[SantaPimp27]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

Yeah, that was my thinking with spending what I did on them.

Quite a few of professional musicians use B&W because they are accurate and don't add anything artificial to your source material, the con of that is that they don't add anything artificial to your source material, lol.

The quality of your source material is important with B&W, as if you put shit in, you will get shit out. HOWEVER, you put in a nice SACD or a DTS quality material these things are orgasmic. They are critical listening speakers and reward if you are a audiophile.

Since I got the system, I have gotten very much into orchestra, Comp. Jazz, Yanni type of music.

They do great in the movie department as well.


Good call on the Paradigms, they are definitely a better value then B&W

yeah im going to start buying cd's and ripping to lossless because it provides such cleaner sound. I use an apple tv to stream my music straight to my receiver, but wadia's ipod transport is another option. I would get a nice cd player but i like having all my songs at my fingertips

worst thing you can do is connect your ipod to your receiver, the ipod DAC is junk and ruins the music lol

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by SantaPimp27

yeah im going to start buying cd's and ripping to lossless because it provides such cleaner sound. I use an apple tv to stream my music straight to my receiver, but wadia's ipod transport is another option. I would get a nice cd player but i like having all my songs at my fingertips

worst thing you can do is connect your ipod to your receiver, the ipod DAC is junk and ruins the music lol

Yeah, that is the one area that my system is lacking is in the ipod area. If I just want to listen to todays music, I will just stick it on my iPOD and listen to it in my car or with my headphones on itunes, but if I really like something and want to really listen to it on my system, I will first look for it on SACD (not likely) or buy the CD.

Life sucks these days for true audiophiles, as the way of the future seems to be MP3 and compressed in a compact gadget. DVD-A is about dead and SACD is few and far in-between.

Convenience is trumping quality and that is a very sad thing. The day is coming where if you want high quality sounding music, you will have to go see it live in concert

[SantaPimp27]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

Yeah, that is the one area that my system is lacking is in the ipod area. If I just want to listen to todays music, I will just stick it on my iPOD and listen to it in my car or with my headphones on itunes, but if I really like something and want to really listen to it on my system, I will first look for it on SACD (not likely) or buy the CD.

Life sucks these days for true audiophiles, as the way of the future seems to be MP3 and compressed in a compact gadget. DVD-A is about dead and SACD is few and far in-between.

Convenience is trumping quality and that is a very sad thing. The day is coming where if you want high quality sounding music, you will have to go see it live in concert

if you buy cd's, then you can rip them into .flac files and store them on your computer. Then you can stream them to your AppleTv and straight to your receiver. The lossless wont be touched until your receiver.

Here's another option: http://www.google.com/products?oq=wa...ed=0CCIQrQQwAg

It is an ipod dock, but it unlike the other standard docks, it by passes the ipod's DAC and you can run the signal via Optical to your own DAC. One of those with a Peachtree audio nova would sound spectacular. (Plus its made by wadia )

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by SantaPimp27

if you buy cd's, then you can rip them into .flac files and store them on your computer. Then you can stream them to your AppleTv and straight to your receiver. The lossless wont be touched until your receiver.

Here's another option: http://www.google.com/products?oq=wa...ed=0CCIQrQQwAg

It is an ipod dock, but it unlike the other standard docks, it by passes the ipod's DAC and you can run the signal via Optical to your own DAC. One of those with a Peachtree audio nova would sound spectacular. (Plus its made by wadia )

Thanks, that looks good. My AVM50 DAC's run at 24-bit/192kHz

[Comet]

Originally Posted by number335

Anyone have any experience with the Bose cinemate series II systems. They sound pretty good in the stores, but not sure if its worth $800. I don't want to run wires all over my home and it seems like a great compact system with great sound.

I have the bose acoustimass system.
got a great deal on them. 700$ with a receiver.
Sold the receiver for 60$ because my receiver was way better.
so 640$ tax in.
cheaper than the cinemate and I would assume much better.

I'm really happy with my bose. I wouldn't compare it to Monster cables. Monster cables give you a sense of "I just got ripped off because these wires work worse than my 5$ ones I had before"
I've had my system since summer and I don't feel used or ripped off when I turn it on. It was the cheapest between all of the ones at the store (I'm no audiophile but I appreciate great sound).

They don't take up much room either which is a nice +.

[daixloxbmw]

i agree with sam 100% and i would also suggest building your HT in small phases if money is an issue. start with a decent 5.1 (or up to 7.1 for upgradeability) receiver with quality front L and R speakers. then you can slowly add a sub, center and rears later. it will be 10Xs better than to start with crappy low-end HTIB because you will end up replacing the whole damn thing like i did.

i started with a basic $600 onkyo HTIB in my living room and ended up slowly replacing every single piece. so now i have a $5k+ system that has replaced the HTIB in the living room and now i use my original onkyo HTIB in my bedroom.

however, if you are only planning on using it lightly and have absolutely no plans on upgrading, then an HTIB might suit you because of its low cost and easy integration/functionality. just be warned that most entry level HTIBs are not very upgradeable and its very easy to catch the "upgrade bug" so it can be obsolete very quickly.

i also second sam's suggestion for SVS. they are highly regarded in many online forums including the one i visit, avsforum. go there and read up on the HTIB or the sub/speaker/receiver subforums for additional information. those guys can be very helpful. just make sure you include budget, room size, expectations, movie/music usage ratio, etc so please read up on the guidelines before you start a noob thread.

i also have two SVS subs that i love so i highly recommend them as well.

[daixloxbmw]

sorry, but i will have to agree with the others on bose. they are massively overpriced and underperforming. the only thing they excel at is marketing which they are exceedingly good at.

there are plenty of HTIB options that will blow bose out of the water (performance-wise) at a quarter of the price. the only other thing they have is their sleek/tiny design but there are a lot of other manufacturers now that provide that too at a fraction of the price.

here is a very popular document that has been circulating the internet on why bose sucks.

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

read up on this and you cannot argue the facts.

[Lagger1]

I'm in the spend 75% of your budget on quality speakers school and not the opposite as in spend 75% of your budget on the source. Honestly, buy good speakers, quality sources are easy to come by these days.

Sick B&W set-up btw (although I'd suggest shifting the whole set-up about 3 feet away from that sliding glass window. you'll get much better sound) I have this cool little B&W dvd that takes you inside Abbey Road studio & shows their all B&W set-up there. You should call HQ and request it free, since you invested in them

[OC Guy]

Like the B&W Setup. I'm running 603s with 601 satellites and 600 LCR off a Rotel Receiver + Velodyne sub. Budget setup compared to yours.

As for a soundbar with someone limited on space, I heard decent things about these:
http://www.testseek.com/home_electro...5ea66dfc6.html

[Comet]

Originally Posted by daixloxbmw

sorry, but i will have to agree with the others on bose. they are massively overpriced and underperforming. the only thing they excel at is marketing which they are exceedingly good at.

there are plenty of HTIB options that will blow bose out of the water (performance-wise) at a quarter of the price. the only other thing they have is their sleek/tiny design but there are a lot of other manufacturers now that provide that too at a fraction of the price.

here is a very popular document that has been circulating the internet on why bose sucks.

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

read up on this and you cannot argue the facts.

I'll agree with over priced.. but when there are some things that are wrong in that article.. I brought my own test medias into the testing room (including the bose one which he said is impossible) and I liked the bose one the best.

The guy makes it seem as if you plug bose speakers into your living room, you won't have sound coming out but rotten diarrhea shooting out of 5.1 speakers.
they don't suck.
I heard a lot of them in the test room that sounded way better (and cheaper), but like you said, they don't have sleek tiny design. It is the combo that makes up for it, and I frankly don't care how much it costs them to make, I'm not going to go out and buy the components to make one..
maybe he will, so good for him.
for the average buyer who won't go scavenging for the cheapest/best speakers (or build it himself) who will just go to a Best Buy, they are a very good buy.

[SantaPimp27]

Originally Posted by Comet

I'll agree with over priced.. but when there are some things that are wrong in that article.. I brought my own test medias into the testing room (including the bose one which he said is impossible) and I liked the bose one the best.

The guy makes it seem as if you plug bose speakers into your living room, you won't have sound coming out but rotten diarrhea shooting out of 5.1 speakers.
they don't suck.
I heard a lot of them in the test room that sounded way better (and cheaper), but like you said, they don't have sleek tiny design. It is the combo that makes up for it, and I frankly don't care how much it costs them to make, I'm not going to go out and buy the components to make one..
maybe he will, so good for him.
for the average buyer who won't go scavenging for the cheapest/best speakers (or build it himself) who will just go to a Best Buy, they are a very good buy.

i would not say there a very good buy. There very cheaply made and it is impossible to make good sounding speakers that are that small. Go compare them with some B&W's or some Paradigms and its a no comparison. And i have a Bose system. It sounds horrible and is about to get replaced with some Paradigms from the studio line. The bose sub is non existent and could not match a $150 sub in output. It bottoms out at such a high frequency it cant even come close to providing and LFE. When you get up to $600 subs, there is no point in even comparing systems. The receiver is not updated to decode the newest codecs and in general is very weak. Bose also does not like releasing its specs to the general public which is ridiculous.

Small speakers just cant more enough air to sound very good. Bose also uses tricks to make the speakers sound bigger than they are. This might be good for the average buyer, but it is not true sound reproduction and its not true to the source. Bose has not updated the design of their speakers from day one. They use the same cardboard speakers in every system. Any real company constantly is updating and improving their speakers and the way they sound. (If you want an example go to the B&W website and watch the video on how they make their diamond line.) If you like the sound of them, good for you, enjoy them. I dont think anyone who knows anything about audio or reviews professionally would ever recommend Bose. The system should sell in the $250 range, not the $2000-3000 range.

Any compact system like the Paradigm Cinema line, Energy Take 5's, Mirage nanosats, Klipsch HD 500... will outperform Bose.

[10M3MAN]

I had a Klipsch 7.1 setup with a Yamaha receiver but dropped my side and rear (4 speakers) for 2 SpeakerCraft in ceiling 8's that sound amazing. I had never heard of SpeakerCraft but man Im impressed with what they deliver.

[daixloxbmw]

comet, if you like your bose system, then thats fine. i'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. if you think it sounds good then you probably wont understand what others have said about bose.

to the OP or whoever else considering bose, dont do it. there are plenty of options out there that will outperform bose and come in considerably cheaper. i will second all of santa's suggestions for compact systems.

a few things about bose that potential buyers should be aware of (taken mainly from the link i posted before):

bose does not publish any specs on any of their products, which is common practice for all audio products even down to the cheapo radio shack optimus products. would you ever buy a car without knowing hp, tq, mpg, weight, etc???

the "bass module" isnt even a true subwoofer and bose cant even claim that it is one since it doesnt reproduce true LFE which is below 40hz. independent tests have shown that this bass module only goes down to 46hz which is barely better than a decent pair of floorstanding front speakers. the bass module only uses 5.5in subwoofers (lol!!!) when a decent pair of floorstanding front speakers will commonly use 6.5in midwoofers. the bass that you think you are hearing is just overemphasized/inaccurate bass being channeled through that convoluted enclosure designed just to make it as loud as possible with no regard for depth or accuracy.

the cubes contain 2.5in cone drivers which is really the worst possible size for tweeters (which are often 1in domes) and midrange (which are often 4 - 6.5in cones) so bose decides to compromise and use a 2.5in cone driver to replace a tweeter and midrange combo. again, to use a car analogy, thats kinda like needing a motorcycle (for speed and fuel efficiency) and a pickup truck (for offroad capability and utility) and then settling for a midsize sedan as a compromise. it just doesnt make any sense and a midsize sedan cannot perform like a motorcycle or a pickup truck.

because of these "compromises", there are massive holes in the frequency range that is simply not there. this can be verified by doing a frequency sweep between 20khz to 20hz. bose attempts to hide and cover up these holes by overemphasizing other frequencies but it just makes it worse because the sound becomes really unnatural and uneven. if you like bose's small/pretty components and you cannot hear the "compromises" that i am describing, then perhaps bose is perfect for you.

there are ZERO (major/known/respectable) audio companies which use 5.5in drivers in their subs or 2.5in cones as their tweeter/midrange drivers in this price range. sure, sony or panasonic might have a "pretty" HTIB system that may include some of these features but they are priced in the $500 range, not anywhere close to the bose range which tops out at $3k!

btw, in case you want to know my credentials, i used to work at tweeter for several years where i had the opportunity to demo bose products back to back with other high end audio like klipsch, mirage, boston acoustics, vienna acoustics, sonus faber, etc and dollar for dollar, bose could not keep with any of these other products even at half (dare i say even at quarter) the price. even when i worked at tweeter, i would often discourage customers from buying bose (even though the profit margin was HUGE on bose products and i would make more commission selling one bose system rather than multiple components from other brands) and even then some customers would insist on buying bose because of the name and its recognition, knowing full well that it does not perform as well as some of the "no names" that i listed above. the saying that we used to have at tweeter was "if its got no highs and its got no lows, it must be bose".

Originally Posted by Comet

I'll agree with over priced.. but when there are some things that are wrong in that article.. I brought my own test medias into the testing room (including the bose one which he said is impossible) and I liked the bose one the best.

The guy makes it seem as if you plug bose speakers into your living room, you won't have sound coming out but rotten diarrhea shooting out of 5.1 speakers.
they don't suck.
I heard a lot of them in the test room that sounded way better (and cheaper), but like you said, they don't have sleek tiny design. It is the combo that makes up for it, and I frankly don't care how much it costs them to make, I'm not going to go out and buy the components to make one..
maybe he will, so good for him.
for the average buyer who won't go scavenging for the cheapest/best speakers (or build it himself) who will just go to a Best Buy, they are a very good buy.

[samwoo2go]

Originally Posted by Comet

I'll agree with over priced.. but when there are some things that are wrong in that article.. I brought my own test medias into the testing room (including the bose one which he said is impossible) and I liked the bose one the best.

The guy makes it seem as if you plug bose speakers into your living room, you won't have sound coming out but rotten diarrhea shooting out of 5.1 speakers.
they don't suck.
I heard a lot of them in the test room that sounded way better (and cheaper), but like you said, they don't have sleek tiny design. It is the combo that makes up for it, and I frankly don't care how much it costs them to make, I'm not going to go out and buy the components to make one..
maybe he will, so good for him.
for the average buyer who won't go scavenging for the cheapest/best speakers (or build it himself) who will just go to a Best Buy, they are a very good buy.

The thing you have to realize is that no technology can define certain basic musical physics. And no matter how good a small speaker is engineered, its performance will ultimately hit a ceiling when physics will not allow it to advance any further without gaining size. Bose is definitely not the worst speakers in the world, but audiophiles hate them because they spend 10X more money in marketing than R&D, and to make up the money for marketing, they over charge (excessively) to quality, and is only second to Monster Cable in ass raping capabilities.

Just because you brought your own media in don't mean jack shit. There are 6 reasons that you thought the Bose sounded the best.
1. Placebo: you already had a die hard Bose mentality when you walked in. (we usually call these guys fan boys), and that will make Bose sound better than God.

2. Experience: to the relatively uneducated public, sometimes bad is good. Case 1, TVs, manufactures set them at stores so fucking "vivid" that everything literally pops out at you. and survey shows that "vivid" picture is 1 of the most sought after quality when choosing a TV by the average consumer along with price and brand recognition. But this "vivid picture" is the absolutely worse setting a TV should have in the real world because it washes out EVERYTHING. Almost nobody but me choose a TV by standing at Fry's TV aisle with a color wheel, portable DVD player and my own non Monster HDMI cord.
Case 2, speakers, if you don't know what to listen for, different speakers will sound relatively the same to you, provided you are not comparing Bose to some yard sale speakers. So in this case, the butt dyno effect just kicked in yo!

3. Store quality: speaker parameter setup is a science that people can write books on. A lot of big box stores like Fry's and Best Buy and even some of the pro stores hire "non professionals" to set up the speaker room. Everyone knows how to stick a banana plug in, but it takes skills and proper equipment to correctly dial in a HT system. So maybe the clerk got lucky and hit the Bose on the right numbers and fucked the rest up so the Bose sounded better. (Edit per Gangster Boss BMW, Bose sends in their own tech to dial in their system to perfection, and that ladies and gents is an excellent example of awesome marketing.)

4. Receivers: all those demo speakers are running off of different receivers and amps, most likely different brands and models too. Different quality receivers makes MASSIVE quality difference, and how they are dialed in makes even more MASSIVE difference. So there is another area, shit would've gotten fucked.

5. Placement: the actual spot where the speakers are makes a huge difference to how they sound too. Even tho the clerk is a amateur, the demo room itself is probably professionally designed and engineered to have "sweet" spots for placement. And due to the fact it's a demo room with lots of speakers. its impossible to place every speaker in the sweet spot. And because Bose speakers are so small, its very possible that they were able to squeeze them in the sweet spot. 2 big speakers will not fit in 1 sweet spot, but 1 big and 1 tiny speaker may.

7. Defending your purchase: a lot of people feel the need to defend their purchase, especially if its a large purchase, or in a highly debatable field, such as speakers, cars, snowboards, condom brands, and dog breeds. Its totally understandable and actually helps to foster a more involved environment.

6. You be trolling

[daixloxbmw]

Originally Posted by samwoo2go

3. Store quality: speaker parameter setup is a science that people can write books on. A lot of big box stores like Fry's and Best Buy and even some of the pro stores hire "non professionals" to set up the speaker room. Everyone knows how to stick a banana plug in, but it takes skills and proper equipment to correctly dial in a HT system. So maybe the clerk got lucky and hit the Bose on the right numbers and fucked the rest up so the Bose sounded better.

sam, this is not a coincidence. bose usually requires a special setup that is done by their own staff. when i worked at tweeter, a bose rep would come in the store every month to ensure that their bose system was setup/adjusted properly. i worked at one of the smaller tweeter stores so the bose system was in the same demo room as the other equipment (which is how i was able to compare different systems back to back) but most of our larger tweeter stores had a special "bose" room setup for ONLY bose equipment, which forbids other equipment to be setup in this room. this allows bose to custom setup a system in the room with proper listening sweet spots and acoustic room treatments, many of which cost $100k+ to outfit. while the regular demo room with the rows of speakers connected to an entire wall of receivers and routed through a switchbox was designed with limited space constraints rather than high fidelity, this was hardly a fair comparison. my tweeter store was one of the few stores which didnt have a dedicated bose room (or at least dedicated bose display with the cubes hung up on tubular posts in the circular pattern directly above the listener's head, kinda hard to sound bad when the speakers are located 2 ft from your ears)

[Comet]

Originally Posted by daixloxbmw

comet, if you like your bose system, then thats fine. i'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. if you think it sounds good then you probably wont understand what others have said about bose.

I'm no audiophile.. I believe I specified that.. I bought the system based on what was available around me. I never said Bose is the best, but it doesnt shoot out diarhea either.

to the OP or whoever else considering bose, dont do it. there are plenty of options out there that will outperform bose and come in considerably cheaper. i will second all of santa's suggestions for compact systems.

well aware, my friend (who is an audiophile) wanted to take me to some places with high end systems (brands as a average consumer I've never heard of, some u guys mentioned ring a bell). However, living in the middle-east, they aren't available right away. They all needed like 3-4 weeks to arrive, and the price difference was not something I wanted to pay for audio that I could not tell the difference for. I wanted them now.

bose does not publish any specs on any of their products, which is common practice for all audio products even down to the cheapo radio shack optimus products. would you ever buy a car without knowing hp, tq, mpg, weight, etc???

even if they did, I wouldn't understand what they mean. I concur it is messed up.. I'm like a soccer mom when it comes to sound systems. It looks good, it sounds good, I'm sold!

if you like bose's small/pretty components and you cannot hear the "compromises" that i am describing, then perhaps bose is perfect for you.

exactly

sure, sony or panasonic might have a "pretty" HTIB system that may include some of these features but they are priced in the $500 range, not anywhere close to the bose range which tops out at $3k!

I got the bose for 700 with a receiver which I sold off. They came to my house, installed it free of charge on my receiver same day. They had a panasonic that was cheaper but on my test DVDs, I didn't like it..


[QUOTE=samwoo2go;6839025]
Just because you brought your own media in don't mean jack shit. There are 6 reasons that you thought the Bose sounded the best.

1. Placebo: you already had a die hard Bose mentality when you walked in. (we usually call these guys fan boys), and that will make Bose sound better than God.

Nah, didn't go in with any brand in mind. First bose surround I get, my old ones were Samsung. The bose sound a lot better than my Samsungs, so mission accomplished

2. Experience:
Case 2, speakers, if you don't know what to listen for, different speakers will sound relatively the same to you, provided you are not comparing Bose to some yard sale speakers. So in this case, the butt dyno effect just kicked in yo!

I dont know what to listen to. So long as the sound doesn't come out distorted and sounds similar to what I heard in movie theaters, I'm pretty much happy.

(Edit per Gangster Boss BMW, Bose sends in their own tech to dial in their system to perfection, and that ladies and gents is an excellent example of awesome marketing.)

Middle-east :P I doubt they'd send techs.

7. Defending your purchase: a lot of people feel the need to defend their purchase, especially if its a large purchase, or in a highly debatable field, such as speakers, cars, snowboards, condom brands, and dog breeds. Its totally understandable and actually helps to foster a more involved environment.

Well I learned a bit from this thread, which is cool, and I do owe you guys thanks. but you guys are making it sound as if bose don't produce audio and they are just paperweights. It is like saying that a kia while not a good car by our standards, doesnt fulfill the simple tasks of someone who needs just a car.
I felt the OP isn't looking for a 3k$ system that will output sound that only dogs can hear since he was looking for a 2 speaker system that gives out the effect of surround.

6. You be trolling

No u lol

[akh23456]

this i my home theater which is being set up now

Runco LS-7 home theater projector
Stewart Filmscreen 110''
Marantz Av8003 A/V Preamp processor,
ATI ATI3005 5 channel home theater amp
LG BD300 BLURAY/DVD
KEF XQ40 THE XQ40
KEF XQ 50C center channel speaker
KEF XQ60 subwoofer
AMX MVP-5200I 5 inch wireless touch screen

some pics

[daixloxbmw]

Originally Posted by Comet

Well I learned a bit from this thread, which is cool, and I do owe you guys thanks. but you guys are making it sound as if bose don't produce audio and they are just paperweights. It is like saying that a kia while not a good car by our standards, doesnt fulfill the simple tasks of someone who needs just a car.

back to car analogies, no one is saying that kia cant provide basic transportation but would you pay bmw prices to own a kia?

while i can agree with most of your above statements given your lack of options in the middle east and your acknowledgment that you are not an audiophile (neither am i btw, i'm just an enthusiast who believes in getting the most for your dollar) but my main point wasnt so much that bose sucks... i was merely trying to point out the cost to performance ratio for bose products suck.

if youre going to pay bose prices, you should get bmw performance, not kia performance because there are alot of hyundais that you could get for much less coin and still perform like a kia.

[Comet]

Originally Posted by daixloxbmw

back to car analogies, no one is saying that kia cant provide basic transportation but would you pay bmw prices to own a kia?

while i can agree with most of your above statements given your lack of options in the middle east and your acknowledgment that you are not an audiophile (neither am i btw, i'm just an enthusiast who believes in getting the most for your dollar) but my main point wasnt so much that bose sucks... i was merely trying to point out the cost to performance ratio for bose products suck.

if youre going to pay bose prices, you should get bmw performance, not kia performance because there are alot of hyundais that you could get for much less coin and still perform like a kia.

a little off topic but just putting out there for fun, a 335i convertible here goes for 160,000$
talk about paying Porsche turbo price for BMW performance hehe (that's why I brought my car in from Canada)

I do concur that I would never have paid 3k$ for bose (as all of you have stated is their prices) but 5-600$ seems like a reasonable price for what I got at least to me. A bit over priced perhaps, but I got used to being ripped off in this country *sigh*. a PS3 still goes for 400-500$ here.. once more, I brought it in from Canada... I guess I'm just desensitized

[daixloxbmw]

Originally Posted by Comet

even if they did, I wouldn't understand what they mean. I concur it is messed up.. I'm like a soccer mom when it comes to sound systems. It looks good, it sounds good, I'm sold!

Well I learned a bit from this thread, which is cool, and I do owe you guys thanks.

audio specs arent too difficult to learn and can be easily related back to cars (again, this is a car forum after all)

think of the frequency range (20 hertz to 20,000 hertz, human audible range) as your engine rpm range. to ensure a smooth/natural sound, speakers should be able to reproduce that entire range as flat as possible (think flat power range in an engine vs peaky turbo lagged power). sound is measured in decibels at a particular frequency kinda like hp is measured at a particular rpm. in audio, you want to have your dbs as flat as possible from 20 hz all the way up to 20 khz.

so when a manufacturer publishes specs like 20 hz to 20 khz ± 3 db (this is an awesome speaker btw since its very difficult to build a speaker with these specs), it means this speaker can recreate this frequency range with plus or minus 3 dbs of deviation. the 3 db deviation is universally accepted as the standard for measuring audio performance.

so to relate it back to the bose specs in that link, the cubes were independently measured at 280 hz to 13.3 khz at ±10.5 db. thats a huge 10.5 db deviation (there are ZERO brands that measure with a deviation that huge) which means there are huge peaks and valleys in the frequency response. plus it can only reproduce up to 13.3 khz, which means you wont hear anything above 13.4 khz to 20 khz (bye bye treble). then the bass module was independently measured at 46 hz to 202 hz at ±2.3 dB, so you wont be hearing anything below 45 hz to 20 hz (bye bye deep bass). then theres that huge gap between the upper end of the bass module and the lower end of the cubes, so you wont be hearing anything between 203 hz to 279 hz (bye bye mid bass).

so i would compare that to driving an S2000 with its peaky hp/no torque characteristics... but instead of just 1 peak/valley, add about 2 more peaks/valleys. oh and it makes no power under 2k rpm, between 5k to 6k rpm and above 8k rpm.

[daixloxbmw]

Originally Posted by Comet

a little off topic but just putting out there for fun, a 335i convertible here goes for 160,000$
talk about paying Porsche turbo price for BMW performance hehe (that's why I brought my car in from Canada)

I do concur that I would never have paid 3k$ for bose (as all of you have stated is their prices) but 5-600$ seems like a reasonable price for what I got at least to me. A bit over priced perhaps, but I got used to being ripped off in this country *sigh*. a PS3 still goes for 400-500$ here.. once more, I brought it in from Canada... I guess I'm just desensitized

if you paid only $600 for your bose system, its probably not that bad. you are probably getting the performance of something in the $400 range while getting the recognition and "prestige" of a reputable brand (even though it is undeserved by those in-the-know) so it seems like a fair trade off for the untrained ear.

i totally feel your pain for overpaying though, i have family in china/hong kong and my cousins hate my $45k fully loaded 335i (euro-delivery price) and they paid over 4 times that amount for a 320i. i also have another cousin with a maserati quattroporte there, which is nearly bugatti veyron money here.

[xsilvor]

I went with an Aperion Audio system, and couldn't be happier. I have a mid/entry-level ($500-600ish) receiver powering it (Onkyo SR605), and its powerful enough for anything I need.

Aperion got great reviews from some of the audiophile sites, and from Cnet. They don't have much marketing, and are direct form the manufacturer so their value is very high.

They're not small, but no good speakers are. I went with the gloss piano black, and while they take up a lot of space, its a furniture quality finish (maybe better?

Check em out. www.aperionaudio.com . I think I spent around $3000 total for the 5.1 system, but I have powered front towers and a larger sub that were the costliest part of that.