Solving the BOSE issue!

[thekid]

E - Wooch and Resident

Youe responses are example of what I was referring to in my earlier response on this thread. I agree Wooch that their all-in-one systems are more along the lines of the "direct" approach that conventional speakers use and because of their choice, to in a sense divide the speakers they produce a poor sound. Resident is talking about their other speakers and may be there is something in what he says because on occasions some people here have given gruding props ( not accolades!!) to the 201's or 301's etc that I think are a different breed. I also agree (I'm in an agreeable mood...) with emorphien and Resident that FR readings may not be all they are cracked up to be but it is intersting to note that when it comes to Bose, their lack of publishing FR's is often cited as a criticism. I am not sure people can have it both ways... FR are important when they favor my POV and when they don't they are not true measure of performance. I am not taking a position either way on FR's because I don't know enough about them.

[emorphien]

E - Wooch and Resident

Youe responses are example of what I was referring to in my earlier response on this thread. I agree Wooch that their all-in-one systems are more along the lines of the "direct" approach that conventional speakers use and because of their choice, to in a sense divide the speakers they produce a poor sound. Resident is talking about their other speakers and may be there is something in what he says because on occasions some people here have given gruding props ( not accolades!!) to the 201's or 301's etc that I think are a different breed. I also agree (I'm in an agreeable mood...) with emorphien and Resident that FR readings may not be all they are cracked up to be but it is intersting to note that when it comes to Bose, their lack of publishing FR's is often cited as a criticism. I am not sure people can have it both ways... FR are important when they favor my POV and when they don't they are not true measure of performance. I am not taking a position either way on FR's because I don't know enough about them.

FR is important, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't necessarily directly tell you how the speakers will sound in your listening environment.

It is entirely up to the individual but I happen to agree with those that say even when given a fair chance and set up as their design necessitates, the Bose "regular" speakers (ie not surround systems) just aren't as good as other speakers at or below their price range.

[GMichael]

They operate on that weird reflecting/direct technology gimmick, don't they?
Maybe they're not suppose to measure flat?

Personally, I've always found FR to be somewhat over-rated. I've heard speakers that measure poorly (ie: +2/-9 dB) sound okay.. The key is the -9 dB and where it was at in the spectrum. I gave the speaker soundstage a sense of depth in the midrange.
Sometimes it was a bit annoying, most of the time you couldn't tell though. I think errors of addition are worse than errors of omission in that case. A +9 dB peak would probably make the same speaker unlistenable.

I'm just saying, maybe that's a sound people like, and is exactly what Bose is trying to do?

A few years back Parts Express was selling the Bose drivers they bought out for $0.15 or so...I can measure those if anyone has any?

I have thought the same thing Kex. Bose does a fair job with the mids. And they have a little thump in the range that pop music likes to play with. Maybe part of the research that they've done led them to believe that this is what is important to most people. Crisp highs and tight lows are great for critical listeners. But the average Joe may not give a flying fig about them. Too much highs hurt people's ears. Too many lows can get too people too. My dad hates my sub. When he's over & we watch a movie he complains about all the thump thump thump. And specs are not everything. I have heard speakers that had fair highs & lows but I couldn't stand them. I couldn't hear the singer's voices. They were over powered by the base & clashing of highs. The lack of output in the 120 to 200htz may be what is needed to keep the base from getting to be too much. Maybe Bose is just giving people what the average Joe wants, or at least thinks he wants.

[njspeer]

Specs by damned. My 901s rock the house!

[Woochifer]

I have thought the same thing Kex. Bose does a fair job with the mids. And they have a little thump in the range that pop music likes to play with. Maybe part of the research that they've done led them to believe that this is what is important to most people. Crisp highs and tight lows are great for critical listeners. But the average Joe may not give a flying fig about them. Too much highs hurt people's ears. Too many lows can get too people too. My dad hates my sub. When he's over & we watch a movie he complains about all the thump thump thump. And specs are not everything. I have heard speakers that had fair highs & lows but I couldn't stand them. I couldn't hear the singer's voices. They were over powered by the base & clashing of highs. The lack of output in the 120 to 200htz may be what is needed to keep the base from getting to be too much. Maybe Bose is just giving people what the average Joe wants, or at least thinks he wants.

Well, if Bose's research calls for huge peaking in the midrange (which is exactly what occurs with the Acoustimass 15) followed by a major dropoff in the upper midrange, then it contradicts the listening tests and acoustical research that Floyd Toole did at the NRC in Canada. In his research, he found in double blind listenings, people will generally prefer speakers that have most linear response throughout the midrange, regardless of what occurs in the highs and lows. The other findings were preferences for low distortion and good off-axis response.

I think in Bose's case, the Acoustimass design choices placed the greatest priority on minimizing the size of the satellite units and using a single driver design to reduce costs. Everything else had to mitigate that initial design compromise. Bose is giving what the average Joe wants, and that's a system that prioritizes the design compatibility and sounds better than their TV speakers. If people complain about the highs and lows, they're probably not accurate to begin with. A properly tuned subwoofer that has accounted for the room-induced peaking will not have a thumping sound, unless that was part of the original source.

[GMichael]

Well, if Bose's research calls for huge peaking in the midrange (which is exactly what occurs with the Acoustimass 15) followed by a major dropoff in the upper midrange, then it contradicts the listening tests and acoustical research that Floyd Toole did at the NRC in Canada. In his research, he found in double blind listenings, people will generally prefer speakers that have most linear response throughout the midrange, regardless of what occurs in the highs and lows. The other findings were preferences for low distortion and good off-axis response.

I think in Bose's case, the Acoustimass design choices placed the greatest priority on minimizing the size of the satellite units and using a single driver design to reduce costs. Everything else had to mitigate that initial design compromise. Bose is giving what the average Joe wants, and that's a system that prioritizes the design compatibility and sounds better than their TV speakers. If people complain about the highs and lows, they're probably not accurate to begin with. A properly tuned subwoofer that has accounted for the room-induced peaking will not have a thumping sound, unless that was part of the original source.

Oh well. I gave it a shot. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Doesn't sound good for them.

In my dad's case, he worked at a power plant for over 30 years. His ears are shot. He can't hear anything over about 8k. I may have my sub turned up a bit , but I like it that way. Sounds good to me. I love it when you can feel the explosions.

[Resident Loser]

...I keep seing references to the Sound and Vision article from 1999 from which those specs were quoted...and yet more recently in November '04 Ken Pohlmann did a review of the Lifestyle 38 system that seems to have no axes to grind...and didn't call into question Dr. Bose's lineage or ulterior motives in his supposed quest to dominate the A/V world...

Getting back to those numbers...I realize no loudspeaker exists in an anechoic vacuum, but putting any Bose loudspeaker in that test environment seems to be somewhat self-serving...Direct/Refelecting being the operative phrase, sorta' kinda' intimates that relections are what they are...well...a somewhat important , dare I suggest integral, part of the mix...Hmmm...anechoic...reflections...anechoic... reflections...DANGER! DANGER! This does not compute Will Robinson!!!

I've found nothing re: these specs that indicates the multiple cubes were aimed on-axis, the only available resource is here:

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

and if they were, given the fact that the Bose owners manual indicates they should be aimed to give a balance of direct and reflected sound, the test parameters are therefore suspect IMO. Might the fact that they are supposed to be off-axis to each other have skewed the numbers? and all the while, conveniently fitting in the apparent Bose-bashing agenda? If so, how convenient...

I'm not gonna' say the frequency plot as provided isn't ragged...bu-u-u-t...

That dip in the 200-300Hz region is at the crossover point between the bass mod and the satts...if the system was placed in a real room (not in a anechoic environment) would things have been more linear? Keep on repeating...direct/reflecting...direct/reflecting...

The rise to a +4 dB peak and subsequent fall @ 5-7kHz region...could the axis alignment (if that's how it was indeed done) have been responsible?

Answers? I have none...only questions...

I'll try to locate my pink-noise plots over the weekend, but at the very least I'll just re-plot the inverse of my current settings on my half-octave graphic and provide some further info...at least re: 901-lls...and they were done in a real-life living room and with the best of intentions.

jimHJJ(...now I think I'll have an apple turnover and some OJ...)

[emorphien]

Specs by damned. My 901s rock the house!

Be that as it may, we're trying to find out what it is and how to quantify those properties that make Bose speakers sound bad to us.

[njspeer]

Be that as it may, we're trying to find out what it is and how to quantify those properties that make Bose speakers sound bad to us.

The thing that makes it sound so bad is peer pressure. Below is one of my favorite quotes from this forum. I think it illustrates the culture of Bose Bashing perfectly.

...I'm not too familiar with any of their home audio equipment. However, as a pilot, the Bose product I am familiar with is their noise-canclling aviation headset, which is horribly overpriced compared to most other products on the market. I get the impression that a lot of people buy them because of some perceived mystique associated with the Bose nameplate.

It's a quality product, but there are other aviation headsets that provide about 80% of the quality for only 50% of the price.

Just a thought.

So here we are on an audiophile forum where it's acceptable to buy solid silver speaker cables, $20,000 DACS, $3000 crossovers, and no speaker is ever too expensive in the pursuit of better "imaging" or what ever. But if Bose dares to makes the best noise-canceling aviation headset in the world, it still better be the best gd deal on the planet or it sucks. I wish someone here would man up and admit that they hate Bose because they were told to.

here's the link to the quote (Are Bose 301 Speakers the best in there price range?)

[Feanor]

I've only ever hear Bose briefly in a dealer show room; I found that the setup there had a very "expansive" sound which I sort of enjoyed.

My own bedroom set also has an "expansive" sound. I have Radio Shack Minimus 7's mount very close to the ceiling plus a low-cost subwoofer. The Rat Shacks point straight ahead horizontally, not downwards towards the typical listening position. The results are -- to use my word -- an "expansive" i.e. diffuse, room-filling sound. It's actually pleasant for no-critical listening but there is no imaging at all, barely even a sense of stereo sound.

I did once have a pair of speakers that sounded pretty expansive but that still imaged well. These were my Ohm F, full-range Walsh driver, speakers. Walsh drivers are omni-directional, of course. My Ohms were placed 2.5' from the side wall and 3-4' from the wall behind them. I suspect that any closer to the walls and the imaging would have deteriorated pretty fast. I've always been sorry that I sold those Ohm F's.

[JoeE SP9]

The thing that makes it sound so bad is peer pressure. Below is one of my favorite quotes from this forum. I think it illustrates the culture of Bose Bashing perfectly.



So here we are on an audiophile forum where it's acceptable to buy solid silver speaker cables, $20,000 DACS, $3000 crossovers, and no speaker is ever too expensive in the pursuit of better "imaging" or what ever. But if Bose dares to makes the best noise-canceling aviation headset in the world, it still better be the best gd deal on the planet or it sucks. I wish someone here would man up and admit that they hate Bose because they were told to.

here's the link to the quote (Are Bose 301 Speakers the best in there price range?)

I am consistant. I have never liked anything from "The Mountain". I didn't like the original 901's when they were introduced. I like them even less now!
I have been an audiophile longer than a lot of you have been alive. I have always advised everyone that "Blose" products are not what the common assumption says, ie:the best in the world. I don't like a "Blose" defender saying I was told to do anything.

[emorphien]

The thing that makes it sound so bad is peer pressure.

Quite frankly that's a very ignorant and arrogant statement.

When I was younger I used to be interested in Bose, I had heard all the marketing and thought that they must be good. I finally heard them, well before I got in to audio and well before I joined my first forum and realized that they weren't what I had expected of them. I could tell then that they didn't compare to other speakers costing less. Over the years I've only seen and heard more of them and have continued to marvel at how well their marketing works. I almost fell for it but hearing them was enough to tell me that they weren't that great.

You are allowed to like them, I'm not going to criticise or say you're stupid or that you don't think for yourself. Everyone has a different acceptance threshold as well as different hearing. I have very good hearing and on more than one occaision I've driven shop owners batty at audiophile shops complaining about whining CD players. "I can hear the CDs spinning!"

Others may say you've fallen prey to the marketing, and maybe you have but perhaps you're no more guilty of that than many are for just following the anti-Bose bandwagon without ever giving them a listen. I'm just going to say I don't like the Bose sound, I think it's subpar and they charge too much for speakers that sound the way they do.

[GMichael]

The thing that makes it sound so bad is peer pressure. Below is one of my favorite quotes from this forum. I think it illustrates the culture of Bose Bashing perfectly.



So here we are on an audiophile forum where it's acceptable to buy solid silver speaker cables, $20,000 DACS, $3000 crossovers, and no speaker is ever too expensive in the pursuit of better "imaging" or what ever. But if Bose dares to makes the best noise-canceling aviation headset in the world, it still better be the best gd deal on the planet or it sucks. I wish someone here would man up and admit that they hate Bose because they were told to.

here's the link to the quote (Are Bose 301 Speakers the best in there price range?)

I actually like how Bose sound and have said that many times. But I have also heard much better sound for less money.

[thekid]

If I may attempt to bring this back on topic somewhat .....and ask a newbie question.....

Re-The FR gaps that were mentioned earlier referencing the cubes- are they (FR gaps-Not the issues with the cubes) correctable using tweaks from your reciever or other methods? For example if the speakers over emphasize mid-bass could you change your x-over? As I mentioned I don't really understand the intricacies of FR and sense it came up here I thought I'd ask.

Thanks for any education in this area you all could provide.

[JoeE SP9]

If I may attempt to bring this back on topic somewhat .....and ask a newbie question.....

Re-The FR gaps that were mentioned earlier referencing the cubes- are they (FR gaps-Not the issues with the cubes) correctable using tweaks from your reciever or other methods? For example if the speakers over emphasize mid-bass could you change your x-over? As I mentioned I don't really understand the intricacies of FR and sense it came up here I thought I'd ask.

Thanks for any education in this area you all could provide.

Suppose you have a two way speaker with a woofer and a tweeter. If the tweeter can reproduce frequencies from 2,000Hz to 16,000Hz and the woofer can reproduce frequencies from 62Hz to 500Hz how do you hear the frequencies between 500Hz and 2,000Hz. This is a frequency response gap. My example is exagerated a bit. I think you get the point. All the tweaking in the world will not help with FR gaps.

[Resident Loser]

...I'll try to locate my pink-noise plots over the weekend, but at the very least I'll just re-plot the inverse of my current settings on my half-octave graphic and provide some further info...at least re: 901-lls...and they were done in a real-life living room and with the best of intentions.

I didn't have the time to locate my originals, but the following graph is the inverse of the settings currently on my SAE 2700B half-octave equalizer...



It took a while even locating multi-cycle, semi-log paper I could download that could be re-worked from a .pdf to a .jpg for my purposes...and me being an avowed Luddite and computer-illiterate had a devil of a time at the whole venture...plus now downsizing to fit the site's requirements...anywho!!!

jimHJJ(...have at it...)

[Woochifer]

If I may attempt to bring this back on topic somewhat .....and ask a newbie question.....

Re-The FR gaps that were mentioned earlier referencing the cubes- are they (FR gaps-Not the issues with the cubes) correctable using tweaks from your reciever or other methods? For example if the speakers over emphasize mid-bass could you change your x-over? As I mentioned I don't really understand the intricacies of FR and sense it came up here I thought I'd ask.

Thanks for any education in this area you all could provide.

To a point, you can correct for unevenness in the frequency response and alterations caused by the room acoustics. But, a frequency gap like you see with the Bose Acoustimass occurs at the extreme physical limits of the satelite and bass module units. EQ'ing or processing won't make those speakers do what they are physically incapable of doing.

[Woochifer]

...I keep seing references to the Sound and Vision article from 1999 from which those specs were quoted...and yet more recently in November '04 Ken Pohlmann did a review of the Lifestyle 38 system that seems to have no axes to grind...and didn't call into question Dr. Bose's lineage or ulterior motives in his supposed quest to dominate the A/V world...

Uh, and that 2004 review that Pohlman wrote did not include any technical measurements, which is very unusual for S&V. Let's see, S&V reviews for other comparable HTIB packages DO include the technical measurements, while they are excluded from the Bose Lifestyle 38 review. No axes to grind evident, but I would hardly call this type of exclusionary cherry picking objective.

Getting back to those numbers...I realize no loudspeaker exists in an anechoic vacuum, but putting any Bose loudspeaker in that test environment seems to be somewhat self-serving...Direct/Refelecting being the operative phrase, sorta' kinda' intimates that relections are what they are...well...a somewhat important , dare I suggest integral, part of the mix...Hmmm...anechoic...reflections...anechoic... reflections...DANGER! DANGER! This does not compute Will Robinson!!!

And here's where the Acoustimass differs ... that direct/reflecting design is adjustable by the USER, and can in fact be positioned as a conventional direct firing satellite unit. This is very different from Bose's direct/reflecting bookshelf and floorstanding speakers, or dipolar or bipolar or omnipolar speakers, which have the radiating pattern fixed into the speaker design.

and if they were, given the fact that the Bose owners manual indicates they should be aimed to give a balance of direct and reflected sound, the test parameters are therefore suspect IMO. Might the fact that they are supposed to be off-axis to each other have skewed the numbers? and all the while, conveniently fitting in the apparent Bose-bashing agenda? If so, how convenient...

S&V conducts all of their speaker tests using on-axis measurements. That's why their results are comparable from graph to graph. David Ranada and more recently Tom Nousaine have been conducting these tests the same way for years. No Bose bashing agenda from them, and no Bose favoritism from them either, unlike Pohlmann's approach of only telling the good news, and leaving out the details.

That dip in the 200-300Hz region is at the crossover point between the bass mod and the satts...if the system was placed in a real room (not in a anechoic environment) would things have been more linear? Keep on repeating...direct/reflecting...direct/reflecting...

Nope, the wall reflections and room placement cannot create what isn't there in the first place. The existence of this frequency gap is audible during normal listening. As I noted before, male voices sound very strange on an Acoustimass system.

The rise to a +4 dB peak and subsequent fall @ 5-7kHz region...could the axis alignment (if that's how it was indeed done) have been responsible?

Another very audible phenomenon in a real world setup. Despite their steep dropoff in the highs, the Acoustimass systems subjectively sound bright much of the time, and that goes along very well with that peak that occurs around the 5 kHz mark. However, this brightness does not apply to higher pitched sounds like violins, trumpets, cymbals etc. With those sounds, the Acoustimass systems sound almost muffled.

I'll try to locate my pink-noise plots over the weekend, but at the very least I'll just re-plot the inverse of my current settings on my half-octave graphic and provide some further info...at least re: 901-lls...and they were done in a real-life living room and with the best of intentions.

jimHJJ(...now I think I'll have an apple turnover and some OJ...)

Interesting results that you posted. The most notable aspect that I spotted was the big difference in how the L and R speakers measured. Was this room asymmetrical?

[superpanavision70mm]

I think that we are going back and forth on something that is just not really going to go anywhere. Chances are if you do not like Bose ...you are never going to like them. If you have a sweet system already...then you don't really care about Bose and that's the end of that. If you DO like Bose...then YEAH for you. I don' think it's right or wrong to like something because it's all a matter of taste. Fact of the matter is that Bose is right for certain people because of the price, the name, and to them it meets the need. For others, like most of us that write in this forum...we don't have any interest in Bose and that's fine too.

[Resident Loser]

...being the dimwit that I am, on review I noticed the right-channel peak @ 10k...actually since my EQ controls are +/- 16dB max, that point in the plot should be 5dB lower...like this:



And in answer to your inquiry:

Interesting results that you posted. The most notable aspect that I spotted was the big difference in how the L and R speakers measured. Was this room asymmetrical?

Well, ostensibly the room (10x14 or so) is visually a rectangle and my speaks are along the longest wall...however, directly opposite the left speaker is a foyer, alcove, place to wipe your feet, roughly 4ft. square...standing in it is a sonic nightmare, and I'm fairly certain it has an effect...to say the least...and then there's the picture window in the short wall in between...

As if that weren't enough, there is a similar situation at the right speaker. That mirror-image "alcove"-like space actually extends into a hallway, which at least doubles that leg of the room...and then there's the archway that opens into the dining area...so sonically, the space is sorta' like a U-shaped affair...and then of course comes the furnishings...all in all, a great big pain in the (r)ear...

I had used a laundry-list of SPLs on a legal pad for the EQ set-up...Since transferring those numbers to the proper plotting medium, I think I can now visually account and correlate for nearly every blip and bloop in the response curve.

jimHJJ(...all-in-all, it's been a beneficial exercise...)

[njspeer]

While you guys are trying to figure out why Bose sounds so bad, I'm listening to Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' on my vintage 901s, and they sound perfect.

[GMichael]

While you guys are trying to figure out why Bose sounds so bad, I'm listening to Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' on my vintage 901s, and they sound perfect.

I'll be listening to Rush 2112 on my Bose, on my way home in a few minutes. I'm sure that I'll enjoy it as much as I did this morning. But when I get home, I'll turn on my Yamaha mid-level receiver and it will sound much better, as it always does. I'll pop open a brew and maybe make myself a Pb&J sandwich.

I spent $25 on my cables. Hope that's OK. And My Infinity speakers still have the crossovers they came with.

[njspeer]

I spent $25 on my cables. Hope that's OK.

It's okay this time. Don't let it happen agian.

[GMichael]

It's okay this time. Don't let it happen agian.

I'll try not to. I'm thinking $38 next time. But that's only because it's double insulated. I doubt that helps the sound, but it does meet building codes for installing wire inside your walls.

[Resident Loser]

While you guys are trying to figure out why Bose sounds so bad, I'm listening to Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' on my vintage 901s, and they sound perfect.

..."...some of you guys..."...I've enjoyed mine since '75...

On the self-titled Heart album there is some between-cut banter (just before "Say Hello" I think) in which the voices, and the coin they're tossing on the ground, sound about as immediate and in-the-room-with-you as may be possible in recorded form...also during "Magic Man" (Dreamboat Annie) there is a synthesizer glissando that drops the frequency of a bass line into the Marianas Trench...smooth even, tight and powerful all the way to the bottom...of course the room EQing helps in smoothing no doubt, but they've got an excellent bottom and top-end IMO...

And in PFs title cut on "Wish You Were Here" there is that acoustic guitar intro that blows me away every time...and since I have played guitar since 1966, I have the reasonably adequate ability to know what one sounds like.

Smaller, less futzed-with disks, particularly jazz with acoustic bass, the bass is so present (and I don't mean loud and overbearing) I'm sometimes amazed...bowed lines are incredible...you can almost feel the rosin on the bow...details...you want details...I also find them to have very good localization and presentation of depth...

R. Carlos Nakai's "Canyon Trilogy" is a solo album of Native American flute music and it's sound is positively ethereal...as I'm sure it was intended...the 901s do it justice...

And I don't mean to give the impression of a generalized euphony, because there are albums that just plain s*uck for one reason or another...good recordings sound good/bad ones, bad...

jimHJJ(...and that's the name of that tune...)