Speakers for passive listeners.

I love my Bose speakers! Admittedly, I've loved them less and less over the years, as my friends have bought speakers that sound better for less money. But, at root, I've never stopped loving the way they sound and the way they look. Every time I pack up my stereo and move my equipment, and every time I lie on my bed and close my eyes and hear my room literally overbrimming with sound -- then I remember the reasons I bought them in the first place.

There are basically three reasons to buy Bose speakers: size, aesthetics, and the room-filling (if imprecise) sound the direct-reflecting design provides. I'll go over each of these in order.

First, they are small.
Let me tell you -- don't underestimate the luxury of having small speakers. Small speakers allow you to set up a room without worrying about getting your speakers positioned right. They are easily transported from place to place; they can be pointed in all sorts of directions without looking silly. I'm a college student with a 77 square-foot single room, and the fact that I can put these speakers anywhere -- on bookshelves, on stacks of books, in my closet, on my computer monitor, hanging from nails in the wall -- literally anywhere -- makes my life noticeably easier. It also keeps my room from becoming an Altar to Audio-Visual Equipment -- I have my components nicely stacked on my bookshelf, but I don't have a room relentlessly arranged so that my chair is pointing right between two towering floor speakers which dominate the visual appearance and layout of where I live.

Second, they are elegant!
My Bose cubes are white and blend right into the walls and wainscotting. They look much, much better than the cheap-looking satellites you get from Cambridge Soundworks or Polk Audio. They are beautiful! I have my rear speakers hidden behind picture frames and lamps. The Bose speakers become part of your room instead of disrupting it, and as a result you don't pay attention to where the sound is coming from -- you don't end up sitting, facing your speakers while listening to music. Certainly, some people really like having big audio equipment -- they think it looks 'bad,' in a good way. If you're one of those people, then Bose is wasted on you, and the aesthetic considerations (which are what you're paying for with Bose) mean nothing. But if you care about keeping your electronics unobtrusive then the Bose speakers are the most unobtrusive speakers imaginable. If that Power Mac G4 Cube looked good to you, then the aesthetic dimension of the Bose speakers will be meaningful to you too.

Finally, they fill the room.
Much is made by audiophiles about the imprecision of Bose speakers. This very real imprecision (or flatness, or lack of 'punchy' audio) is a prominent feature of all satellite-subwoofer configurations. Speakers in this configuration lack a serious midrange and won't deliver upper-range bass tones well -- so they simply don't sound as good as two big floor-standing speakers and a subwoofer.

Unlike floor-standing speakers, however, your Bose speakers can be positioned anywhere in your room, and they can reflect off of your walls and floors; this is the much-vaunted Bose direct-reflecting sound. And it really does work! Close your eyes and the sound comes from everywhere -- soft tones drift and fill the stereo center and the area around it. In a small room (like my 77-sq. ft. one), the entire room is literally saturated with sound, and it sounds wonderful -- in my opinion, much better than the punchy sound of most similarly priced floor speakers.

To be clear, there are two kinds of listeners -- active listeners, who put on a record (or a DVD) and sit down on the couch right between their speakers to listen to it -- loud -- and passive listeners, who put on music while they go about their business. Bose speakers are perfect for the passive listener. They disappear into your stuff. They fill your room with directionless sound. You don't notice the speakers -- all you notice is the audio, which tends to be 'widescreen' rather than 'high-impact' -- precise enough to be good-sounding but not so intense as to be obtrusive. Bose speakers are often criticized as being murky; what they really are is soft. Bose speakers are the cotton candy of the audio world. If that appeals to you, then I recommend Bose all the way.