
Bose is closing all of its retail stores N America, Europe, Japan, and Australia - SQL2219
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/15/21067715/bose-shutting-down-retail-stores-layoffs-north-america-europe-japan-australia
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chriselles
Bose has an excellent brand name, akin to Rolls Royce in automotive(I
understand there are more higher end audio companies, but they don’t have
general public reach of Bose).

But it does appear they are getting chipped away at by upstarts like Beats &
Sonos on the low-end luxury slice.

I wonder if Bose will have to choose going the way of Leica & Zeiss and
conduct more licensing deals?

I do find it odd that a company with a physical product that demands in-person
experiential evaluation would remove the experience.

If I had to guess, I suspect they will follow with in-store experience kiosks
with retail distribution partners, much like what is found in some key airport
locations.

This does put a dent in the concept of experiential retail.

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zweep
In the 90s Bose speakers used to be _the_ thing for upper middle class men.
They used to proudly show off their systems when you visited their houses. Is
this still the case?

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matheweis
I don’t think so...

My techie friends are buying Sonos.

Also, Sony has made some serious inroads to the noise canceling headphones
lineup with the 1000XM series.

Adding to their injury, my brother in law is in the corporate av business, and
they have a saying: Go Bose - no highs - no lows. (Basically, no one gets
fired for buying Bose, but they are no longer the best)

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seattle_spring
There's a similar saying in the AV industry for BOSE: Buy Other Sound
Equipment.

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smn1234
no highs no lows must be bose ?

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jnwatson
I don’t think this is about product quality or even competition. It is that
retail is dying.

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Keverw
I don't think some people even knew they had stores, so not sure if a big deal
or not. I always thought Bose was the best though, but maybe I fell for the
marketing. Then if you travel a bunch, some travel blogs recommend their
headphones too. Only Bose thing I own is a the SoundLink Mini II which is a
bluetooth speaker.

I know it seems people really like Beats too, which Apple bought out but never
had any of those. I always though Beats were more just branding then anything,
make a pair of headphones and slap Dr. Dre's name on them, so I figured more
marketing driven then tech but maybe with Apple owning them that's opinion
might be a bit dated then. Then I also seen people recommend JBL and Sony too,
but I don't really have much of a opinion on either.

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bdcravens
I'm not sure that Apple owning a company is an endorsement of quality as much
as an indication that it's a complementary product with a similar business
model (high perception, high margin). I've owned one pair of Beats (wireless
Studio headphones with noise cancelling), and a small handful of Bose
products. I prefer Bose.

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clay_the_ripper
Bose is getting screwed by the competition and they know it. On the speaker
side you’ve got Sonos and the smart speakers, plus tons of low cost home
theatre systems that sound plenty good (heard a Visio system recently, sounded
fantastic).

Then on the headphone front, everyone is going with first party systems like
AirPods. And it’s only a matter of time before Apple brings out over ear
headphones. I’ve been a loyal QC customer for over 10 years, but the second
Apple brings out its competitor I’ll probably switch (and Bose knows it).

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philligr
I worry a bit about the audio space. I think there's a lot of good competition
out there but see it as becoming increasingly siloed due to network effects of
connectivity standards. Maybe this has changed but it kept me from purchasing
some Sonos equipment a few years ago and Apple seems hellbent on pulling
everyone into it's system to lock them in (I say this as someone who owns
Apple products).

I think the backlash against Bose is a bit undeserved. There's plenty of good
products by other companies now, but Bose still makes some really great
sounding equipment. A lot of the criticism of their products I think is a kind
of contrarism due to the hype that existed at one time. I have one pair of
speakers of theirs that every so often I become convinced I could find
something better by now, but when I actually listen to the alternatives, they
sound nowhere near as good (including Sonos and other, audiophile type
brands).

It seems there's always these cycles of one or more brands being the hipster
equipment to buy, some audiophile non-conformist backlash, and then the
reintroduction of a new cycle.

That being said, it's hard for me to imagine any brand having standalone audio
only stores, except maybe a couple of locations or something. People either
buy blind online (which leads to really distorted statements about relative
quality on the internet imho) or go somewhere to compare multiple brands'
products in person.

