Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater EP800 wins an award

I’ve made a living and a hobby of watching people interact socially, glad you got a kick from my observation.

One thing that I get a kick out of observing in this forum is topic derailment. Although in hindsight I should have I didn’t in fact see the train wreck starting this thread would cause nor the journey it’s taking.

sorry wrong button

Are you PWI (Posting While Impaired).

lol

No, but work is ridiculously slow, hence why my post count has probably gone up 25% in the last couple days

I dunno... I think Dean doesn't do justice to my dislike for Bose.

My take is this: Bose might sound wonderful to the masses, especially to those who appreciate the WAF they offer. And that's fine, if that's how they market themselves. But that's not how they market themselves.

They have tried, largely successfully, to be first-in-mind when consumers are looking for the "Ultimate Sound". And though they don't achieve that goal on paper nor in-room, they price themselves so high as to make customers believe that Bose has some magical way of breaking the laws of physics and sounding better than the big systems while maintaining that small physical size. But, it's not true.

I have no issue when people buy Bose and know exactly what they're getting. Hey, in some rooms, even I would like a system with speakers so small they're virtually unseen.

But when people are being "sold" that the products are "audio nirvana", when testing shows it clearly is not as good as much less expensive systems, then I call them on that.

I believe Bose uses deceptive marketing practices to sell over-priced and under-performing equipment because they fool the customer into believing they are the "best out there" and worthy of the high price.

And, to me, deceptive marketing is never forgivable.

(Insert the word "Monster" wherever the word "Bose" is used above, and re-read please)

What was Audioholics thinking?? = I hate Apple 'cause they're like Bose.

How could you miss that one Dean?

Bose and Apple may be similar in the marketing area, but Apple remains a more Innovative company that continues to deliver [overpriced] value.

By the way, in blind testing, the unwashed/untrained masses would also not like Bose. Its not that Bose has never made a good product, but they are few and far between. The last better than average speaker they made was the 901/903. Applying horn loading to an alarm radio was pretty clever too. The training that Floyde developed for blind testing is more of an efficiency thing: to help people be able to describe what they are hearing.

Here, here on both (bose & Monster) counts!

Lol, my fiancee's ex-husband (we're friendly) really likes my set-up. And it inspired him to put together his own HT. But I'm afraid he's very new to the game, and falling for all the myths that I fell for back in my day. First off, when he bought his 60 inch plasma he bought a $130 dollar Monster HDMI cable to hook it up with. As soon as I heard this I immediatelly tried to intervien. I told him look, I know Monster looks like it's better than all the rest, but in reality they aren't. I bought an HDMI cable for $20 bucks, and there is absolutely no difference between the two performance wise. Monster may use thicker plastic coating and such, but they both operate the same.

He says, "are you sure, they told me the Monster cable was much faster at processing the information"... I laughed (maybe that was a bad move) and told him that's why they sell so many $130 dollar HDMI cables, because the salesmen are trained to make them sound like a superior product. If everyone knew they were the same, then who in their right mind would pay $110 dollars more than necessary to achive the same goal? So he stormed off back to the store for a refund. He came back and said, "well they showed me two tv's hooked up with different cables, and I'm telling you what they aren't lying, the Monster Cables are better"!!!

Probably very differently tuned tv's if you ask me.

"So the salesman asked me what other cable I'd been looking at and I told him I'd found a nice set for $79 bucks. He said, well I'll tell you what, if I could come down on the price of the Monster Cable to around that same price, wouldn't it be worth the extra quality in picture to you"? So he stuck with the Monster Cable at $80 bucks. Now that right there would bave been enough to tell me that something's rotten in Denmark when they can come down $50 bucks on a product without blinking simply to 'match the competition'. But oh well, I didn't want to critisize him any more so I just congratulated him on getting a better deal.

Next up was his surround system. Now I knew he wasn't about to spend anywhere near what I spent on my set-up, so when he brought home an 'in a box' system and started talking to me about it all I told him was where to position everything to get the best sound out of it. He ended up unhappy with it and headed back to Indy to see what he could find. He came back gleaming, he'd found audio nirvana.... in BOSE!!!! He was falling all over himself telling me how awesome these two little speakers sounded, it was an all-in-one system, it covered the center channel, left/right mains and surrounds within these two little speakers. He said he was listening to some sales jargon from some guy when a Bose representative walked up and said, "hey, why don't you come over and listen to these little beauties"... So he walked him over to his Bose sound room and played him some stuff from these two little speakers, and it blew him away!!!

That's when he says to me, "what's their deal man, is Bose just better than everyone else or what"??? At this point I was about to burst I was so appauled by the sales gimicks they'd been pulling over Tony's eyes. But I didn't want to make hime feel like a shmuck, so I simply replied, "well there are several people out there that do like Bose, yes... but you can find better out there". But he wasn't buying it. He was sold hook, line and sinker by that demo. He said when he buys them he's going to bring them over and show me how they compare to my set up. He said I won't believe how good they sound.

I can't wait. I only wish I had a pair of M22's to give him a good price comparison for his Bose that are going to cost him $600 bucks. $600 bucks for two tiny little speakers... now there's a profit margin for ya. What would you guys guess they have in materials in those... $50 bucks? So yeah, while I have no doubts he'll find out they certainly don't compare to an Epic 80/800 system, I'd really like to be able to show him he doesn't have to spend $4000 bucks just to get good sound. He could get a great sounding system with just two M22's for less than that, and add some QS4's around back one he had a bit more saved up.

Still can't wait until he does bring them over though!

I’m not getting you here Fred? The Bose issue came up in relation to RayLewis’ comment not Audioholics. My topic derailment/train wreck comment is in reference to the those who don‘t like Audioholics and that I should have seen their consternation coming, it had just been awhile since the topic had come up so I forgot that some people really don’t like them. This forum’s reaction to some things does often make us the butt of jokes (well deserved IMO (though often exaggerated) in other venues).

Again the Bose vs Apple comparions was RayLewis’ and not that he or I were comparing Bose and Apple in any way but rather the reactions of some people to those companies.

I never said that Bose would win a blind test with any other brand but since I haven’t seen any posted recently I wouldn’t make a statement that they wouldn’t win to non-”audiophile” ears. Nor is blind testing relevant to my comment that non-“audiophiles” who hear Bose might think they sounded good. A system can sound good to someone w/o necessarily being “good” or sounding good to everyone. My first surround sound speakers were an old boom-box hooked up to analogue outs on my Oppo 981 and it sounded great compared to not having surround speakers. It wasn’t until I got my QS8 that I realized how great it hadn’t sounded.

Some think that Axiom speakers sound like crap, I happen to disagree, but understand their take as I’ve had to cover my ears as a sibilant passage in a recording came screeching out of my M80s. But unlike them rather than blaming the speakers by default I plugged in my Sennheiser 600s and verified they also reproduced the discomfort. But still to someone with a plethora of bad recordings the Axioms do in fact sound like crap to them compared to some other brands.

I figured someone would bring up a Bose/Monster comparison. While comparisons can be drawn between anything I see them as very different “Monsters” mostly due to the litigation issues. That almost everything in home audio is generally over priced including IMO Axiom cables (just go to BlueJeans or Lowe’s) is a slim basis for comparison. As for over hipping SQ in relation to speaker design marketing, there are many who make that claim of Axiom’s speaker designs. So IMO comparisons like these are all relative and choosing where to draw the line for comparison is arbitrary. Micah my 10 meter HDMI cables cost $49, you’re way overpaying. Even speakers including Axiom’s are overpriced if you’re willing to go the DIY route or just wait and get a discount.

Micah, thank you for making my point (and I don’t mean that sarcastically) that to the untrained ear Bose speakers can sound good or “fantastic” as you related. People at work know I have a “great” HT system and will often proudly come up and exclaim they just got some system or another from BB or another B&M store. I usually say something like that they make a good product and leave them happy with their purchase they are so proud of. To paraphrase if it sounds good (to them) it is good. I don’t find I’m being helpful donning my cape and rushing in to tell them how they “wasted” there money. Let them be happy since they will likely never no anything different. BTW I paid $7,200 for my brand new sedan (which does just about anything any other sedan does) 4 years ago does that mean people who paid 2, 3, 4 or more times the price got ripped off by marketing hype?

I’ve also had several people come up and ask my advice about systems to get and watched their eyes glaze over as I tried to explain some of the most basic HT concepts. So now I just usually say something like that pretty much any well know brand name company is going to sound good and unless they want to put some time into researching it themselves not to sweat it.

I think many of us in these forum, me included, can get way to caught up in our own opinions of all things audio. Not everyone views, nor wants to view the audio world with our level of obsession so I think it’s easy to take ourselves (opinions) to seriously. I’d rather step into someone else’s shoes and help them find what they want and not find what I want them to want.

It wasn't supposed to make sense other than a gentle poke at your lack of reference to which thread-jack you didn't see coming. I thought it was funny. I guess I got up to early today. Need coffee...

My bad! I also got up to early for a Saturday 10:00AM. What was I thinking? That’s my normal time.