Comment by Teckla
3 days ago
My experience is the opposite: Bose hardware and sound quality seems excellent to me.
This may be subjective. Bose might sound good to some people's ears and less good to other people's ears.
3 days ago
My experience is the opposite: Bose hardware and sound quality seems excellent to me.
This may be subjective. Bose might sound good to some people's ears and less good to other people's ears.
People keep bringing dead Bose bluetooth speakers to our repair café. These are a lot more expensive than the competitors. Bose has a reputation so people think they’ll last longer, but they don’t, they’ll fail just out of warranty just like cheaper brands. They also don’t sound meaningfully better. And they’re not at all engineered to be repaired. I’d avoid.
I personally prefer corded headphones and mains powered speakers, but if I were to buy a small wireless speaker I would buy a cheaper brand and ideally second hand, because this category of devices are basically consumables.
I don't know about Bose. But sound quality in general is absolutely objectively measurable.
> But sound quality in general is absolutely objectively measurable.
Sound quality is not the same as music quality.
To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music
To be even more specific, Signal Reproduction is not the same as "Pleasant Sounds*
The goal of music is not always high fidelity of reproduction; if it were, over-driven valve amps would never have been a thing.
The only thing objective in this context is signal reproduction, which is not the highest concern for music production.
> To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music
If a speaker reproduces some music with 100% accuracy and the result is unpleasant, doesn’t that just mean the original music—as created by the artist—is unpleasant?
Where possible, I’d prefer a speaker that respects the artist’s decisions instead of inserting itself into the creative process.
2 replies →
Signal reproduction matters quite a bit more for music production than it does for music listening and enjoyment. That's why producers and engineers look for 'monitors', rather than hi-fi speakers.
Hi-fi speakers, tube amps, and other accessories generally "degrade" the sound with added harmonics and natural smile EQs. That's what makes them sound more pleasing.
(I'm not disagreeing with you, just adding more color.)
You can certainly measure it, but the catch is that there is not always a single "correct" value. So just because you can measure what the speakers are outputting and then adjust it, it doesn't mean there is one correct output value.
A good example of this is a target curve, often used in room calibration. Dirac has a good explanation: https://www.dirac.com/resources/target-curve
(highly recommend Dirac room correction, by the way)
Yeah that was a very interesting thing to learn. When my room was being tuned (after being built to a specification for acoustics) the acoustician then actually tuned in several switchable curves because it was so flat in response he wanted to make it sound more natural to work in.
There's arguably a subjective quality to sound enjoyment, though. The fidelity of reproduction can be measured, but I'd argue there's personal preference in the types of artifacts generated by inaccuracies in reproduction.
There's really two camps - "I like what I hears" and "this is as close to in-studio monitors as you can get".
There's an argument for both, but frankly, if studio monitor setups don't sound "as good" why bother?
you can absolutely quantify certain metrics, and you can even generalize what "good" is by surveying listener preference but that isn't the same thing as any one individual's subjective preference.
Bose in general (there are many models...) is not what I'd call high-fidelity. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy your music or your movies with it. Just don't buy this if you care about transparency, otherwise it's usually a pleasing hearing experience. Their PA line is IMO overpriced and sacrifices too much to the design and weight.
I've been playing with the idea for a bit, can you give me an order of magnitude for "entry-level HiFi"? Even if that's an oxymoron, how many zeroes does it take to get an experience that's noticeably superior to, say, default car speakers or built-in Smart TV speakers?
It's like buying a gun or a car, there are all kinds of offers and all kinds of prices. You should be able to find great offers with amp+speakers under 1k€, including VAT. Probably even less with 2.0 or 2.1 systems.
It doesn't usually take much, because very few cars or TVs come with powered subwoofers or 6x9s or quality tweeters. Second hand amps, receivers, etc. are usually a good deal, entry-level speakers are pretty cheap new though.
Better than smart TV speakers? That's a low bar.
A $40 Bluetooth box from any big name brand is better than the speakers in a smart TV.
Similar experience, even after picking up the new airpod pro 3's (the hearing aid stuff i great for my ailing ears) I still prefer, when I'm sitting at my desk working while listening to music, the quietcomfort 2 earbuds. The noise cancellation is hands down better than apple's an it's a more comfortable fit.