Hi guys, i know bose isnt generally well regarded in hifi but id like to venture into the boombox specifically the soundtouch 30...
I got this one dirt cheap and repaired it (smashed top panel made a new one from fibreglass). Was going to sell it on after reading general bose reviews but nothing specific.
I own b&w 802 towers and the bookshelf speakers a few gens older, driven by a choice of rega, cambridge audio or yamaha dsp amp (mainly for 5.1 and not music) so i am fairly critical and listen to everything genre wise.
I have the portable stuff for my houseboat (jbl extreme 2, jbl charge 3, marshall killburn and roberts 93i and now a bose).
Now i just want to ask if anyone else can give me a critical review of what they thought of this particular bose product, dont want general bose bashing but an A B of this and something similar in physical dimensions and cost by someone who really knows detail and sound quality, i ask because i have been comparing the bose to the others and with multiple genres, namely fleetwood mack - say you love me/2nd hand news, metallica - whiskey in the jar, lorde - tennis court and others, time after time - jazz quartet, and lots of songs from spotify playlist audiophile 101.
It required playing with to get the soundstage decent (a boat is not the best environment) eventually settled with it on the floor about a foot from the wall (room is 12 by 9 feet) this gave a good soundstage for a portable and stops the reflected mids from becoming coloured and boxy, then reduced the bass to - 4 in the bose app (aiming to get the bass similar to the other speakers so its not overpowering the mids) and i have to say its blowing the other boxes in my list out of the water, the highs are transparent and sharp, i see no obvious loss of detail at the top comparing with the jbl which has tweeters and mids, infact the detail sounded superb with every detail being picked out including some i didnt hear before and then went back to the jbl and played it again and it was there just barely audible, the mids sounded fluid and detailed almost perfect to me, i noticed with bruce springsteens - philadelphia that when his vocals go deep to high pitched there was a shift as if between two different speakers however once i did the - 4 reduction in bass it was gone and sounded fluid and crisp, the bass extends down very deep and seems to have a musical nature, on the jbl it sounded kind of muddy and the bose actually kills the bass on my b&w towers too they sound thin and anemic in comparison.
So have they made a good one? It sounds flat to me and actually more enjoyable to listen too i keep spotting details in all of my music that i hadnt noticed before and sure enough when i go A B with one of the other speakers they are there just subdued, two of the jbls in stereo actually kill the imaging on my b&w's, after 3 years with the bowers and the jbls i think the bowers are the worst of the three accept for the treble thats very detailed but i wouldnt say any better than the jbl, the bose seems to have a slighty narrow stereo image but that may be unfair since i use two jbls in stereo in the usual placement for speakers where the bose is one box but still its there.
Paid £100 for the bose btw so no matter the criticism of the speaker i didnt lose much financially, so give me your thoughts if you have tried your own music at home on one.
Thanks, Mat.
I got this one dirt cheap and repaired it (smashed top panel made a new one from fibreglass). Was going to sell it on after reading general bose reviews but nothing specific.
I own b&w 802 towers and the bookshelf speakers a few gens older, driven by a choice of rega, cambridge audio or yamaha dsp amp (mainly for 5.1 and not music) so i am fairly critical and listen to everything genre wise.
I have the portable stuff for my houseboat (jbl extreme 2, jbl charge 3, marshall killburn and roberts 93i and now a bose).
Now i just want to ask if anyone else can give me a critical review of what they thought of this particular bose product, dont want general bose bashing but an A B of this and something similar in physical dimensions and cost by someone who really knows detail and sound quality, i ask because i have been comparing the bose to the others and with multiple genres, namely fleetwood mack - say you love me/2nd hand news, metallica - whiskey in the jar, lorde - tennis court and others, time after time - jazz quartet, and lots of songs from spotify playlist audiophile 101.
It required playing with to get the soundstage decent (a boat is not the best environment) eventually settled with it on the floor about a foot from the wall (room is 12 by 9 feet) this gave a good soundstage for a portable and stops the reflected mids from becoming coloured and boxy, then reduced the bass to - 4 in the bose app (aiming to get the bass similar to the other speakers so its not overpowering the mids) and i have to say its blowing the other boxes in my list out of the water, the highs are transparent and sharp, i see no obvious loss of detail at the top comparing with the jbl which has tweeters and mids, infact the detail sounded superb with every detail being picked out including some i didnt hear before and then went back to the jbl and played it again and it was there just barely audible, the mids sounded fluid and detailed almost perfect to me, i noticed with bruce springsteens - philadelphia that when his vocals go deep to high pitched there was a shift as if between two different speakers however once i did the - 4 reduction in bass it was gone and sounded fluid and crisp, the bass extends down very deep and seems to have a musical nature, on the jbl it sounded kind of muddy and the bose actually kills the bass on my b&w towers too they sound thin and anemic in comparison.
So have they made a good one? It sounds flat to me and actually more enjoyable to listen too i keep spotting details in all of my music that i hadnt noticed before and sure enough when i go A B with one of the other speakers they are there just subdued, two of the jbls in stereo actually kill the imaging on my b&w's, after 3 years with the bowers and the jbls i think the bowers are the worst of the three accept for the treble thats very detailed but i wouldnt say any better than the jbl, the bose seems to have a slighty narrow stereo image but that may be unfair since i use two jbls in stereo in the usual placement for speakers where the bose is one box but still its there.
Paid £100 for the bose btw so no matter the criticism of the speaker i didnt lose much financially, so give me your thoughts if you have tried your own music at home on one.
Thanks, Mat.
I find Bose gear is always in one of two camps:
1 - Amazing for the size of the thing. Not the last word of HiFi, but very good for what it is.
2 - Terrible.
Their 5.1 systems tend to be in the 2nd camp, while their small speakers are often in the first. Sounds like you've got a good one. Enjoy.
Chris
1 - Amazing for the size of the thing. Not the last word of HiFi, but very good for what it is.
2 - Terrible.
Their 5.1 systems tend to be in the 2nd camp, while their small speakers are often in the first. Sounds like you've got a good one. Enjoy.
Chris
Must admit i have never owned any of their cinema solutions because space was never an issue in the house so i always went with full range hifi as my 5.1, i heard a cinema bose at a mates house which i believe was a very old one and that sounded totally crap and i told him to come listen to mine and after he did the bose pretty soon left the building.
Mostly what i remember is people hating the wave stereo but i also remember paying around £600 for a suposedly high end hitachi 6 speaker boombox back in the 90s as a teenager which i still have for nastalgia honestly couldnt listen to it now though!
They sound terrible with no enclosure just free air drivers. Then there was the jvc kaaboom i had also in the 90s and i think that one actually was more expensive than the bose and had two active subwoofers, it was very high powered but again i still have it and it sounds like mud very loud bassy mud, point is i think all of them sounded crap once the golden days of the famed 3 way panasonics and stuff from the 80s, my mate had one of those sealed 3 way boomboxes with a motorised top, sounded pretty good from memory but dont have one to compare.
now these days we really are treated the flagship portables like sonos play 5 etc sound very nice compared to what i grew up with, although i have listened to one of those and they are a similer design to the soundtouch with angled tweeters (3) and 3 woofers.
The reviews said they had so much nicer bass than the bose but im not sure, its very close but i think the sonos suffers from the usuall issue of cramming 3 woofers in a smaller than the bose box and it sounds kind of constrained where to me the soundtouch with the horns (both low end and tweets are horns on this one totally seperate from each other no dual purposing the drivers and they look pretty meaty from when i opened it.)
I took loads of pics but cant upload here due to needing to use a host which i dont like however the bose horn or whatever catagory of enclosure it really is, to me sounds like a 15inch driver with super deep bass compared to the sonos which had more refined bass but a bit weedy.
when i listen to something with a deep rolling baseline like dupstep the enjoyment is totally gone as soon as i encounter a sharp rolloff on the sonos where it seems to be electronically capped, its like someones stolen the atmospheric thunder and i cant enjoy it like that (used to a sub on my hifi otherwise the b&w sound the same way) on the bose the frequency starts to roll off at about 40hz but is still gently thundering away at 35hz (tried a bass test sweep on it) its not true sub territory but its powerfull bass just like listening to celestion 15" PA Cabs its there in your chest, to me thats a work of art for a box that size.
If this is what horns do i think i need some on my hifi speakers too i love it, even the mids on the bose sound a bit like the texture from a wind instrument on certain sounds (since i have no other horns to compare it to i cant say if that sound is natural or not but it sounds amazing to me) not very often i have thought wow when hearing music on my hifi only awe at the realness of the sound stage, which is a tiny bit mudled on the bose, but its there wheras its nowhere on the sonos all it seems to do is throw selective bits round the room as an effect.
Sorry for the essay but i wanted to give some insight to exactly what i like then if it turns out its not sonically that good from critical listeners at least you will know what it is in the sound people like, then maybe i will get recommended something this size which is hifi.
Mat.
Mostly what i remember is people hating the wave stereo but i also remember paying around £600 for a suposedly high end hitachi 6 speaker boombox back in the 90s as a teenager which i still have for nastalgia honestly couldnt listen to it now though!
They sound terrible with no enclosure just free air drivers. Then there was the jvc kaaboom i had also in the 90s and i think that one actually was more expensive than the bose and had two active subwoofers, it was very high powered but again i still have it and it sounds like mud very loud bassy mud, point is i think all of them sounded crap once the golden days of the famed 3 way panasonics and stuff from the 80s, my mate had one of those sealed 3 way boomboxes with a motorised top, sounded pretty good from memory but dont have one to compare.
now these days we really are treated the flagship portables like sonos play 5 etc sound very nice compared to what i grew up with, although i have listened to one of those and they are a similer design to the soundtouch with angled tweeters (3) and 3 woofers.
The reviews said they had so much nicer bass than the bose but im not sure, its very close but i think the sonos suffers from the usuall issue of cramming 3 woofers in a smaller than the bose box and it sounds kind of constrained where to me the soundtouch with the horns (both low end and tweets are horns on this one totally seperate from each other no dual purposing the drivers and they look pretty meaty from when i opened it.)
I took loads of pics but cant upload here due to needing to use a host which i dont like however the bose horn or whatever catagory of enclosure it really is, to me sounds like a 15inch driver with super deep bass compared to the sonos which had more refined bass but a bit weedy.
when i listen to something with a deep rolling baseline like dupstep the enjoyment is totally gone as soon as i encounter a sharp rolloff on the sonos where it seems to be electronically capped, its like someones stolen the atmospheric thunder and i cant enjoy it like that (used to a sub on my hifi otherwise the b&w sound the same way) on the bose the frequency starts to roll off at about 40hz but is still gently thundering away at 35hz (tried a bass test sweep on it) its not true sub territory but its powerfull bass just like listening to celestion 15" PA Cabs its there in your chest, to me thats a work of art for a box that size.
If this is what horns do i think i need some on my hifi speakers too i love it, even the mids on the bose sound a bit like the texture from a wind instrument on certain sounds (since i have no other horns to compare it to i cant say if that sound is natural or not but it sounds amazing to me) not very often i have thought wow when hearing music on my hifi only awe at the realness of the sound stage, which is a tiny bit mudled on the bose, but its there wheras its nowhere on the sonos all it seems to do is throw selective bits round the room as an effect.
Sorry for the essay but i wanted to give some insight to exactly what i like then if it turns out its not sonically that good from critical listeners at least you will know what it is in the sound people like, then maybe i will get recommended something this size which is hifi.
Mat.
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Some driver images from my dissasembly when repairing managed to upload some from phone.
Note would like to know if those mids are some type of horn or not? Do you see the scoops next to the speakers seems like different sized horns for frequency ranges
Power rating of the unit is 150w so probably has a fairly substantial amp, expecially if its class d efficiency
Note would like to know if those mids are some type of horn or not? Do you see the scoops next to the speakers seems like different sized horns for frequency ranges
Power rating of the unit is 150w so probably has a fairly substantial amp, expecially if its class d efficiency
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Watts doesn't mean anything if not accompanied with SPL rating.
I can show You a crappy 1000W rated speaker playing lower than a 500W one with the same amplifier. But Yes 150W (RMS or peak ?) is some power. Now connect the amp to a 12'' or 15'' PA speaker & You will hear what I mean.
You can't defeat laws of Physics.
No i dont mean the speaker or amp im talking about the rated power consumption and using it as a rough guide, after all the power has to go somewhere obviously not all of it becomes sound but theres no cd or anything so most of it must be for the amps, the clue is in a massive toroidal transformer in the bottom which makes my rega one look toy like, however the rega is only 40w pch if i remember correctly.
Yes i realise bose is a little subjective with no actual ratings but i do have some experience with decent amps and speakers to make an educated guess based on the sound and use of components, i work in electronics so i have repaired many an amp and built a few of my own.
Theres also the huge magnet on the back of that woofer and the thickness of the braded wire to the coil, nobody will use heavier gauge than required on a consumer item, and these are fairly beefy, so the speaker is designed to handle. Some power, but yes the spl rating would be a complete guess without measuring it myself, which i might do for giggles when i get some free time, we certainly have the gear at work.
Yes i realise bose is a little subjective with no actual ratings but i do have some experience with decent amps and speakers to make an educated guess based on the sound and use of components, i work in electronics so i have repaired many an amp and built a few of my own.
Theres also the huge magnet on the back of that woofer and the thickness of the braded wire to the coil, nobody will use heavier gauge than required on a consumer item, and these are fairly beefy, so the speaker is designed to handle. Some power, but yes the spl rating would be a complete guess without measuring it myself, which i might do for giggles when i get some free time, we certainly have the gear at work.
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So just for gigles i did a hand plot using phone scope and sweeping sine waves, this was with 1/4 (i know the chart says half i messed up) volume and phone at about 1ft away, bass set to - 4 (goes to - 9).
This is very crude so i have no idea what it shows if anything about the sound.
Thoughts?
This is very crude so i have no idea what it shows if anything about the sound.
Thoughts?
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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