly every day, and brought in familiar recordings for comparison. The 901s were better than anything else (including AR & KLH). (We also sold the Bose 501s and 301s, which did not wildly impress me.)
I bought two pairs of 901s. (I had then, and still have, surround sound.) When they arrived and I hooked them up, I was utterly surprised to discover that they sounded (overall) NO BETTER than my KLH 11 FM portable. They were not particularly clean nor transparent. It took me a year to figure out they were junk. Sorry about my "slowness", but we're all ignorant or hide-bound in various ways.
I replaced the 901s with DQ-10s. The Dahlquists delivered almost everything the Boses only promised. They actually produced a plausible, layered image in which you could hear the relationship of the ambient to the direct sound (in good recordings, of course). The 901s, in contrast, generate a artificial ambient "spew".
The only "honest" review of the 901s appeared in Stereophile. Bose waited several years to send Gordon a pair, because they no doubt knew he would trash them. He did. Indeed, he didn't criticize them enough. You owe it to yourself to read the review. You can find a link in this Wikipedia article:
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By the way, I altered the Wikipedia article to correct a misquote from the Stereophile review, and added an additional quote.
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I've never considered Yamaha or Technics "high-end". Pioneer used to sell high-end components; I don't know if they still manufacture them. The idea that Bose equipment is "high-end" is ludicrous beyond belief.
I have plenty of experience with live sound and live recording. If I thought Bose 901s provided "the closest approach to the original sound", you can bet I'd own them, despite the fact they aren't horribly expensive. They don't, and I don't.
Well, there are people who do that, but I don't think Dr. Bose was one of them. Rather, I think Dr. Bose is a cloth-eared intellectual idiot who has a poor understanding of the (proper?) philosophy of sound reproduction.
The first Bose product was the pricey 2201, a kind of sophisticated "Sweet
16". Each speaker system was an eighth of a sphere containing 11 full-range Carbonneau (sic) drivers. They were driven by a Hammond Organ transistor amplifier, and used active EQ to flatten the response.
Or more precisely, to shape it. You see, the gentleman who founded Soundstream (I forget his name) worked with Dr. Bose to determine what a "perfect" sound source radiating from a corner into eighth-space would sound like. (I won't go into the technical details, but "on paper" their research made sense.) They claimed that the sound of the 2201 was indistinguishable from a perfect eighth-space radiator.
In other words, within the context of eighth-sphere radiation, the 2201s were perfect. (This claim, which was covered in moderate detail in Bose's early literature, was an influence on my purchase. I had not, at that time, heard QUADs. Or Advents, for that matter.) I no more believe this than I believe Emanual Velikovsky's writings. The only speaker I've ever heard that sounds "live" was the Plasmatronics. Even the best non-ionic speakers lag noticeably behind, and the 901s are light-years distant.
Part of the Bose design theory (which applies to a greater or lesser extent to all their speakers) is that single overwhelming factor in a speaker's sound quality is its omnidirectional power response. Though this theory (which strongly inform's CU's speaker tests) has never been properly discredited, it is patently absurd, as one can easily find speakers of extremely high sound quality that have relatively poor omnidirectional power response.
Just because someone has a PhD and comes from a country noted for its intellectual achievements, doesn't mean he actually _understands_ anything.
By the way, the current Bose literature ignores the original claim of sonic perfection. This is likely because they figure the non-audiophile reader won't understand it, but it's also possible that such a claim would bring the roof down on them.
There is at least one Website whose owner claims to have dissected Bose speakers and discovered relatively cheap drivers of questionable quality, as well as inferior cabinetry.
You are assuming that high-quality products will be commercially successful, low-quality products won't, and their success or failure accurately reflects their quality. 'tain't so, McGee. The easiest way to make money is to lie. Bose doesn't tell the truth, and is also probably lying (ie, consiously speaking an untruth).
Because Bose speaks with forked tongue. Their products aren't very good, but Bose claims there are none better. Only one other audio company makes such claims -- QUAD -- but it has real justification for them.
People need to be told over and over and over again that Bose's claims are simply not true. And if all they want is a single-box plug 'n play unit, they're getting exactly what they deserve.
Bose products are the market equivalent of the fruitwood stereo console of
45 years ago -- convenient, attractive, and mediocre. But at least the fruitwood console was cheaper than separate compoents. Bose products aren't. The customer spends more and gets less.
What in the name of heaven do you consider to be "high-end" audio? I have a true high-end system (Apogee/Parasound), and I'd be delighted to put it up against Bose. I have no doubt what your reaction would be -- you'd smash the Boses with a sledgehammer.
I recently purchased a pair of (discontinued) Mission M71i speakers for my bedroom. They listed for $250 when new. You could combine them with a modest receiver and CD player for a total of less than $500, and get much, Much, MUCH better sound than a Wave radio.
As for paper specs... 30+ years ago I decided to buy a cassette deck. The TEAC 450 was new then, and had gotten rave reviews from Julian Hirsch. I could buy the TEAC for $360 at Stereo Discounters, or a Nakamichi 700 for $700. I went with the TEAC.
Big mistake. Though the TEAC had very low flutter and reasonably wide response (for a cassette deck), it didn't sound very good. It was grainy-sounding and "flattened" the acoustic space. (Naturally, JH mentioned none of this in his review.) I replaced it with a Nakamich 700 II, which was almost perfectly transparent dubbing records. (Live music was a different matter.)
The differences between good and poor equipment are easily audible. Don't take my word for it -- go out and listen for yourself.
Premium price? Oh yeah. Absolutely. (At least to my way of thinking...)
Mediocre product? Well, I suppose it depends on what you have in mind when you listen to music. The first time I had the chance to hear one was at a friend's house. I walked in the door, far away from the room in which it was playing and was immediately surprised. I didn't remember any big stereo ever being in the place, and one wasn't. The music was coming from this little Bose Wave player. I was astounded by the performance, but the price and the fact that new ones have only remote controls put me off of it.
Tivoli Audio's little table radio sounds fairly good to me and the price was a lot better. The company was also good to deal with, although I wanted to keep the flood damaged unit I had and build a plywood cabinet for it, just to be funny.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the Wave system. It's a well-known psychoacoustic effect -- almost any audio system sounds better _outside_ the room in which it's playing than in the room. I have theories about this, but I won't speculate.
For what a Wave CD/radio system costs, you can buy high-quality components with _much_ better sound. That's what makes the Wave system such a ripoff -- people think they're getting great sound and good value, when they're actually getting mediocre sound and paying three times what it _should_ cost.
was
I bought a Tivoli Model One when they first came out. It was Henry Kloss's last product, so it must be great, right?
It wasn't. The bass was thick and thumpy. (Stuffing the port helps.) It won't play very loud without sounding "gagged". And it One sounds better at a distance.
I just sold two KLH Model Eight table radios. Despite the fact that the Eight was designed 45 years earlier, the overall sound is much better. It has a fullness and "projection" missing from the One.
All right then. I've said it many times before, and I will now say it again. The UK and America, are two nations separated by a common language. And by that, I mean that sometimes, no matter how much either side of the pond understands the individual words, the composite meaning of them somehow goes west ...
Honestly, I am not attacking you, either personally, or as a sound reproduction aficionado. Nor am I attacking your views on Bose as such. They are your views and opinions, and if that's what you believe, then fair enough.
My only real interest in all of this is that I hear a lot of different gear, including just about all of Bose's range - that is whole systems, not just speakers - and many of the items that I see, and which also cost a lot of money, seem to have mediocre performance for their cost, but I don't see anyone ever giving the companies which make this stuff, the same kind of kicking that Bose always seem to get. On numerous occasions, I have seen questions from posters on s.e.r. involving simple problems on Bose kit. Nothing to do with the sound or anything audio related at all. As soon as such a post like this appears, I can absolutely guarantee that someone like you (and again, I don't mean that in any personally offensive way) will jump on the post immediately, telling them that they have bought rubbish and have been lied to and that they should expect nothing but trouble and so on.
Well, ok. The stuff is expensive. I don't dispute that. Maybe their claims are exagerated in the way that they are worded, but I really don't think that they can be accused of deliberately lying in this age of litigation. As far as their integrity as a company goes, I can only judge them from a service point of view, and I have to say that I have always found them helpful, and technically competent, which is a lot more than can be said for many other mainstream companies. I would also reiterate the point that I made before about them staying in business. If you are in business yourself, as I am, then you will know that no matter how good a company's marketing hype is, if they really are producing products that are no good at all, they will surely not survive in today's highly competitive market place. The fact that they have stayed in business for so long so far, must say something for their products. And before you say that it's just down to generation after generation of people stupid enough to be taken in by their hype, I really don't believe that washes over that period of time.
I'm really not defending Bose as a company just because they are Bose. I neither particularly like nor dislike their products - I just fix 'em up until they match their quoted specs. I am merely acting as an advocate for them, because I am interested in this 'devil incarnate' image that some people seem intent on thrusting on them.
However, that said, I still think that the little Wave Radio - which for lack of a carrying handle, is still really only a portable in size, concept and general construction - sounds a great deal better than similarly sized items from other manufacturers, designed to fulfil a similar purpose. I don't necessarily believe that the elevated cost of a Wave Radio is justified by this. It's just my opinion that it sounds better than those others. Nothing technical. Nothing clever. It just sounds better to my uneducated service engineer's ear.
As for Quad and Peter Walker, it would indeed be strange if I did not know their products, as they were manufactured not far from where I live. I have no problem with the sound reproduction of their equipment, although Peter Walker did have a few odd design ideas that were less than mainstream. As far as the kit itself goes, I have never been particularly impressed with the standard of construction, nor the quality of components employed. They are adequate, nothing more. The internal construction of the electrostatic panels, borders on sloppy in many cases. And this is expensive gear too, in its day.
And that now really really is all that I've got the time and inclination to say on the matter. It honestly isn't that important in my otherwise busy-enough life. Either you understand what I'm trying to say, or you don't. Either way, I'm not that bothered.
I didn't take it personally. But I did feel your view of "auidophiles" is narrow and unfair.
I disagree. I don't buy "You're entitled to your opinion." No one is. You have to be able to defend and justify your viewst. That applies to me, to you, to anyone. Unlike Bose, I don't make claims I can't reasonably justify. You have every right to attack them on that basis.
gear,
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I'd appreciate your giving examples of mediocre/overpriced equipment (other than very-expensive-but-indifferent audiophile stuff, which does exist and I've heard). It would focus the discussion a bit more.
But your question about the persistant attacks on Bose _is_ reasonable -- though I thought I answered it explicitly, twice.
Bose makes outrageous, unjustifed claims for their products, claims that any experienced listener can quickly hear are invalid. Claims that can reasonably be considered lies. Let's look at some, taken from their Website...
"lush, room-filling sound" This expression has been used for decades. I'm not sure anyone knows exactly what it means, other than "big" and "enveloping". The 901s approximate this. But there's nothing large-sounding or "lush" about the Wave's sound. I've never heard really small speakers produce big sound. A parallel example is the Tivoli Model One. Though designed by Henry Kloss, it just isn't very good. But Tivoli doesn't make the exaggerated claims Bose does.
"acclaimed for lifelike performance" By whom? By people familiar with live sound and its recording?
"a bold standard in audio performance beyond that of conventional bookshelf stereos" I don't know what Bose means by a "bookshelf stereo". But I can easily assemble a simple component system that fits on a bookshelf and grossly outperforms the Bose -- for the same money.
"rivals the performance of large component stereos" How closely does it rival them? How large is large? I have a large component system in my living room. Do you honestly believe the Acoustic Wave system "rivals" it in any reasonable sense of that verb?
"...enhanced performance?at all listening levels. You'll hear the same clear musical nuances whether you turn the volume up or keep it soft."
Anyone familiar with driver design knows that, the smaller the driver, the greater the excursion needed to produce a given volume level. The small speakers in the Wave are not going to be able to play at really high levels before distortion sets in. The Tivoli has a similar problem -- it can't play at high levels without severe compression.
"With its deeper tones and even more lifelike sound, you might just feel like you?re sitting in the front row." Well, you might. But my system has a retail price of 100 times that of the Bose, and I have to play really good recordings (such as the Mahler 5th on Water Lily Acoustics, or some of my own recordings) to even _begin_ to get the feeling of hearing "the real thing". You have to own rather expensive speakers -- and then augment them with additional channels of extracted or synthesized ambience through extra speakers -- to even begin to approach what one hears in a concert hall.
It's at this point that advertising exaggeration segues into lying. Did the person who wrote this ever bother to attend a live concert to judge how closely the Wave approximates that experience? Probably not. But then there's always that waffle word, "might". And its presence suggests that whoever penned this sentence knows that the rest of it is a lie. *
Bose's advertising is aimed at musically and sonically illiterate people. It uses buzz words designed to produce an emotional reaction that the equipment itself is incapable of eliciting.
I know of no other audio company that makes such claims. I've seen plenty of loony, absurd, outrageous, or contrary-to-fact claims made over the past 40 years, but I don't remember any company that has made so many, so often, or so persistently, as Bose.
The only arguable exception is QUAD, whose slogan has long been "The closest approach to the original sound." This is a "relative" claim, but it nevertheless avers that QUAD speakers are the best (or the least-bad). QUAD, at least, has more than 50 years of listeners and reviewers raving about their products.
Some reviewers feel the ESL-57, QUAD's first speaker, to be the best speaker ever made. QUAD's current top-of-the-line speaker, which retails for $11,000, is considered by some reviewers to the best speaker available, regardless of size or price. (Before you object, note that $11,000 is less than the cost of a decent new car.) QUAD has a track record of producing genuinely high-quality products that listeners, reviewers, and recording engineers feel give an honest representation of the recording, and a reasonable approximation of the original sound. Do Bose products perform at this level? They're light years from it.
I don't know about the "trouble" part (as far as I know, Bose stuff isn't unreliable), but I am bothered when I see that someone has wasted their money. And that's what I'm trying to set right.
It's my opinion that people buy Bose because they're seduced by the literature, not the sound (the 901s being the only exception).
In the unlikely event the OP is still reading this, I hope he will find some non-loony audiophile (such as myself) who'll help him pick out some decent, reasonably priced components that will give him much more listening satisfaction.
I think most people are more-critical listeners than they think. One of my co-workers at the camera/music store was an intelligent young man (who was also a professional photographer on the side) who professed no particular interest in sound reproduction. He owned Bose 501s and a Pioneer receiver, and that was fine. After leaving to work for Bendix Field Engineering, I returned one day to purchase something. He was raving about these great speakers he'd just heard -- the Dahlquist DQ-10s -- which I had already bought! He was so impressed with them that upgraded the rest of his system with "real" (???) audiophile electronics. And he was an "audiophile". At least, not to start.
As
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The issue here, I think, is not whether or not Bose products are "good" (highly debatable) or "good for the money" (definitely not), but whether people like them. Which apparently they do, or they wouldn't buy them. But customer satisfaction does not imply "quality" in the absolute sense. It only indicates they're giving the customers what they think they want.
And by the way, ignorant people _can_ be taken in by hype. I was.
Have you ever heard Korngold's music for "The Sea Hawk"? The title is an over-the-top, in-your-face orchestral "splat" that's great fun to listen to, and a challenge for any audio system. You can buy $500 worth of components that will do a creditable job of conveying this music's excitement. Can the $500 Wave do that?
I don't know what the peak SPL of this piece would be in a hall, but it has to be at least 100dB. It's highly unlikely the Wave can produce that level cleanly, whereas a decent compact component system could approximate it.
up
I can't read other peope's minds, so I don't fully know their motivations. But if Bose didn't make such outrageous, unjustifiable claims, it's unlikely they'd come in for so much criticism.
concept
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It might -- though I object to comparing a plug-in product to a battery-operated portable. I'd have to hear a comparison to properly pass judgement. And Bose doesn't make that comparison -- they compare the Wave to "much larger" component systems.
See above.
have
Such as the "current dumping" amp.
with
I've worked on QUAD amps, and found them a bit "wispy".
The ESL-57 had a reputation for less-than-superb build quality. The current stuff, maunfactured in China, is supposedly better.
to
No, I do understand what you're trying to say. I just feel you're defending Bose for the wrong reasons.
I'm aware that a lie is, strictly speaking, an intentional untruth. But it someone neglects or refuses to educate themselves, then an error of fact slides toward becoming a lie.
These material objects are made and set out in front of us . Each object is usefull or not usefull to different people . None of it is worth harsh words toward another person . A persons feelings are way more important than the quality of an object
Because it's a lie. Isn't it to everyone's advantage to point dishonesty, whether it's in government or advertising?
I have no objection to people buyng an expensive table radio. I object to them buying an expensive table radio that's of much lower quality than they could have gotten by buying a modest component system for the same price.
No, it's not. Some speakers are worth $11,000. Why don't you listen to the current QUADs and decide for yourselft?
My "non-loony" system is Apogee Divas and Parasond SA-21 amps. Care to tell me what your "sensible" system is?
If you can't justify your position, then you're merely spewing. Harlan Ellison agrees.
Yes, ok, I know I said that I wasn't going to say any more, but I really can't let a couple of the points go by. As far as I have ever seen on the numerous occasions that I have visited your country, it is, much like mine, one of fundamental free speech and thought. As such, any of us has an absolute right to our opinions, without having to justify them to anyone. Anybody who insists that in order for a person to hold a contrary opinion, they must justify it to that person's satisfaction, is indeed very arrogant. I have tried to explain why I hold the opinion that I do so that we may better understand one another's position. Beyond that, I feel no further need to expand upon it. I give you an absolute right to your opinion, whether I totally understand it or not. Kindly do me the courtesy of reciprocating, and if you really feel that you can't, then I would have to place you in that 'arrogant' category of person.
I don't want to get into another pissing contest about small speakers, but have you ever taken the trouble to listen to some of the better 6 channel home cinema systems that are now out there ? Many of them have very small speakers - often little bigger than those in the Wave Radio - and they give very creditable performance, both from the amount of air that they can shift, and the overall sound. Of course they are not going to sound like the
18" speakers in the cinema, nor like your 'high end' music reproducing system, but to say that small speakers cannot possibly reproduce anything bordering on high fidelity, is simply not true.
Over the years, many reputable manufacturers have produced 'bookshelf' systems - and I'm surprised that you claim to not understand that term - with bookshelf speakers to match, that produce very reasonable results. Again, I wouldn't seek to compare them with your system, although contrary to your opinion, I think that the vast majority of the buying public really would not be able to tell much difference at a similar volume level. But the point I am making is that a small speaker is not necessarily a bad speaker
*for the vast majority of listeners*. It's really "horses for courses".
The fact that you say that you feel obliged to point out to a person how he has wasted his money by buying a Bose, and by implying that he should dispose of it and let someone like you pick out something better for him, perfectly illustrates the point I made about Bose owners coming in for a kicking, just because they have used their free choice to buy one.
When the poster first asked his question, which was about a perceived fault and nothing at all to do with his Wave Radio's performance or sound, or in any way implied that he was not satisfied with it, you immediately felt obliged to jump in with
"Asking for assistance with a Bose product is asking for trouble".
Perhaps you would like to explain exactly what you meant by that - it's what I've been trying to establish throughout this entire exchange. The poster asked a perfectly valid repair question on a repair newsgroup. The fact that it was about a Bose product was, in the repair context, neither here nor there, but you made it an issue by jumping in within minutes of the post appearing, to serve the owner with a pompous rebuke for daring to own the offending piece of equipment. You then went on to suggest that as a result of it having a problem, this should be just the excuse that he needed to throw it away and buy an entirely different concept item from the local electrical barn, which in your considered opinion, would be better than he had. Now perhaps I'm missing something here, but that does not seem to me to be a valid piece of repair assistance ...
Finally, as far as the Quad ESLs being the finest speakers ever made, I would have to say that again, that is very much a matter of personal opinion and taste. With the best will in the world, although they perform well, and have a pleasing sound in the mid to upper registers, they distinctly lack in bass, even when they are working correctly - and not many do after a few years of use. For their original price, I would again say that the standard of internal construction is often slap-dash, which is not what I would call quality equipment. Nice idea, poor execution is how I would put it.
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