The top ten reasons why.....

Top Ten reasons way the Bose Wave Radio is Ultra-High End:

10. Top loading CD transport to resist vibration and provide better mechanical isolation than a conventional drawer design. This design is found in the likes of Krell, Goldmund, Bow Technologies, Forsell, CEC belt driven designs, and many other well-respected names.

9. Point-Source loudspeaker design. Bose avoids multi driver arrays so that all the sound is launched from a single source. This also makes the Bose system time and phase coherent, just like Theil and many other designs. It also helps eliminate nasty speaker/room interactions.

8. Crossover-less design, (which means phase problems never even had a chance). This gives the speaker a bit more efficiency (a db) and eliminates the inherent distortions associated with a crossover. The total design reminds me of the Lowther drivers.

7. Lack of internal standing waves. The contoured shape of the wave guide eliminates standing waves much like the B&W Nautilus speaker system's folded tube technology. Furthermore, it amplifies the low frequencies meaning the driver doesn't have to move as much to reproduce them at higher spl's essentially lowering distortions inherent when a driver has greater excursions. This keeps the midrange cleaner and the highs so much more pure and pristine.

6. Low cabinet coloration. The 34" folded waveguide system, as a by product, creates many walls strengthening the stucture making it very rigid and well braced, much like the cabinetry of the Matrix series by B&W. This way the frequency response of the driver is allowed to come through in all its glory.

5. Low diffraction design. 75% of the circumfrence of the driver has very little physical obstruction in the way of a baffle keeping diffraction to a minimum. This allows for that open, lifelike sound.

4. Simple and pure amplifier design. Bose has avoided expenses and added circuitry associated with higher powered designs and used a very low powered (most likely only a couple watts) amplifier of a minimalist circuit design for maximum signal purity, much like the 2A3 based amplifiers, except with the efficiency and reliability of a solid-state design. Bose has done it again.

3. Integrated design eliminating the need for interconnect cables. Like the Linn Classik and the NAD L40 Bose eliminated the expense and sonic degradations inherent in the interfacting between seperate components by putting the cd player, preamplifier, tuner, and power amplifier all in a single chassis. This also kept costs down, since it would have cost more to have each piece in its own chassis, giving you more sound for your dollar.

2. Very minimalist design. This ties in with #3, but Bose has also kept loudspeaker cable runs to a minimum. This no doubt increases the damping factor of the amplifier-speaker interface. Bose didn't budge an inch to market appeal and left out the uneccessary tone controls that so many wanted and kept the circuit path as a whole simpler, for better sound.

1. And the number one reason Bose is Ultra-High end: The amount of markup is exorbant and the price/performance ratio is right up there with some of high-end audio's "best." In your first months payment of $41.58 Bose has probably covered all the production costs on the unit. Next months $41.58 covers all there advertising costs. The other ten months are pure profit.

The real reason I put this here wasn't to slam Bose, although I did embelish a little so that hopefully someone enjoyed it. The other reason, I guess, is because this is the type of reasoning I suspect many of us employ when analyzing audio gear. "Class A is better the Class A/B." (My friend in belgium actually has a kenwood mini-system that runs 7.5 watts of class A power, but with 10% THD, solid-state!) The point is we really can't KNOW how good the gear is. (All you serious hobbyists w/ EE deg. have a better shot) Now, in the end we inevitably buy something for ourselves, but let's not be so vicious sometimes when dispensing advice based on inevitably incomplete reasoning because we don't/can't have all the facts (and the facts many of us have were often handed down from "biased" sources) Because, as you can see, I thought I did a pretty good job of manipulating the facts to make the unit sound quite impressive. Hopefully it was halfway amusing. I'm glad everyone here loves high-end audio. If anyone has any more reasons why the Bose wave radio is number one, feel free to add?