With the rise in popularity of Dr. Dre’s Beats, audio company Bose saw a niche they weren’t capitalizing on – the cohort of kids who aren’t afraid of paying $229 for a pair of wildly overpriced headphones. Their reaction? To create and sell a pair of lightweight, over-ear headphones for the cool crowd for $149. Called the OE2s, these headphones feature comfortable memory foam earcups and support hands-free calling with an optional mic/phone control system.
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Looks like Bose is taking another swing at phone accessories because the company has just revealed their new Series 2 Bluetooth headset.
So what exactly does Bose bring to the party this time? Aside from the basics, like A2DP streaming and multiple ear tips in the box, the Series 2 has a few new tricks up its sleeves. → Read More
Bose just announced two soundbar systems for home theaters, the Lifestyle 135 System and CineMate 1 SR System. The devices use a single bar to emit what many would call surround-sound audio and can be mounted almost anywhere in the room in almost any position.
The Lifestyle includes a small console with four HDMI inputs, a tuner, and an iPod/iPhone dock. The CineMate simply connects to any TV and both include remotes.
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Robbie Bach, 22 year veteran of Microsoft and most recently the company’s Xbox division, has moved to Sonos. Sonos head John MacFarlane pulled Bach out of semi-retirement in order to help with their retail presence.
Sonos makes audio sharing devices for the home, creating seamless soundscapes in multiple rooms using hardware that, for the most part, surpasses a standard set of bookshelf speakers. Bach was a big fan of the devices early on and plans to help the company expand their overall presence on the market.
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Here’s an unexpected development. Dr. Amar Bose (founder of… you know, Bose) has made quite a gift to his alma mater, MIT — in fact, he’s essentially given away the company. The gift comprises a majority of the shares of the company, albeit in non-voting form, so MIT won’t be running the company. Instead, they’ll be raking in the dividends, likely to fund a few chairs, scholarships, and other recurring costs. Whatever you think about Bose’s sound, I think you have to agree this is a pretty cool move. → Read More
Have you been asking “How can I attach my iPad to a comical-looking speaker dock so I can, presumably, leave said iPad and dock on a very large table?” If you haven’t, why not? Bang & Olufsen, the rich man’s Bose, just released this massive dock for the iPad, allowing you to connect and play music and media from the iPad. → Read More
Bose showed off their latest innovation yesterday: The VideoWave, an average 46-inch LCD with an enlarged Wave Radio speaker setup bolted on the backside. It’s expensive. Of course it’s expensive. I mean, it’s a Bose system. Did you expect anything less? However, it’s a tad too expensive at $5,349 and I believe Bose knows this.
Now, I understand Bose and their target demographic. I sold AV equipment retail for years at Circuit City and know that Bose products sell themselves. They require nothing more than a quick demo and a store credit card with a high enough limit. My friend’s father recently “treated” himself to Bose speakers after retirement, beaming with pride as he unboxed his set.
It’s even easier to sell against Bose, though. All it requires is a reasonable argument from the salesman and suddenly a customer is spending hundreds, if not thousands less, on an Onkyo HTIB with professional installation. It’s this logic Bose is afraid of and perhaps explains the high-price. Bose knows they’re not going to sell a lot of these TVs. → Read More
Ahem. Well, Bose also had some news of its own today. It announced the existence of something called the VideoWave. It’s a 46-inch LCD TV, which, by itself, isn’t so exciting. What is exciting is the fact that the sound the TV produces is actually… how should I put this? Really, really great. Yes, that’ll do. → Read More
No, that picture is not Kratos’ new weapon in God of War 3, though you could be forgiven for thinking so.
Note to PR people: when your product goes in someone’s ears, try not to make it look like a weapon. The reflections aren’t helping. → Read More
Wireless has always been the new exciting thing in consumer electronics. Remote controls, game console controllers, Sony’s <a href="http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/10/05/sony-develops-cord-free-power-transfer-system-for-home-electronics/"wireless power transfer, and now Bose is taking another foray into the action. Their second wireless-capable device, The Wave Music System – SoundLink allows you to stream audio to the unit from your computer. → Read More
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of tech reporting it’s that you should never say Bose makes good products. Bose, like Apple, is a lightning rod for informed and uninformed attacks from both the pro and con camps and to say they do things well – or poorly – is a dangerous proposition. That said, I’m here to tell you that if you travel a lot then you should get the QuietComfort 15 headphones. I tested these headphones during three long overseas flights. I’ve been a fan of the QuietComforts for a few years now and always wore the QC3s, the smaller version of the original QuietComfort headphones. However, the noise reduction built into the new model is quite staggering. In an airplane cabin turning these headphones on and off shows you how effectual they are. Instead of the steady, buzzing hum of the airplane you hear silence. → Read More
Bose had some sort of official unveiling in New York earlier today, but I didn’t want to leave Matt and Doug manning the site all by themselves, so I didn’t attend. This is what I missed: the Bose SoundDock 10, a $599 (?!) iPhone/iPod dock that weighs some 19 pounds. It’s rather big, yes. → Read More
I just got back from one of Bose’s signature demos where they trick you into seeing their products in a whole new light. It’s clever and it sometimes works. The trick went down like this: they showed us the QuietComfort 2 headphones, the older model, and ran about 92 decibels of airplane noise in a little room they set up for the purpose. I’ve been using the QuietComfort 3s for a year or so now and love them for airplanes so I noticed just about the same noise reduction with the 2s as the 3s, meaning a considerable reduction in the hissing and clanks associated with air travel. Then they had us try on the QC15s, the $299 replacement for the QC2s. The noise reduction was quite drastic. Wham. Most of the noise was gone. Fair enough. → Read More
Bose just launched a computer-based speaker system that plugs into the back of your PC and streams music wirelessly to a single SoundLink speaker. As a fan of their SoundDock I’d say it’s pretty cool but $549 for this thing is a bit much in anyone’s book. The SoundLink simply shows up as a USB speaker and you route all the audio through it to the remote part. The device includes a rechargeable battery so you can carry it out to the back porch for a barbecue or to the basement to tend to your “rabbits.” → Read More
Do you happen to enjoy a bit of busking on the weekend. Are you a one man band? Are you tad lazy and in need of a simple audio reproduction solution? If this sounds like you, and you have a spare thousand bones, Bose is here to help. The L1 Compact Portable Line Array System – hellof a name, eh? – uses Bose technology to fill the room with your audio goodness with only one speaker. How you ask? Who knows, it’s Bose magic. → Read More
As we enter this new, slightly different age of “efficiency as performance” (sounds weird, doesn’t it?), I predict we’ll be seeing a lot more of this “greening” in addition to the rather symbolic changes we’ve been seeing lately. Case in point: a stereo system designed to be lightweight and energy-efficient. Not something I would have thought of, but every pound and watt counts, especially when you’re loading it into a Chevy Volt.
Bose claims its improvements in weight and energy use allow the Volt to add 40 miles to its electric-only range. Damn! What did they have in there before, a Marshall stack? → Read More
What’s insanely small and costs way too much? A diamond. What else? Bose’s new Computer MusicMonitor desktop speakers — but they sure are shiny with their silvery aluminum finish. Bose cleverly combined two ingenious ideas and added a little DSP magic to make what are quite possibly the finest speakers of their size. Of course, all that science costs money: These tiny speakers will run you $399 a pair, and a travel case costs an extra $59! Full review after the jump. → Read More
