Bose Wave Radio II

A few months ago, I was given the Bose Wave RadioCD as a birthday present. This is the only reason I have this beast. The gift was given and taken in the spirit of love, but the radio itself has not lived up to the tremendous reputation of Bose. Below is a review with my observations of the radio over the past few months.

What Is The Bose Wave RadioCD?
The Bose Wave RadioCD is pretty self-explanatory--It consists of a radio/CD player/alarm and uses Bose's extraordinary speakers. The radio is not much bigger than a typical alarm clock. The Wave RadioCD brags many standard alarm clock features--big buttons that you will surely find in a groggy state right after waking up. These buttons include a snooze feature, 6 presets for AM and FM, three alarm modes, and an auxiliary mode (to hook up external sound). As you can see, the features are fairly standard, and if you really need an alarm clock the Bose Wave RadioCD is not the best choice for you.

Advantages
Convenient buttons - The buttons on the radio itself are large and convenient.

Interface - Setting and changing stations, tracks, and alarm modes is incredibly simple.

Click brightness changes - The brightness of the LCD display of the time changes depending on the brightness of the room. If it is dark, then the LCD display becomes dimmer, while if it is bright, the display becomes brighter. This is a convenient feature to help you view the alarm clock a little better in all circumstances, especially in the middle of the night when your eyes are not adjusted to the light.

Remote - The Bose Wave RadioCD comes with a wafer-thin remote for extremely lazy people like myself =) The remote includes just about all features that you will use regularly, and is an incredibly handy and useful feature even in an alarm clock.

Disadvantages
Sound isn't worth $399 - Though Bose has always boasted (no pun intended) stellar sound quality in its products, the Bose Wave RadioCD simply is not worth $399. With that amount of money, one can easily find a high-end boom box with better sound quality than this radio. Though sound is excellent for an alarm clock, it is not excellent for any other audio device in the $400 range. At low volumes and with good reception (which the Wave RadioCD usually has), sound quality is very good. However, as soon as the volume goes up, sound quality is compromised and noise begins to break up, directly related to the loudness.

Price in general - The $399 price tag in general is absolutely ridiculous. Bose has created a product that is outstanding for an alarm clock. I would estimate this product to be worth around $150, and not $400. An educated consumer would quickly realize that Bose is using its monopoly in the high-end alarm clock market to its full advantage by hiking its prices to absolutely unreasonable amounts.


Overall Is The Bose Wave RadioCD Worth It?
Unless you are extremely rich or just enjoy hearing nice audio when you wake up, I would not recommend this product at all. The Bose Wave RadioCD is meant to be doubled as an alarm clock and as an audio system. However, if you are willing to sacrifice nice sound for 5 minutes when you wake up, you will be able to afford a much better system for normal use, at a lower cost than the Wave RadioCD.