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hertz
08-12-2004, 05:03 AM
Yesterday a friend of mine convinced me to check out the local bose showroom.He wanted me to take a listen to their floorstanders.We were welcomed at the showroom by a pretty girl.She actually gave us a lecture on good audio before we got started. She had memorised the paragraph and just vomited it out at us. It took a lot effort not to burst out laughing. Well they had the 601s, 701s and the 901s on demo.All of them were connected to denon integrateds.The 601s and 701s were pathetic.They sounded constipated and lifeless.The bass lacked definition and was boomy. The highs had an early rolloff and vocals were unnatural.I don't know why people shell so much cash for them. To top it all, they won't give home demos.Once the carton is opened, you had to take it. The pretty girl said that BOSE makes the best speakers in the world so there is no question of customers being unsatisfied...LOL.
Surprisingly the 901's sounded the best of them all. They were better than most mass market speakers below 1k. But for the price they are asking, it is a laugh.
I then took him to my friendly dealer's house/showroom.One listen to a pair of PROAC floorstanders connected to a NAD C370 settled it. He is picking them up this weekend.

Resident Loser
08-12-2004, 08:04 AM
...Question though, are you aware that all of corporate America provides ALL customer contact people with scripts of one sort or another?

For minimum wage(or whatever), you don't get Charlton Heston or James Earl Jones.

And at the boutiques, you get the jargon-slinging, Stereophile-reading salesman, who is instructed by his boss what to "push" at any given time, of the limited and high-markup selection they are allowed to sell by the distributors, who are only allowed by the companies to distribute to dealers who cannot "infringe" on each others' territory, so that there is no competition and hence that high markup and continuance of a great part of that cache and mythology...

jimHJJ(...it is truly a wonderful world...)

chimera128
08-12-2004, 09:15 PM
They are opening up a Bose showroom here also, which I don't really understand because you can buy the speakers at Best Buy. My roommate took a lot of convincing that Bose aren't the best speakers out there (we use his old lifestyle system for computer speakers) but faced with reality he had to eventually admit that even he could tell the difference. It's amazing what marketing can do for a company.

Worf101
08-12-2004, 09:17 PM
Hey, at least you saved him from himself. You should be commended on that. What would you, or any of us for that matter, done had he just been unable to hear the difference. My son's mum finally "get's it". That my main rig in the living room is far superior to anything she'd heard before and I'm running only midfi gear at best. We were listening to Sade the other day and she was crying, "it sounds like she's singing to me" se said. I've never been happier. But when she got here a year ago, a boombox was fine with here.

You did good work man, good work.

Da Worfster :D

hertz
08-13-2004, 01:42 AM
He had a listen to my B&W / NAD setup before we went out to the place. So he was not so impressed with the bose. But at his initial visit he was impressed because his reference point was his old "SONY bommbox home theatre in a box " system. And then he listened to the Proacs with the NAD C370 which blew him away.

kexodusc
08-13-2004, 03:35 AM
I can think of at least 3 examples where people I know bought Bose speakers and absolutely love them. Problem is none of these 3 (2 couples and a single guy) actually listened to the speakers first, and at least 2 of these didn't listent to anything else as a point of reference. I don't know about the other case.
Consequently they are happy with their purchases and firmly believe Bose offers superior value and sound. I don't even bother arguing, what's the point, they've already paid for them and it would just create friction.
I have mentioned they could sell them for a pretty penny on ebay and buy some great "new speakers". No bites yet though.

God I hope they don't run into a salesman selling silver cables or something.

jrflanne
08-13-2004, 05:08 AM
If they are happy, then what the heck. There are a lot of people out there that do not know, nor do they care, what their sound system sounds like. I also know of several people that have Acustimass HT setups and they just love them.
jack

kexodusc
08-13-2004, 05:16 AM
If they are happy, then what the heck. There are a lot of people out there that do not know, nor do they care, what their sound system sounds like. I also know of several people that have Acustimass HT setups and they just love them.
jack

I don't have the serious hate on for Bose that some do...I'm just in the crowd that feels they're 300% overpriced or whatever. There are worse buys out there as far as speakers go, they just aren't as mass-marketed as Bose.

I do have a problem with Bose fanatics and the salesforce Bose seems to employ. To be honest though, the local B&W and Klipsch dealers are just as bad, if not worse...human nature I guess.

I must say, I haven't found anyone so biased and annoying as Axiom fans though...I called into doubt some of the reviews and claims on my M3Ti's once, and I still get hate e-mail for it.

Mathew J
08-27-2004, 08:11 PM
I'm just in the crowd that feels they're 300% overpriced or whatever.


<--has found this to be true about all of their models except the AM6 setup, every comparable system is generally about the same price, some a little less but alot of them are way more than the bose.