Bose wave radio

[cfz2882]

was given a bose wave radio for repair(radio only version made in 1997)it is
completely dead-only sign of life is a little scratch of static just after it
is unplugged...checked voltages on the filter caps and regulator-power supply
seems to be working.
Radio is nicely made in the usa and i am curious about the performance of this
once it is fixed-if i like it might have to get one for myself!

 

[chromacolor]

Well... I purchased one for my mom in 2001. I don't know how they do it, but it sounds fantastic. It did break about 2 seconds after the warranty was up, and the cost to repair was about 100.00 less than getting a new one. (Hers is the one with a CD player). I wrote to Bose and they ended up paying for the whole repair. It is still going, and I wouldn't mind one for myself, but they are really expensive. (I think a tad over $400.00) which seems alot for a glorified clock radio, but man.. if you have ever heard one, you'd be impressed.

 

[bleacho]

bose customer service is terrific

my bose stopped working. i went to the bose store, and they suggested calling their repair service.. not only did they troubleshoot, but ultimately i had to send it out for repair. i sent it to them, they sent it back all fixed. i dont think they charged me a dime. theyre product and customer service is terific!!

 

[jerrod6]

I have had one for several years. It is the radio/CD combination. No trouble with it and it sounds good. I use it in the living room. It also has aux input jacks so I use it to listen to satellite radio.

 

[henry200]

I am very impressed with the quality of Bose products and their customer service is quite good too.   I'm an organist and classical pipe organ music is probably the most the challenging thing there is to reproduce convincingly.  I was amazed at the range and clarity the first time I heard an organ recording played through the Wave system.   I once supervised the installation of a public address sound system in an extraordinarily reverberant church.  The company who installed the system specified all Bose equipment and again, I was thoroughly impressed with Bose's quality.

 

Neil

 

[mattl]

Here is the dissenting opinion.  The best thing about Bose is their marketing, they are great at that.  Everything else is marginal at best.  Ages ago when Bose was really hyping their home audio stuff, those in the know had a saying "No highs, no lows, must be Bose."and to this day in the audio forums the saying is "Friends don't let friends buy Bose".  Their products have always sold at mostly premium prices, they do make some cheap stuff, but it's no better, and often worse than what their competitors are selling.   They are the Vizio TVs of their day.   I'll be honest, I do own some of their speakers, I got them very cheap when I was selling audio equipment, but they do not perform comparably to similarly price equipment.

 

There is some very good table top equipment out there, unless you get a Wave Radio for a steal or free, look elsewhere.

 

[arbilab]

When it's sold on TV and the price is not disclosed, sure thing it's overpriced. $400 for a plastic mold? Might be the Lawrence Welk of clock radios but I'm not buying.

I knew Bose from the 70s. They took 4x the amp power for the same volume as say JBLs, and sounded strained. Also very particular about room placement but to an extent that's true of any speaker.

My opinion isn't canon. Hardly anything as subjective as speaker performance. I last bought speakers in 1977, JBL L100s. One constant I remember, in a roomful of speakers, the one you like best you can't afford.

 

[whirlcool]

i have a 1977 pair of JBL 4311's. They will energize with as little as 1w of power.
Now my AR-3a's take 25w of power before they'll energize.

I've always thought Bose products were over rated. Like Apple, they make the product exterior look great, but inside it's the same old stuff everyone else has. And I can't believe how many of these radios they have sold. They are now ubiquitous!
They sound ok, and just ok to me.

 

[arbilab]

i have a 1977 pair of JBL 4311's
===================================

4311, same components, made to stand up where L100 is made to lay down and both resent misplacement. With a little EQ cleanup in the bottom 3 octaves, they're very satisfying. Oh, and the paper tweeters are...... papery.

 

[rp2813]

I picked up a Bose Wave a while back for $25.  It had no power cord so I knew I was taking a chance.  After posting about it here, I got lots of feedback about the average lifespan, which was very short.  The radio didn't work.  The display was stuck on one thing, and it wouldn't respond to any buttons.  Bose was willing to give me credit towards a new one, but I decided it wasn't worth it for just a radio, and one that wouldn't last very long.

 

[sudsmaster]

I've never seen a Bose radio up close - nobody I've known has had one.

I admit I am a bit put off by the magazine advertisements. One must really hunt and dig through the copy to infer the total price for the product. This I think is a bit of a giveaway that they are hiding something. In this case, a higher price than might be justified by the actual product being sold.

I got a TEAC AM/FM radio with CD player at Costco about 10 years ago. It has a great sound, with a base port pointing down at whatever surface it's placed on. Great base and very good sound. I like to think of it as a poor man's Bose (it cost about $100).

And it's not bad looking, either. My only gripe might be that it has no memory backup, so once it's unplugged it loses all its stations.

Nowadays it's difficult to find a good table top radio that doesn't have one of those ubiquitous iPod mounts on it. I don't have an iPod and I don't intend to get one (I prefer a generic MP3 player or my smartphone). I'd also like to get a good HD table top radio... but these are also difficult to find.

 

[gmmcnair]

Bose....

....I've heard the Bose sets and they're fine, but they're awfully expensive for what you get. Recently, I bought my grandmother a Sangean WR-11 table radio. Cost less than $100 and the reception and sound are fantastic. She loves it because it has simple controls and it has great sound. Personally, I think that Tivoli and Sangean offer a lot more bang for the buck than Bose does. I honestly don't know how they manage to produce the kind of sound they do. Sound is comparable with a good mini-system or decent component system with the size of a table radio.

http://www.amazon.com/SANGEAN-WR-11-Table-Top-Radio/dp/B001BGGD8A/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1307337672&sr=1-4

 

[lordkenmore]

I've heard a couple of Bose Wave radios, and I wasn't overwhelmed with either. Then, maybe 10 years ago, I had a chance to hear a system that had been assembled in the 70s with Bose speakers. It could play loud, and was something that would impress in a college dorm. It wasn't something I'd consider owning.

Bose is frequently considered overpriced. I have no idea if this is still the case, but a few years ago, audiophile types much preferred the Tivoli Model 1 and Model 2 radios instead of the Bose Wave. Better AND cheaper was the opinion some had. (I don't know if this is the case. Henry Kloss was involved with Tivoli early on, but died several years ago. The current line has expanded since that time. I'm not sure if the radios that were around in his era are still the same design interally or not.) Only problem with Tivoli for me is that the one model I saw in the wild was, as I recall, made in China. I try to avoid buying Chinese imports, but in this case, if the reputation is right, and I was in the market for a table radio, I'd probably go with Tivoli.

LINK TO TIVOLI:

Tivoli Audio

Tivoli Audio creates quality audio of uncompromising design. Shop the ART line, Model One BT, Model One Digital or clock, portable and bluetooth radios and speakers.

www.tivoliaudio.com

 

[lordkenmore]

A discussion of Bose. (More as a speaker company than a radio company).

http://www2.zhome.com:81/ZCMnL/PICS/stereo/bosefaq.htm

 

[cuffs054]

I've had a Model One Tivoli for years. No problems so far

 

[whirlcool]

I think that a lot of these radio companies are trying to recapture the glory of the original KLH Model 21, which was considered revolutionary at the time. One of the first table top radios that actually sounded good. And they were expensive too.
KLH introduced them in 1965.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$%28KGrHqR,%21lQE3HG8S%29H4BN7P-eMHNg%7E%7E_12.JPG

 

[lordkenmore]

I don't know about other radio companies, but Tivoli certainly was influenced by KLH radios. Certainly, Tivoli had strong ties to those KLH radios in one way--the engineer Henry Kloss was connected with both KLH and Tivoli. Early Tivoli radios had more than a passing resemblance to the KLH radios. I also seem to recall that the KLH radio was mentioned quite a bit in early ads for Tivoli radios--at least at the retail level.

I personally like the retro influenced look of the first Tivoli radios. I also like the simplicity--simple rotary knobs rather than endless buttons and harsh LED displays.

 

[danmantn]

<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The subject of sound alway elicits opinions.  I bought my first Bose Wave Radio in 1998 - still going STRONG.  Then a pair of bookshelf speakers that still work.  Bought another/updated Wave II (CD) in 2004 - still going strong (even better sound quality on that one).  It's a small stereo, not a huge system, so for background and medium-volume music it does just great (the 2004 model has better volume, more accurate bass).  </span>

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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Picked up the 2 piece speakers for the computer in 2000 - still working fine.  Bought the Lifestyle 28 II in 2002, still works like it did on day 1-it came with another Wave Radio CD as a bonus, still works great.  Bought over the ear headphones and computer speaker system in 2003, still work great, upgraded to noise canceling in 2005, still work great.  </span>

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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Bought 3 sets over the past 3 years of the in-ear headphones--awesome work and workout earbuds--especially the new ones this year!  </span>

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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">My car has a Bose sound system.  Last Christmas I picked up the Acoustic Wave II (think of it as the little Bose on steroids) - it can get really loud…but it's not going to shake the walls…using it for entertaining outside and just to kick back in the great room.  The Acoustic Wave machines are superior on any 'natural' music…which is what I like…Jazz and the like…so they fit ME…find out what fits YOU.  </span>

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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't set out to buy all Bose, just always been pleased with their products.  If you want to thump your neighbors, and are obsessed by bass, go elsewhere.  I've really enjoyed the Acoustic Wave II - hooked up a nice antenna to it and really enjoy the pleasure of listening to the radio again.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing matters but what your ears tell you.  </span>

 

 

[tolivac]

I have the Bose radio-has the CD player.It will NOT fill up a room as well as a full sized system-but the Radio is great if you listen to it as a "nearfeild" monitor.Place it on the table or desk facing you and you sit at the table or desk.Same with the Acoustic Wave unit-mine is a much older machine-was bought in the 80's when the Acoustic wave first came out.Was working at the radio station studio-the Bose rep wanted to show us something-the Acoustic unit to both of us in the engineering shop.The rep tuned it to our station-it sure sounded good!the station bought one and I bought one for myself.These had the cassette players in them.the later ones had a CD player.I listened to that unit from batteries-the station paid for the batteries while I built the 50Kw AM transmitter site.and when completed-that AM sounded really nice-was pleased with my efforts.Since the AM tuner in the Bose was narrow abnd-Why?-Don't get that-so I used a GE "Superradio" and plugged it into the aux inputs of the Bose-since the GE Superradio is TRF and wideband-could really appreciate how the new transmitter sounded.To a degree I think the Bose items are overated.If you use them down to perspective-they are alright-and that acoustic wave unit still plays.The best sounding that I heard Bose system was in a record shop in downtown DC in the 70's.They used a Bose preamp and power amp-and the Equalizer for the #301 speakers.Was nice-everyone who bought a record there played a cut or two over it-was really good.The Bose Multidirectional speaker systems can sound like PA speakers if not properly set up and use enough amp power.that Bose poweramp put out 350W per channel-its was a BEAST.You had to run it on its own 15A 120V circuit.And those speakers have to be properly placed-AWAY from the wall-not against it as with other speakers.And don't put those in a bookshelf!