Bose Wave Machine Not Impressive
A Company Baby Boomers Know Falls Short with Audio Quality
Mar 21, 2007
Paul Harvey, ubiquitous radio commentator, let me down. For thirty years, I’ve listened to him rave about Bose’s Wave Machine, telling his 50-and-over listeners, that the machine, once priced, I believe, at $1000, is the audio accoutrement. A must-have.
Harvey's wry humor and political meanderings are interesting, whether or not you agree with him. But, I’m forever disillusioned. I had opportunity to borrow a Wave Machine from Bose recently. My comments are general—not a technical review.
The machine looks 1960s. Hard plastic, smoked digital display. Self-contained speakers, left and right. No accessories. Volume, on/off, and clock controls with one auxiliary input in the back. It is what it is.
Mildly surprised by the low-tech construct, we input our satellite signal, switched everything on, and waited for the promised concert-hall sound to engulf our (17x13 foot) room.
We’re both technically inclined enough to realize a radio with 3” speakers isn’t really going to sound like Radio City. But we figured, at the high-end pricing, with all the blah blah from Mr. Harvey, something cool would happen.
We listened. We looked at each other, and shrugging, we both said, articulately, “Huh?”
No matter what Bose would have you believe, the machine can’t fill a room with sound – it would have trouble in a large walk-in closet. You could likely go to any point in a room and measure a certain amount of sound, so, technically, the room is filled, I guess. But the marketing phrase “fill the room” sounds better than the machine does.
The sound quality compares to a $49.95 clock radio. We both preferred ambient audio from the average-quality Zenith TV sitting next to the Bose. Bose MSRP? Around $600. However, is it coincidence that you find them at drastic discounts all over the Web? Amazon has three different prices, from 50% to 65% off.
Dan, my husband and partner, long-time professional electronics techno geek, said, “Meet the world’s priciest clock radio."
Bose built their reputation in the1960’s manufacturing loud, fairly robust speakers that fans of ear-blasting rock couldn’t burn up easily.
Bose capitalized on that rep with a line of unremarkable, high-priced plastic consumer audio products. The company has the world’s most effective marketing plan…including Paul Harvey. They don’t have miracle technology. Your money could be better spent elsewhere. And now you know the rest of the story.
