

Bose Unveils First TV, With Magical, Sound-Throwing Speakers Built In - cliffkuang
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662390/bose-unveils-first-tv-with-magical-sound-throwing-speakers-built-in-video

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_emice
I spent a couple years hanging out/mostly lurking on a speaker design mailing
list, learning the basics of designing a decent speaker. Early on, I had
wanted a Bose system after hearing them at a department store. The sound just
had a pop to it that I liked, compared to some of the larger speaker/receiver
systems that were often cheaper. So I thought to myself, "You're paying
because they pack all that sound into those tiny speakers." But I was wrong,
well sort of.

The Bose cube speaker/bass module combo is designed to play well into a large
open space. For this it has to be loud, especially the bass, because it is
more omnidirectional. On the other hand the treble has to overcome the
background noise at a large store, where the detailed highest frequencies are
likely to be obscured anyway. This is two strikes against spending
manufacturing dollars towards reproducing higher frequencies. Unlike bass,
treble above 10Khz falls of sharply when you get 30 degrees or so outside the
field, which takes away from the "room filling" aspect. By doubling the volume
(+10db) of the mid-high frequencies around 7Khz, you'll start sounding like
you have a lot more punch and fill than the neighboring system designed for a
normal quiet room.

Creating loud bass in an open space without upping the costs requires a
similar compromise, but for different reasons. Playing a 30hz signal at X
decibels requires a far heavier and more expensive amp than one that just
needs to play down to than 80hz. 30hz also requires a much larger diameter
speaker and/or a motor with a bulky magnet to play sufficiently loud. This, by
Bose standards, would be a kludge - not the small, sleek, and sexy it markets.
Woofers naturally have a peak resonance, typically from 25-80hz, and
manufacturers usually try to dampen this with expensive stuff. Things like
stiff cone materials instead of low quality paper, surrounds that effectively
spring the cone back to center, and a heavy frame/basket. The Accoustimass
bass module embraces a low cost design that produces lots of resonance around
80z so it can play loud at the expense of accuracy and frequency range. It
sounds punchy but it can't recover from reverberating from one moment to
articulate the next, so everything just sounds like it is booming close 80hz.

After building a couple speaker sets and trying various brands over the last
10+ years, I've found that it is always possible to buy a much better system
than Bose for half the cost, sometimes less. I'd be willing to bet most people
would reject the Bose in test between it and carefully selected components
costing the same, and set up in a normal room. If your considering spending
Bose kind of money look into subwoofers from HSU Research. It is not strange
to spend half as much on the subwoofer as the remaining speakers combined, or
even more. A cheap sub sticks out like a sore thumb, it should fill in and add
depth to all the other speakers output, not just boom. Piano and deep voices
benefit greatly without sounding muddled, definitely not things you think of
normally as going boom.

For the surround speakers, if you want something smaller, the Klipsch Cinema-6
are a good bet. Paradigm speakers are expensive but sound light years ahead of
anything Bose has ever made, and most people will never feel the urge to
upgrade again with these. To amplify and tie everything together, a $400 or
$500 Denon receiver provides some of the best bang for the buck in terms of
clean amplification and a slightly better DSP chip than the competition, check
out Model # AVR-1611 OR AVR-1911. The DSP setup uses a microphone to auto-
calibrate the system to your room, and it works pretty darn well. If you want
to get everything in a box for around a $1000, look into the Onkyo S9300-THX,
which handily beat a $2000+ Bose system.

Finally, about this latest Bose system that uses an array of speakers with
nanosecond timing to beam sound. Other companies like Yamaha have had similar
products with many speakers attached to a single bar, that goes above or below
the TV, for about $1000 bucks. Use the remaining $4000 to buy a far better TV
instead of paying Bose a fat margin for an inferior product. I'd be willing to
bet the Yamaha product is better. They both use some clever signal processing
to direct sound and simulate sound coming from behind your ears with slight
frequency dependent delays. The Denon receiver I mentioned uses similar tech
to suppress echoes and standing waves that are characteristics of the room and
measured with a mic. Many manufacturers license this tech from Audyssey, and
you see it in car audio as well. These sorts of features are what has been a
big differentiator from the old receiver tech for a few years now, but Bose
portrays it as a revolution that they are bringing upon us. If you look at the
proprietary waveguide technology used in their clock radios and this new TV,
it is also existing technology called a transmission line design, mentioned in
the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook going back to the 60's. Bose just adds some
minimally useful twist and applies for a patent to make it sound innovative.

If you want to learn more check out -

BOSE Acoustimass - Better Profits Through Marketing
<http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html>

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nopal
It seems like it's really popular to bash Bose, and I wonder why. I'm not an
audiophile, and I think most of the systems I've heard sound good. Is it
something that only those who really know what to listen for hear?

I think it's funny that one comment on this post says that Bose "forgot that
there is an entire range of frequencies between the 'highs' and the 'lows'"
and another one that says "No highs, no lows, must be Bose." How can both be
true?

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bherms
In my experience with Bose, they make great sounding equipment for the average
user and they do this by making bass more prominent than it should be to
"fool" users into thinking it's good. It's still better than a lot of stuff,
and the size and tech innovations like the 3-2-1 system give it a cool factor
as well. For the money, though, you can get a much better setup; but then
again, being a seasoned sound man for local musicians as well as spending lots
of time engineering audio, I'm a bit biased as to what good sound is.

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mike463
_"For the money, though, you can get a much better setup"_

This is the key point.

In this case, "For the money" = $5,349 (yikes!)

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bherms
Well in this instance, with the new TV, the high price is just there to
balance the research costs and low amount of production. As they start to
leverage the new technology and churn out more of these, the Bose TV (and
others using these new techs) pricing _should_ come down.

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gerakinis
It's too bad that Bose sound systems are terrible for almost every type of
music that I like... It's almost like they forgot that there is an entire
range of frequencies between the 'highs' and the 'lows.' ( Try the U2 album
Zooropa on a Bose system - is Bono even on the record anymore? )

I thought I was the only one that had noticed this until I saw some genius in
San Francisco with a bumper sticker that lambasted Bose for this.

Here's to you, Mr. Anti-Bose bumper-sticker-man. Slick marketing and
exorbitant pricing haven't hoodwinked everyone.

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cliffkuang
Yeah, I hear you---They're muddy sounding in general. But the tech is pretty
awesome--imagine flat panels with real surround sound. OTOH, the LCD? Who
knows. And the case design is awful, considering the price point.

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gerakinis
granted - tech is awesome and it's a TV, not a HiFi, so I shouldn't be
bitching =)

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vkdelta
Just when the prices of LCDs are dropping everyday, how can someone have
audacity to sell something for 5K+? Granted they dont have 'bose' sound system
but a Samsung TV + Bose speaker combo is lot cheaper.

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patrickgzill
No highs, no lows, must be Bose ... not everyone is taken in by the hype.

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eru
Does this rhyme with your pronunciation of Bose?

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superk
It does for me:

"Bose Corporation (pronounced /ˈboʊz/)"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation>

~~~
eru
Thanks! I would have pronounced it similar to /ˈbozeɪ/.

