[drphoto]

I recently did some aerial photography out of a helicopter. The aircraft had Bose noisecancelling communication headsets. They worked great, you could hear everything between the pilot and traffic control clearly. About 10 years ago, I was taking flying lessons in a fixed wing, and the thing that scared the bejeesus out of me, was not landing in a cross wind, but communicating w/ the tower. I could never understand what they were saying, it was just a garbled mess.

[Gaara]

If I recall correctly they got sued by the US government for their first generation ones because they were of such poor quality.

Recent versions are much improved

[KCI-JohnP]

I'm surprised that Bose didn't sue the government back for suing them!!

[nathanm]

Nah, they'll be fine as long as they don't change the name to "Monster Government"

[srb]

That was my feeling, too.

I've never cared for their home theatre receiver/speaker offerings.  Their wave radio and wave stereo aren't bad, except when you factor in the price (at 30-40% of their asking price, they are kind of nice)

But their noise-cancelling headphones outperformed the others I had tried (Sennheiser, JVC, Panasonic & Aiwa), however the others did sell for less.

[satfrat]

Ya'all can say what you will but I had 4 Bose floorstanders in a surround system for almost 20 years and loved every minute with them in my mid-fi receivers. Their "stereo everywhere" speaker array does home theater like few can and they had a nice midrange sound for music too. I'll be the first to agree that those little cubes are a POS but back in the 70's, they made a good floorstander IMHO.

Flame away,,,,,,,,   

Cheers,
Robin

[PaulFolbrecht]

I am a pilot and own a Bose headset.  They are the best.  But they are a ways away from the comfy place on the price/performance curve: At $1000 they are only a bit quieter and lighter than a $400 Lightspeed set.

[ohenry]

Ya'all can say what you will but I had 4 Bose floorstanders in a surround system for almost 20 years and loved every minute with them in my mid-fi receivers. Their "stereo everywhere" speaker array does home theater like few can and they had a nice midrange sound for music too. I'll be the first to agree that those little cubes are a POS but back in the 70's, they made a good floorstander IMHO.

Flame away,,,,,,,,   

Cheers,
Robin

Robin, you tin-eared little bitch.

My roommate had a pair of Bose floorstanders in the late 1970's that sounded pretty good to me and I wasn't a Bose fan.  They fired from three sides and were easy to place in our really bad room.  I'd like to hear them again to see if they still sound ok to me.

The noise-canceling headphones amaze me.  Very cool product.

[Housteau]

Flame away,,,,,,,,   
Cheers,
Robin

Back in the 70's I also found several Bose systems to sound really good, but then a certain altered state was not uncommon .  But seriously, Bose did sound good.  They offered for the average listener a very pleasant musical sound.  The problem was and is that they changed and embellished reality so that it did sound so good.  Good sounding, just not that accurate of reality.  But, back then not too many cared, or knew better.  For home theater today they might just have their place, but not for a music only two channel set-up.

Today I have a system that is very accurate, realistic to live music, yet also extremely pleasant sounding with no listener fatigue with my recordings.  For many years I had thought such a thing was not possible.

[Bigfish]

Flame away,,,,,,,,   
Cheers,
Robin

Back in the 70's I also found several Bose systems to sound really good, but then a certain altered state was not uncommon .  But seriously, Bose did sound good.  They offered for the average listener a very pleasant musical sound.  The problem was and is that they changed and embellished reality so that it did sound so good.  Good sounding, just not that accurate of reality.  But, back then not too many cared, or knew better.  For home theater today they might just have their place, but not for a music only two channel set-up.

Today I have a system that is very accurate, realistic to live music, yet also extremely pleasant sounding with no listener fatigue with my recordings.  For many years I had thought such a thing was not possible.

The speaker all us college guys raved about was the Bose 901s.  You could stand the up on the floor or hang them in the corners (popular in the bars) and they would play loud music.  Did the 901s produce good sound quality?  I don't think many of us cared as music was the background for having a good time.

What Bose has done well is Market, Market and Market!  Management of Bose must have decided many years ago that they wanted to be a household name for audio gear.  The audiophile market is very small as the majority of people want music, not necessarily ultimate sound quality.  Bose fills the niche for the masses with attractive, decent sounding, quality and reasonably priced gear.  I would guess more folks would recognize the name Bose as a supplier of audio gear than say Sony or Pioneer, the other large name mass marketing companies.

Ken

[stereocilia]

Most every audiophile has some kind of Bose story.  I knew a guy in college who got in big trouble for saying bad things about Bose products on the internet.  It became a big issue because he was of course using university computers to do it.   

[Russell Dawkins]

For a speaker designer, Amar makes an interesting car suspension:

http://tinyurl.com/ymahuw

[sts9fan]

My companies campus is intertwined with Bose's HQ.  I have seen a bunch of these Lexus LS models toolin around with all sorts of stuff strapped to the sides.  They have been working on that for a long time now.  I think they are having trouble getting a car manufacturer to put it in a new model.  At least thats the word from my friend that works there.   

[Jumpin]

College in the late 70's.  The best parties at our fraternity were titled "Tequilla, Vodka & Bruce (Springsteen) Nights".  The 901's rocked.  We would have people swinging from these ceiling mounted speakers.  Every once & a while they ripped off the stands & fell to the floor.  We would put them back, reconnect, and they rocked like nothing happened.

Great memories.  Now that we are not ripping spekers from the ceiling, I have been able to upgrade a bit in sound quality (but not volume).

Mark

[Housteau]

What Bose has done well is Market, Market and Market! 

Agreed.  They have this nailed. 

[AdamM]

For a speaker designer, Amar makes an interesting car suspension:

http://tinyurl.com/ymahuw

Since that suspension isn't double wishbone, and therefore won't preserve wheel alignment through its suspension arc, i wonder how it feels in the handling department?

Electro servos are a very cool idea..  but It looks like the rest of the mechanism, due to it's simplicity, may introduce undesirable characteristics of its own...

Perhaps because the car is riding flat most of the time, the wheel angle deltas will be kept to a minimum and only occur over bumps - not typical cornering - and therefore would only briefly be in an less than ideal state.

Citroen has a remotely similar concept (which Rolls Royce, erm, emulated) which is vaguely somewhat similar, although nowhere near as fast acting

Heck, my 1969 Citroen DS21 autolevels when you go around corners - and i bet has a smoother ride than that Lexus