Bose Wave Music system

We always spend part of the winter holidays down at the Virginia shore with another family, who usually bring along their Wave (of which they are, like most nonaudiophile owners, quite proud), to provide some background music in the rental house. Naturally, being a curious audiophile, I once decided to grab some of my own disks from the car and spend a little time finding out how well it could really play. Bottom line: I certainly wouldn't buy one. Of course I kept this to myself -- my apologies to the satisfied owners above -- but the only reaction exceeding my annoyance with its marginal sound (not in ridiculous comparison with audiophile systems, and not just relative to the hyperbole proffered by Herbie Hancock ads and innocent owners, but in absolute terms for a device in its category) was my contempt at the money asked. I feel there's not much else to this admittedly attractively designed product beyond a truly brilliant marketing scheme (or should I say scam).

Audire: Sorry, no recent experience or intent on my part. When I wrote "category" I was probably being too narrow, considering that I was also thinking of more boom-box and shelf-system style devices as well as plain old table radios from various eras, all cheaper and better sounding but not all as small or attractive as the Wave. To be specific my main sonic objection to the Wave was what I felt to be the way too obvious and poorly judged colorations, and their attendant congestion, imparted by the inescapable EQ Bose employs in attempting to make the thing sound like more than it is. Distractingly unnatural and unenjoyable to me. With the recent surge in new and good-looking tabletop/lifestyle devices thanks to the iPod, there's a lot of shopping around someone could do before dropping $500 sound unheard.

Point well taken Eldartford. But in mild defense of the high end, I'll note that in the long run, although the audiophile marketplace doesn't demand that price be reasonable by mass market standards, it does demand that price should correlate in some identifiable way with sound quality.

Generally speaking within audiophilia price is agreed upon by tacit, voluntary consensus to represent a proxy indicator of sound quality, and if that presumed correlation isn't backed up to a worthwhile degree -- after subtracting for the cache factor -- then a product that's priced too high for what it delivers sonically in comparison to the overall high end marketplace will eventually be weeded out. (True, some of these products may deliver more sonic fetishism than fidelity, but the principle still applies.) In the high end you have to earn your stripes in some perceivable way, not simply by making your design attractive and pouring money into your ad campaign, although that can sometimes work to a degree for a little while. But if your $30K product sounds no better than a $5K product (or at least different, in a way that's judged to be subjectively better by some), and offers no more physical and engineering substance, experienced listeners will catch on.

With the Bose, in its marketplace, there is no corrective process at work based on sound quality -- the cache factor alone is almost the entire ball of wax. IMO the success of the Wave's marketing plan is actually integrally dependent on most customers (and popular press 'reviewers') not being knowledgeable regarding matters of sound quality. Absent Bose's astutely calculated marketing strategy the Wave is just another unremarkable little plastic radio offering mediocre sound, and wouldn't be a famous name or able to command near its price.

Audire: Just so you can better guage my words here, I'm not impressed by the sound of the Tivoli One for what it costs either, often seen as the 'audiophile-approved' alternative to the Wave. Obviously other audiophiles disagree with my takes. But as I've written before, I feel the classic Advent Model 400 (of which I own one) and its predecessor the KLH Model Eight table radios still outclass these pretenders to the Kloss legacy.

About a month ago I spent half an hour in Target comparing the Boston Acoustics Recepter radio and the Sony table radio that Sam Tellig spilled ink on. I like the BA better, especially its design, but wouldn't spend the money charged for these on either one. The Sony sounded too nasal, congested and electronic with a grainy texture, and it distorted too early as the volume was turned up; the tone control didn't help much. The BA I think could have been very good, but unfortunately they mostly ruined it by going for an over-exagerated response curve that recesses the upper midrange and way overboosts the bass in a misguided attempt to play to the peanut gallery. If this EQ could be adjusted to make it more level by only a few dBs it could be a real winner for its size, but there's no way to fool with the fixed setting. So, too bad -- I might've bought the BA otherwise -- but as things stand neither radio is a zit on the butt of the vintage KLH and Advent table radio models for enjoyable sound.