Bose Acoustic Wave II (17817391207) Shelf System

You remember P. T. Barnum, the famous showman behind the Barnum & Bailey Circus. He once asserted, "There's a sucker born every minute." That Bose can get away with selling their mediocre-at-best Acoustic Wave system for around $1,000 is a testament to the continuing validity of Barnum's observation. After dozens of years and millions of dollars worth of advertising, they seem to have successfully convinced Americans that their products are the be all and end all of home audio. Well, I hate to be the one to point out the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes, but the Acoustic Wave is standing there naked as a jaybird next to legions of rivals.

In my experience with the Acoustic Wave - I spent a week staying with a friend who owns one, listening to over a dozen CD's I'm very familiar with during that time - I found its audio to be only comparable to that of the far less expensive (and far smaller) Cambridge Soundworks Model 88 table radio, which was designed by audio legend Henry Kloss, the man who practically invented the modern loudspeaker. Unlike the Model 88, which boasts a tight, clear and crisp sound, the larger, more expensive Acoustic Wave has a hollow sound that immediately conveys the fact you're listening to speakers stuck inside a big plastic box. The bass is muddy and poorly defined even at fairly low volumes and, if you turn up the volume to room-filling levels, the box rattles. The tiny Model 88 can't play quite as loud as the Acoustic Wave, but its sound remains clean at all but the highest volumes, and its cabinet doesn't sound hollow and never rattles – an impressive achievement for a device which can be had for just under $300 when it goes on sale, and which lists for around $350. Either price is around a third the cost of the larger Bose. I'd certainly much rather listen to music on the Model 88 – it's a far more accurate and more musical device. The Bose sounds cheap in comparison, recalling the unpleasant sound of some old ghetto blaster from the early 1980's, with its speakers making their hollow plastic enclosures hum. Ick.

If the low end seemed muddy on this unit, the extreme high end seemed practically non-existent. Instruments and soundstages lacked the lightness, the "air" that subtle amounts of high frequency sound (the decay of a cymbal, for example) can impart. Female vocals meanwhile sounded "swallowed" on this unit. I played a couple of female vocalists noteworthy for their captivating, forward performances (for example, early Dusty Springfield material like "Needle In A Haystack" off of her brilliant Anthology release). Voices which should have leapt out into the room and commanded attention instead seemed to be lost in the plastic echo chamber that the Acoustic Wave's enclosure apparently becomes, at least at certain frequencies. Or perhaps the two tiny stereo drivers in this unit, apparently not much bigger than those in the Model 88, simply have a hole in their frequency response at certain spots, including those where female vocals typically fall. They also successfully "consumed" Annie Lennox and even Debbie Harry, two women most speakers have sense enough not to trifle with!

Stereo imaging was fairly poor, which was not entirely unexpected given how close together the two stereo drivers are. I was surprised to find it only marginally better than the Model 88 though, given how very close together the speakers are in that unit. Then again, the Model 88 seems to have far cleaner midrange and treble response than the Acoustic Wave, and better treble extension too. Since most of the stereo image is carried at those frequencies, and the extreme high end can impart a sense of space to any audio signal (even a monophonic one), perhaps the Bose's imaging shortcomings are due mainly to its frequency response and accuracy issues.

I do like the look of the Bose unit. The graceful curved shape is very appealing, and the cabinet is a nice, bright shade of white. I'm into minimalist decor and most of the furniture in my apartment is white, so there's little to complain about on that front. I even love the size and shape of the flush control buttons on the top of the unit, although I didn't find the layout particularly intuitive – I kept hitting the wrong buttons for certain tasks (though admittedly, it was difficult to see the labels where my friend had the unit sitting). On the other hand, the cabinet design does seem a little dated with all those ridges, a little like the faux deco stuff that was so popular in the mid to late '80s (think "Miami Vice"). Still, I'd give the unit extremely high design marks – it looks much better than the somewhat homely, utilitarian and slightly cluttered Model 88, although the Model 88 certainly isn't ugly or tacky like much of the junked up electronic equipment being sold today. It's extremely tasteful and plain next to that garbage.

I've been comparing the Acoustic Wave to the Cambridge Soundworks Model 88 because, from a features standpoint (compact "table top" stereo system with an integrated CD player), that's the comparable unit I am most familiar with. However, in reviewing the Bose website, their marketing materials actually compare the Acoustic Wave to a full-sized component stereo system, making the ridiculous assertion that, "The Acoustic Wave? music system will thrill you with sound equal to that of a large stereo system." Maybe if your "large stereo system" is a 40-year-old pile of junk that might be true, but my grandmother had an Admiral console television / stereo system back in the 1960's that blew the Acoustic Wave out of the water. My current stereo system – a pair of Energy eXL-15 speakers, a Klipsch 12" subwoofer, a harman / kardon AVR 210 multichannel amp and a Toshiba DVD changer – only cost around $1,200 (less than some stores want for the Acoustic Wave), and it makes the Acoustic Wave sound like a child's toy. Of course, my system is larger than the Bose and more complicated to configure and operate, but the Bose marketing spin is more than a little misleading. You may be able to find full-sized stereo components that sound worse than the Acoustic Wave, but my guess is they'll cost you hundreds of dollars less than the Acoustic Wave, too. For the price Bose is asking (at least $800 on sale, from what I've seen here on Epinions), you could easily assemble a far superior component system. You could even assemble one that would be simple to setup and operate.

The only real advantage the Acoustic Wave might have once had was one of convenience – the unit is relatively portable and comes in one piece. Unfortunately for Bose, plenty of Japanese and European consumers need stereo equipment that's compact too, and there's now a flood of cute all-in-one systems pouring into the American marketplace. Nakamichi offers a range of well-designed compact systems as part of their Soundspace line that deliver decent performance for such small units, with none of the sonic drawbacks of the Acoustic Wave. Sony makes a micro system with a built-in hard drive that allows you to copy your CDs to its internal storage, allowing you to store literally dozens of discs worth of material inside the system itself. I don't think it sounds quite as good as the Acoustic Wave, but it's even smaller (you could hang it on the wall), looks good, and is impossibly convenient (you could play your music for days without having to get up and put a new CD in). Denon makes compact units that sound much better than the Acoustic Wave while costing much less, as do JVC, Yamaha and other Japanese electronics and audio giants. Some of these tiny units even come with their own subwoofer, and handily outperform Bose's anemic, rattle-prone unit. Then there are the all-in-one DVD surround-sound systems being offered by many manufacturers. They typically come with 5 little satellite speakers, a subwoofer and a central DVD player / amp unit that will also play CDs and even MP3 files. These systems are tiny – the base unit is usually no bigger than a small VCR, the satellites are generally small cubes and the subwoofer will tuck easily into some hidden corner – and they're extremely simple to setup since the only thing you need to plug in are a power cord and the speakers (each speaker's wires are usually color-coded, making that step a no-brainer). Almost all of these systems in the $700 and up price range sound much, much better than the Acoustic Wave. And of course, they'll allow you to play movies and enjoy surround sound, two things the Acoustic Wave cannot do.

Given all the wonderful alternatives now available to consumers, I can't understand why anybody would shell out an outrageous amount of money for the limited, mediocre Acoustic Wave, a unit that's worth no more than $500 tops (and I'm being very generous here, mostly due to its good looks and Bose's meticulously crafted "reputation", however undeserved it might be in light of the uninspiring quality of this product). Let somebody else pay for all of Bose's television commercials, preferably that guy P. T. Barnum was talking about.