Bose Acoustic Wave music system II is garbage

A family member purchased this as an early Christmas gift and called me up to come check it out with him. I'll admit, the $1200 price tag had me curious to hear what you this thing would sound like. Conventionally wisdom dictates that if you drop $1200 on an audio system, it must possess some incredible sound quality, right?

So, anyway, I get over there, and we have it hooked up and ready to go in about 3 minutes. Certainly looks nice with its graphite finish and modular design, blah blah blah. He turns it on and pops in a CD copy of the My Generation remaster. There's almost no bass response and the high end is almost overwhelming. I suggest we try a more modern CD that has a bit wider dynamic range. I had a copy of the Prodigy's Fat of the Land in my car, so we pop that in. Sounds just about as abysmal as My Generation.

Then, for ***** and giggles, we decide to hook up his old $200 Sony mini hi-fi to do a side-by-side comparison. Guess what...the Sony absolutely obliterated the $1200 Bose system. We concluded the night by packing the Bose components back into their respective boxes. He'll be returning everything tomorrow.

Long story short, unless you've got money to burn on junk, avoid the Acoustic Wave Music System II like the plague it is.

 

Wave II is the finest card board tube transmission line system you can buy and return if not delighted.

 

I'm surprised to hear this, Bose has a lot of fans on this forum.

 

I've never been a fan of Bose. It all looks very sleek and pretty as you say, "motion." Their stuff is even capable of creating an interesting sound stage. However, my issue with them has always been the "brightness." Everything I've heard on Bose sounds too "bright." Annoyingly bright, really.

Ed

 

But I thought it was supposed to sound like you were at a concert hall? It says so in the flyer I got from Amazon UK with my recent AKG 271 MKII headphones. Oh, did I not read the small print?

*may not represent actual concert halls.

 

Oddly, Ive just listened to one of these, a few months ago, and while not fantastic at all, it actually amazed me sound wise. The sony you mention is all boom and sizzle, the Bose was actually very listenable with a decent for its size low end. I saw one at a flea market outdoors. A guy had one set up to provide music for his day. I heard it well over 100 feet away, belting out frank sinatra, and was wondering where the decent quality sound was coming from, to my TOTAL SURPRISE, it was THAT bose thing!!

I think you are unfairly criticizing it really, as from my hearing it "unknown" I was quite admiring the sound, until I saw it was actually a bose.

It isnt perfect at all, but for how small that thing is in person, its more of a boombox, and NOT a bookshelf stereo at all. It was actually relatively warm and smooth sounding playing old frank. To use "My generation" as a test?? Thats a crap sounding recording to begin with.

Use some actual acoustic music, solo singers, jazz, and you would have been somewhat happily surprised at how good it can sound for a very small box.

I think way too many are willing to criticize bose unfairly. They sound good enough, and going by how many bash them youd expect total crap sound. Just aint so.

Look at guys spending hundreds of dollars on a piece of WIRE.....

 

agreed. did you try the latest $400 power cord? burn your 320 mp3 CD's at 1x? its like a whole new system.

 

Bose

The cost of the Bose puts it into the full system category. If the Bose were $400 (just to pick a price) that would be one thing but at $1200 you are laying down some serious cash.

I'm not necessary a Bose basher but its price is way too high.

Scott

 

For the price tag, it is total crap sound. This thing is only useful if you're unwilling or unable to invest similar dollars on components. And even with that, you'd have to be an idiot to throw away money on something which has sound comparable to a boombox. As I said in my original post, I pointed out that My Generation wasn't the best means of testing it, so we moved on to other CDs. I think we tried everything from my Prodigy CD to friggin' Ricki Lee Jones. His $200 system smoked the thing. That's not the result of being a Bose hater; I had no prior opinion about Bose. I've never owned a piece of Bose equipment, and hadn't heard anything other than their speakers in maybe 15 years (at least).

Perhaps you've got a lot more disposable income than the rest of us. I'm not hurting for cash, and I still can't justify dropping the kind of money my relative did on such inferior equipment.

 

Dude- thats so uncalled for. Differing opinions are allowed here....I dont think because someone hears something differently than you, that you have to attack him and insinuate he's got money to burn. Be an adult and entertain the idea that just because you said something it doesn't necessarily make it a fact to everyone else.

 

Um...

 

I was being facetious

and sorry, but on a forum where 90% of the user base dubs themselves "audiophiles," I simply refuse to believe that anyone who's spent more than a couple of seconds with this thing could ever believe it justifies the absurd price tag. Does it sound ok? Sure. Does ok sound warrant $1200? Not in this lifetime.

 

I've heard the Wave several times and for an all-in-one system I think it sounded very good........IF it cost around $400.

But for one thousand two hundred dollars? IMO no way, especially if you are only using it inside i.e. not taking it outside or on camping trips, not moving it from room to room, etc.

Plus the Wave has the same weird/sci-fi/clunky (to me) styling with I believe very low WAF it had when it first debuted what, in the early 90s? Which to me should justify even more the lowered price tag I mentioned previously.

Edit: on the Bose site it says the Wave's regular price is $1,099.95, but I'm still not changing my opinion expressed above.

 

no surprise here.

 

He got the 5-cd changer with it, and I think that carried an additional cost.

 

I don't understand why we are even discussing Bose on this website. They are basically a marketing company that cater to the herd mentality.

 

Products like this are not designed to provide value. They are primarily for people who pride themselves in how much money they can spend and can't tell or don't care about sound quality.

I have an Aunt like that who has a Bose Acoustic Wave System.

 

Bose

"I don't understand why we are even discussing Bose on this website. They are basically a marketing company that cater to the herd mentality."

++++++++++++++

Well, why not discuss it? Many people might not know about Bose, especially young people or non-audiophiles. Why not discuss whether it delivers the goods for the money versus other products that someone might buy instead? I see this as no different than the numerous other threads here about whether a certain cartridge, CD box set or pair of speakers is worth buying.

I actually like hearing about the Wave from people who've actually heard it. I haven't heard any Bose products since their 901s and 301s which for me was decades ago. I didn't think of Bose stuff as something I would have bought but I wasn't a hater either. On the other hand the Wave is a newer and different product that I have no experience with. I was always curious about its high price (compared to say, Tivoli Audio's one box stereo).

Scott

 

Tivoli

I mentioned the Tivoli Audio product that is comparable (somewhat) to the Bose Wave.

See this,

http://www.tivoliaudio.com/products/hi-fi-systems/the-music-system-classic-walnut-beige.html

Scott

 

She bought it because she heard it was "the best".



-Bill

 

This is probably due to driver resonance and/or break-up.

As a former speaker building hobbiest, the Bose speakers appear to be a poor design executed with cheap parts. It's really no wonder their performance suffers.