Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater VP150 bass weaker than itty bitty Bose?

When I had Cambridge Soundworks Ensemble 1s, I found them far superior to Bose. They also cost 1/4 as much. Of course, now I find them to be severely lacking in midrange. Sold them to a guy a few months ago. I had them sitting on top of the M80s to demo them for him.

They're much easier to hide.

I had a client once who had a professionally setup stereo (she said) with Bose cubes in the corners of the room and a Marantz receiver.

The Bose bass module (1 6 1/2" woofer inna box...) was in the closet with the receiver. Sigh.

And to be honest, at a certain age (oh, probably my age would be the border...), when tower speakers are mentioned to your average person, they think of gigantic floorstanders with 15" woofers and whatnot. And those things are almost universally hideous.

Bose exemplifies the triumph of marketing over quality.

Lots of people are simply unwilling to research complicated purchases. We are not them.

IMO, a decent in-wall speaker would far outperform the Bose cubes and be even more invisible. So, we have to attribute Bose success to not only form factor, but also to inability or unwillingness to cut drywall and fish wires. I'm betting that MOST Bose systems have speaker wire hanging down the wall, or that they are on stands (either of which totally defeats their aesthetic value).

It's a physics problem. The cubes don't have sufficient volume to produce frequencies below a certain point (150Hz? 200Hz?) without using esoteric drivers and extremely high power, both of which would be expensive (if possible at all). So, the crossover network shifts those easily localized frequencies to the woofer box, which is also underpowered and incapable of playing lower frequencies.

And - let's be honest here - most women don't care nearly as much about electronics as men do. They might know they want better sound than just the TV, but don't enjoy the research and don't want to un-feng their shui.

I think people who buy Bose speakers are the same ones that pay BB to "install" their home theatre (i.e. $200+ to attach the cables between the TV and the receiver).

Frankly, if the form factor is THAT big a deal, I think consumers would be much better served by one of the Yamaha sound projectors.

Ditto Michael on the Gallos.

The VP150 is a tank. I watch a lot of 5.1 content (video games and TV,and movies as well) and a good amount of oomph comes from that speaker for sure.

As for the M60's, I just cranked them without the sub on and they've got plenty of oomph, and they're not even taking all of the bass because the receiver is setup to send stuff to the sub.

I used them by themselves before the sub got here, and they're pretty damn powerful in my opinion, on all fronts they just project a very solid sound, they let you know they're there

- D

I found this. My blood was boiling as I was reading it .