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I reckon I know a little more than the average guy about Bose.
I ran the "factory" showcase store for Bose at the Tweeter store
in Massachusetts - We were only 2 mi from the factory ...It's all about marketing and acoustic research...
and low cost manufacturing methodology...Customer service
was always first rate IMHO...The early 301's and 501's were not bad at all -given what they were supposed to do...
The best 901 setup I'd heard was using 2 Crown DC 300's -901's-@ Cizek subwoofers along with a Dahlquist LP something crossover ...It had punch and the live ambience "feeling" that Dr Bose always chased...
My college buddies reverse-engineering the Series 1's
did their own controller box -fabbed the speakers cases -
and ordered the exact original drivers from CTS in Kentucky
-yeah- they sounded just like the originals..One finished his
pair in formica - another had cloth and chicken wire ( to protect against his cats !)I won one of early Bose car systems that are commonplace these days in GM cars, Nissan and others...Wish I still had it !
Their specialty is marketing - they are in the top 3 of world sales
both professional and consumer for the last 15 years...They made home theatre for the massess- plug and play was clearly their goal..
I bought my wife a wave radio for the kitchen - becuase she liked the aesthetics, the ease of us, and setup ...the engineering is first rate ..I'm sure it doesn;t have the pure musical quality of the KLH 21 radio or the reception of the Tivoli-but just easy to use and better looking.Their other models are I suppose some fair- some poor...Their computer speakers are pretty good..I gave my wife am Acoustimas 3
with an Adcom tuner preamp for the bedroom--She plays that VERY loud !
Hasn't broken yet after 8 years...Yes - Bose interviewed me 2x for marketing slots- the timing and pay wasn't a good match either time..Bose was the first - to ally themselves with a major record label- Sony and co-promote on the Internet...Yes their selling on the big WAVE radio is shameful..(the execs from this division came originally from Electrolux- the vaccum cleaner people...
But look at it this way - more people have easier to use music machines as a result; better than the average boom boxes, consoles,
prepackaged shelf systems and so forth ...They are one of the few companies that markets to the older generation - who are "space-bound"
in their apartments-condos and assisted living centers. They are the only ones who make an optional larger button control for their radios
for the less able sighted (elderly) people in the population...No - I am not getting paid for this submission...Maybe the sound isn't the best .. but for the most part the" out-of-box experience"
and initial satisfaction - is..And that's more than I can say for most
audio and home theatre makers these days...
Follow Ups:
I had a pair of Studiocraft by Bose speakers in my first hifi set, early 1980s. I found a pair of Studiocraft speakers lately in a thrift store for 2 euro, took them home and THEN i discovered the foam surrounds of the woofers were gone. My eyes ain't getting any younger. I ordered new surrounds and restored them, i thought i'd better practice this on cheap speakers. The sound after repair was underwhelming, audible distortion in the highs.
I have a pair of 301mk2's in the attic. Got them for 10 euro, for that money they're fun as long as you spin mono records...
I once saw a Bose TT that looked interesting, it looked like a Jap TT of the era, Pioneer maybe? Did Bose build these TT or were they OEM built in Japan?
"The torture never stops"
..Amar Bose was and is a serious acoustical engineer with a serious interest in improving sound. He had his own ideas of how this should be done, just as the other greats in the industry such as Villchur, Kloss etc. did. One of thise ideas was the 901, which presented a huge soundstage and used nine tiny 4 inch woofers and an active equalization module,..pioneering ideas at the time, every bit as pioneering in its own way as acoustic suspension boxes etc.
For a time there were other manufacturers that tried to do some of the same things Bose did--the Design Acoustics D-12 is an interesting example of a speaker hung by chains and designed to be omnidirectional too using a lot of reflected sound while avoiding using the Bose patents.Another pioneering effort by Bose was in the development of the three piece system that simplified room placement relative to the massive walnut veneer boxes of the day. We can quibble over whether Bose ran the bass module up too high (he did and does by modern subwoofer standards) and thus the placement of the module in the room became more critical than Bose advertized, but in my mind improvements on the 3-piece idea begat the whole round of design involving small MT units with big subs--essential to nearly all Home Theater setups nowadays. And Amar Bose came up with the first practical and popular 3-piece design. Interestingly, when Kloss founded Cambridge Soundworks after the Advent years, his first product was a three-piece unit designed to work around some of the problems the Bose units faced--in much the analogous way the Large Advent was seen as an improvement on the original AR-3 design.
Besides, AR, KLH, Advent et al, despite their popularity as vintage designs, are all but no longer with us. Bose had the business sense to keep his business going even as the serious competition from the 70s fell one by one. Obviously, selling walnut-veneer wood boxes is not sufficient to keep a large business going any more (as much as some of us would like to believe it sould be). The public, in terms of popular tastes in speakers by and large has moved on. I too find this not only annoying and sad, but that doesnt mean it hasn't happened.
But the last thing I want to do is bash Amar Bose and his company for continuing to be successful by figuring out how to design and market a series of products that continue to be purchased by a very large number of consumers, as well as adapting the business on a continuing basis to the times.
Sure the stuff is overpriced. But that's true of a lot of gear marketed primarily to high-end consumers. Let's instead give credit to Bose for maintaining the image of the company of exclusivity such that he can continue to design stuff that fetchs premium prices and sell it at high gross margins. That in part is the reason Bose is profitable and very much with us as a company today whereas Advent, KLH and AR are not.
At the end of the day, I very much admire Amar Bose. He figured out a lot of puzzles from an engineering and business perspective in acoustical engineering that befuddled a lot of equally bright people, and he clearly knew what he needed to do to keep his business going.
The facts that his engineering approach doesnt appeal to everyone, and that the products are sold at high profit margins is not the core of the issue here. The core is developing and maintaining a business in a cut-throat area that continues to attract customers, many of whome are quite satisfied with the product they purchased.
Despite selling a gazillion speakers, Kloss and Advent were doomed almost from day 1, because gross margins on the products were never high enough to sustain the business long term. That's why Kloss was forced out of the publically-traded company he founded just before the 2nd gen Advent appeared. The customer always got a heck of a deal from Advent value wise, but Advent the business was doomed. By about 1976, the board and shareholders knew that changes were essential to survive. But nothing they tried post-Kloss was able to save the company either. It's tough to reverse course and price products at high gross margins when the company had initially staked its reputation on value for the dollar. Bose was shrewd enough a business person to not make the same mistakes (he surrounded ihimself with marketing people who always knew how to market a brand and sell it at high gross margins--the premium product not the high-value product) and his company very much is still with us.
Good post!Just one comment. Electrolux is actually a swedish company that makes a full range of home appliances, and they are the largest appliance manufacturer in the world, although much of it is under other names like White-Westinghouse, Admiral, or Frigidaire. Many more regional brands in Europe. For many years here in the USA we only associated the name with vacuum cleaners. Your guy may have only been associated with the vacuum cleaner business, but there is much more.
Well, a second comment. We have the high WAF Bose AM-5 series II in the living room associated with the TV. The sound is quite good, once i got the bloody things set up properly. With no controls, all you can do is move things around until the sound gels. Took me two weeks.
i remember at a clothing trade show the guy had his blasting away jimmy buffet i thought it was cool looking the next morning we set up a sansui quad amp with 2 reverb amps played dsotm and some rock/disco
he packed the thing away came over and hung out
i still have the system in my store
In 1978 I worked in an audio shop outside of Boston. We were not a Bose dealer, but bought a pair of 501s for the showroom so we could demo against them. Everything in and most things under the price of the 501 sounded better; including the Allison 5, ads L520, Yamaha NS-5 and the Genesis Physics Model One.Bose found out about our having the 501 on display and showed up one day with laywers in tow and took them away.
It was fun while it lasted.
I had a pair of 501 series II, and thought they were darn good. They do take a little effort to set up with ample wall space on both sides, etc. How hard did you try to give them a fair chance?One sleezy local shop had a pair to demo against and put other speakers tight up against the sides so the tweeters were blocked. Sounded awful! Another shop had a pair of Advents and had the tweeter switch set to Decrease-dullsville!
A good friend was in audio retail in this area (near Cleveland) in the 70's and he's told me all sorts of war stories. He worked for a chain called Tokyo-Shapiro.
We had all of the speakers we sold tightly spaced on a shelf (pretty typical in those days) and had the 501s mounted on the wall just above them. If anything, they had the advantage.
Dean.
Sorry, no! The owner's manual is quite specific about placement, the 501 is supposed to be on the floor against a wall. Putting them high up will thin out the bass and mid bass and make them unbalanced.I tried mine up on cement blocks (8") and it made a noticeable difference. Even placement on the 6" high hearth in the family room was too much.
I eventually put mine down in the basement rec room where they could be on the floor.
I admit to not knowing Bose numbers well. They were the ones that were bookshelf sized. Maybe a 301. The ones that were supposed to be on a shelf and close to the wall. So we hung a shel on the wall and placed them on it. They had a tweeter that pivoted, I think? It was 30 years ago, that's as best as I can remember.
That sounds like the 301. The early ones had a moveable vane in front of the tweeter (the tweeter was angled out at 45 degrees on one end) so you could adjust the radiation pattern of the tweeter and the precentage of reflected sound. Those were very nice little speakers, quite musical and surprisingly accurate. They were in mirror imaged pairs and could be used tweeters outboard or inboard or set up vertically. I used to recommend those for problem locations as they were so versatile in set up. Later 301 versions lost the versatility and didn't sound any better, or in some cases not as good. I hated the series IV that my son has now.The younger crowd preferred the EPI 100, but older folks liked the 301 better.
The 501 was 24" high by 14.5" square with a 2-3" base under it. Dual tweeters aimed diagonally backwards out of the sides of the cabinet. You needed 3' of clear space on either side of the cabinet, which most rooms don't have. In he third series of the 501 they went to a moveable vane like the early 301 and that made the 501 easier to place.
The first thing I ever learned as a marketing professional is that you should never push a snowball uphill.I am surprized that Bose could manhandle you in that way since you bought them and were therefore a customer. They would have been better off convincing you to be a dealer.
Better yet, they should have been willing to give you better speakers to compare your stuff to in exchange for the 501's....
Hoorah
Will wonders of creative marketing never die !
We did similar things in Harvard Square
against Advents
as salespeople we didn't make any commisions
on Advents / but a lot on Genesis
? so what did we sell "hard" ! ?
Housebrands did rule - at one time !
for Tech Hifi
it was OHMNNNIKO
Ohm speakers / receivers / phillips turtablesOh the HIFI retail wars back when !
The Wiz - Tech Hifi -Tweeter- Waltham Hifi
Natural Sound - Audio Lab - Cookin' - Q audio - Lechmere
long before there was Best Buy- Circuit City -
Where did you work?I was at Waltham Camera & Stereo from 1978 to 1982. I was a hi-fi nut and visited most of the other shops in the area; Natural Sound, Colony, K&L, Q, The Tech Hi-Fi Bargain Basement in Waltham was one of my favorites.
Those were the glory days of hi-fi.
I was at Tweeter in Harvard Square for 6 mo
in 1980 -then Framingham -(1980 -1983)in one
of their franchise stores ( which they later bought
back about 5 years later.) It was owned by
Glen Forman and his cousin, Gary. They also
bought a fanchise for Worcester -which they sold
off - about 2 years later..
I've poked fun at Bose products and fans a few times on AA. My comments are based on my own experiences. If you happen to like Bose, fine for you. My feelings are based on the following:1. Many years ago I bought a like-new but used pair of 901 speakers after my Advents were stolen. For the first week or so I was impressed, particularly with the big sound stage. But then I grew uncomfortable with solo voices, guitars, pianos, etc. that appeared to be the size of the wall behind the speakers. Also, their apparent bass sounded a bit bloated and not like real instruments. I sold them after about three months - luckily for about what I paid.
2. As elto relates, a major part of Bose is their marketing. Obviously, this has been very successful to mass market consumers. I just am not convinced that their engineering has produced the best sound possible in their respective product lines. Note elto's comments on the WAVE radio as one example.
3. My knowledge of Bose pricing (admittedly limited) is that they are more expensive than their competitors but justified only by their extensive marketing. A neighbor has a Bose 5.1 AV system which cost her well over $3K. I found this sound (set up by a Bose store specialist) to lack clarity and contain excessive mid-bass, just where the average consumer might be impressed, but very tiring to listen to for any length of time. A second Bose AV system I heard at a friend's had similar sound.
First and foremost Dr. Bose was a marketing genius.
If my experiences in setting up the AM-5 system is any guide, I'd expect about 80% are badly set up. I was not impressed by the sales guys at a local Bose store. Their lack of knowledge about audio basics was appalling. So was the layout of the speakers in their store, which I assume was set up by factory folks.My experience with 501's and 301's tells me that direct-reflecting speakers are harder to set up well than direct radiator types.
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