I've been bewitched by Bose

[telemike]

I have my main system in the living room along with my 55" TV. I'm not going to use my main system for TV sound. So I bought a Bose Soundbar 900 on sale at Best Buy for TV and Movie duty.

I was NOT expecting the Bose soundbar to sound good with music. How it beams sound to make such a wide soundstage is bewitching. I was using Qobuz + Chromecast and Spotify connect to switch between the two after matching volume levels with test tones. To say I was impressed is an understatement. The Bose projects a good soundstage and a surprisingly full sound. My main system was definitely fuller and more resolving.

IF I was not an audiophile, I could use the Bose as a main music listening system. I asked my partner to listen to them and without telling her which was playing she picked the main system as better and fuller but sill impressed at the soundstage of the soundbar.

Now I kind of wish I had spent twice the cash to buy the Sennheiser Ambeo Plus, then I could plug my turntable in for fun.

Anyways, I know Bose gets trashed on, but I have to say I'm impressed with what DSP can do with a soundbar.


Turntable: Denon DP2500
Cartridge: Denon DL-103
Tuner: WIIM Pro Plus streamer
Digital Front End: Sony UBP-X1100ES Marantz DV6500 SACD
Amplification: Marantz PM-15S2 Limited Edition
Speaker System: Klipsch McClaren Forte IV
Speaker Cables: Blue Jeans Canare
Interconnects: WBC Gotham

 

[RobL]

My son has a Soundbar 900 and uses it for tv and music. Sounds quite good to my ears.
I recently bought a Q990C for our tv room to declutter from my previous 5.1 system. I wasn’t expecting it to be very competitive but it’s shockingly good!
In this video you can compare a five-figure Genelec multichannel system with a Q990C soundbar (use headphones). The soundbar doesn’t embarrass itself.

 

[middlemarch]

Hey, if it works for you, that's really all that matters.

 

[riker1384]

I read somewhere that some of the Bose soundbars use the transducers as a phased array to bounce beams off of the side walls of the room.

 

[JSmith]

Bose Smart Soundbar 900 Review

The Bose Smart Soundbar 900 is an upgraded version of the Bose Smart Soundbar 700. Unlike its predecessor, it supports Dolby Atmos content, which is commonly fou...

www.rtings.com

Distortion when up loud is quite high;

JSmith

 

[napilopez]

Bose has been making decent stuff for years now, I think. The old audiophile trope of bashing on Bose no longer really applies. Look at their headphones; recent models seem to follow the Harman curve as well as some Harman heaphones

 

[Chrispy]

So you have your main system in this room and got a soundbar rather than using the main system?

 

[Snarfie]

I dont't have a main system in the living room (just a 50inch Qled tv) which is highly reflective and sounds harsh.
Than i put a Bose Wave Music System in this living room an i bewitched too despite no stereo/staging image whatsoever.

https://imgur.com/a/ptMvkdV

 

[Chrispy]

I read somewhere that some of the Bose soundbars use the transducers as a phased array to bounce beams off of the side walls of the room.

Like their original loudspeakers? (901s)

 

[telemike]

So you have your main system in this room and got a soundbar rather than using the main system?

Yes, you would have to manually turn on and off the integrated amp every time. Also, I don't want my partner having to mess with the big system. Turn on TV and eArc fires up the soundbar

 

[riker1384]

Like their original loudspeakers? (901s)

No, those weren't phased arrays. A phased array uses multiple transducers with different delays on them so they they are in-phase on one particular axis. In this case the idea is that you make a beam far off to the side so that it will bounce off the side walls and create a stereo field wider than would otherwise be possible.

Phased array - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Are soundbars the future?

That paid off! Very nice, congratulations!

www.diyaudio.com

What most don’t understand is that the best sound bars on the market are more sophisticated than you think. At Bose (also at Yamaha and Sonos) we made 3 axis beam steered arrays that decoded to 3 channels and fed them to very directional left, center and right arrays (all sharing the same drivers). Very cool that one assortment of drivers could simultaneously radiate in 3 independent axies.
With such an array you could get wider stereo than normal 2 speakers as all the sound bounced off the side walls (typically plus minus 75 degrees). You also got better center than normal 2 speaker because the center is real, not virtual.
I did a lot of music listening on 3 axis soundbars and liked the effect. L & R were wide and totally off the soundbar, and center was solid. The listening area was also very wide.
We tried to convince marketing that there was an audiophile opportunity but couldn’t drum up the interest…

 

[anmpr1]

...i put a Bose Wave Music System in this living room an i bewitched too despite no stereo/staging image whatsoever.

The old man had one of those. He mostly used it to listen to Rush on AM. I think Rush probably sold more Wave Radios for the company than any of their products. And it wasn't cheap, either. I think it was about five hundred dollars. Maybe not that much, but for a radio?

Funny thing I remember about it... the AM section antennae was highly directional, so you had to rotate the entire device in order to get the signal. Thus, you might have to point the front at the walls, away from you, in order to get best reception. I guess that would give you that 'reflected' sound Bose was so famous for.

 

[Zapper]

I recently bought a Q990C for our tv room to declutter from my previous 5.1 system.

Me too. I have my TV mounted on a free-standing brick fireplace with a MantelMount - there is nowhere to put conventional speakers. I had a Yamaha YAS-209 there before, but it has no surround speakers. The Q990C has more of everything. The wireless satellites didn't cause any WAF issues! I think the Q990C is plenty good for background music, but won't replace my Genelecs for focused listening.

 

[Snarfie]

The old man had one of those. He mostly used it to listen to Rush on AM. I think Rush probably sold more Wave Radios for the company than any of their products. And it wasn't cheap, either. I think it was about five hundred dollars. Maybe not that much, but for a radio?

Funny thing I remember about it... the AM section antennae was highly directional, so you had to rotate the entire device in order to get the signal. Thus, you might have to point the front at the walls, away from you, in order to get best reception. I guess that would give you that 'reflected' sound Bose was so famous for.

Ha ha this old man (64) is using the Bose Wave Music System III. It has DAB radio that is using the powercord as a antenna for atleast the DAB receiving part works flawlessly. Also streaming capabilities using bluetooth which i don't use.

 

[Freedom666]

You can do with dsp quite a lot.

So you get tonal quality also with cheap drivers. Something that in former times was more complicated or impossible.

Steering direction of sound is a next step