Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Julian Fowler wrote:

Applied to Bose "hi fii" products? APPLIED TO BOSE "HI FI"
PRODUCTS???

RAOTFL ... unless, of course, the result of "real science, research
and engineering concepts" is *supposed* to be crap sound ...


In actuality, Bose does an awful lot of very careful engineering and
research. But their products sound crappy because they are deliberately
designed to sound crappy.

They aren't designed to sound good because that's not the design goal
they have set. They are designed to sound different, to really stand
out from other speakers when you listen to them. They are designed to
sound exciting, to have a lot of boom and a lot of screech, so that
they really appeal to the inexperienced listener for a short listen in
the store.

It's trickier than that. Ever wonder why there is a huge midrange
hump? Simple - where they are selling them is often a mall or
large store. TONS of background noise. They are specifically made
to sound good in such an environment. In other words, they adjust
the sound to play somewhat flat in a typical store full of shoppers.


I did not understand the little "cube" satellite systems they sold in the
early '90s until I heard a football game through 'em, in glorious surround.
For *that* sort of program material, there was actually
pretty good localization and image.

Actually sounded pretty good, with all the upper mid presence peak. Just
don't try music through those things.

Given use patterns of cable TV, designing a speaker system to make
crowd noise from football games sound good isn't that bizarre a concept.

Now, since we don't live in a store, you unfortunately are stuck with
this "effect" when you are at home and don't need it. But it DOES sell
a lot of speakers. The people don't return them because they still
have the idea of the acceptable sound in the store when they first
listened to them in their minds.

Marketing genius. Poor sound quality, though.

P.S. They use the same "trick" with car speakers. Here, it works,
because of the constant wind and engine and tire drone at about
60-80db.

Dunno - the Bose car systems I remember with early '90s Nissan
Maximas was a stone cold great sounding car system - or so I
thought at the time. Had very accurate subs. Love to revisit
one of those, these days - see if it still seems as appealing
as it did.

Car systems are weird, anyway. My daughter listens to techno, and the
stuff sounds okay on a rather generic car system, but put it on a
set of dome tweeter monitors and all the nonlinear stuff shows
up big time. I note that she generally only buys head units with a BBE
button. And she only listens to music in the car - it's all DVD at home.

--
Les Cargill