Who make the best speaker systems?

Question

I am thinking of getting some made by Bose, what you think.

Answer 1

Bose is not the best. The best is the lat-1 from Krell it is the most impressive speaker I have ever heard.

I anticipate that this is a plant to make all you Bose owners feel better about being sucked into the marketing hype that Bose spews out.

A few issues I have with Bose are:

1) Use of components manufactured in North Korea

2) ambiguous design specs for frequency response and sensitivity.

3) Not being able to do a head to head comparison to other equipment.

4) They use components that are roughly $12 a cube and charge $2000 for a system with no additional interoperability.

5) proprietary, meaning that if one speaker breaks you have to get a how new system if they decide to not offer factory support for a model.

6) they only offer factory support.

If any Bose Representative wants to talk to me they can, but they never do.

Answer 2

Seriously. Don't get Bose. Bose is a low-end product cleverly marketed and priced as though it were a high-end one. I use to work at a store that sold them along with some high end brands in the same price range. We could never sell Bose to people who bothered to compare brands and we eventually dropped Bose. People differ on what the best speakers are since judgment on speaker quality involves a subjective element. Also, some of the really high-end speaker brands are available for audition only at audio salons that require an appointment. I have never had the opportunity to hear them since I could never come close to affording them, but many audiophiles think the speakers made by Wilson audio are the best. You can easily spend 80 thousand a pair for these home speakers. The recommendations by some of the other posters are good too. If you want to know what is the best brand at roughly the same price point as Bose the field becomes quite large and opinions differ a great deal. You should do a lot of reading and comparison listening at high end stores. Some brands in that price range to consider would include M&K, Monitor Audio, B&W, Paradigm, PSB, and Boston Acoustics. None of these brands would be in the running for the very best but they are, in contrast to Bose, good brands.

Answer 3

B&W are the best I have ever heard! Boston Acoustics are amazing speakers as well if you want to stay around the bose price range. Mirage makes very high end speakers as well that sound great.

Bose are entre level speakers imo more a trend and not so much for ture speaker/audio enthusiast.

Answer 4

Buying a Bose system is probably one of the worst mistakes you can make when purchasing speakers. It's been said enough times about the problems with the speakers in these forums. The best speakers you are going to find are Martin Logan, Magnapan and Ariel (sp?) but those are going to cost you upwards of $10k a pair. If you are going to spend what a Bose system will end up costing you, try out Boston Acoustic and PSB speakers.

Answer 5

You know what B.O.S.E. stands for right? Buy Other Stereo Equipment. With that said speakers are one of the most important parts of the chain. Best recommendation is to figure out a budget and start auditioning speakers that fit into that budget. I'd look around in your area and see if there is local dealer rather going to a big chain. Make friends with your dealer and be honest about your intentions. The smaller stores generally have better trained staff and more likely to give real advice rather than what you might get at say...Best Buy. Good luck with your hunt.

Answer 6

Bose are utter rubbish - that's the truth. Poorly made, lousy sound and vastly over-priced.

Some of the best speakers in the world are made by such companies as:

Martin Logan
Eggleston Works
ATC
Dali
Focal-J.M. Lab
Quad
Wilson-Benesch
Spendor
Proac

Of course, buying 'the best' will cost you a fair bit of money. A pair of Eggleston Works "Ivy" speakers will set you back £75,000, for example. But they are made from Italian granite and weigh 360kg each.

They make Bose look rather feeble, don't they...?

Answer 7

Bose is the biggest marketing scam ever. Just because they make good commercials doesn't mean they make great or even good speakers. Read the following.

Answer 8

Bose are good - but sound is very subjective, you may well prefer the sound that other speakers produce. This will almost certainly depend on the kind of music you like to listen to. Go to an independent , specialist Hi Fi shop and ask to compare speakers. Then choose the ones that you like the sound of the best.

Answer 9

Bose is OK. You should check out Polk Audio also ... You can get some good deals on this stuff on Ebay. For a sub go with Velodyne!

Answer 10

i've got bose speakers, they're really good.