ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) (10/23/85)
Richard Pierce (teddy!rdp) posted a long flaming article directed against the Bose 901 loudspeakers. As with most flames, this one gives much heat and little light. It contains such a collection of unsubstantiated claims, arguments from authority, arguments from intimidation, and non sequitur, that I do not understand how anyone could use his article as a basis for forming any valid conclusions about the loudspeakers. I recently met Richard in person for the first time, and he seems to be a reasonable man, so I wonder if something else is going on that he doesn't want to tell us about. The unfortunate thing about flames like this is that everything Richard says may well be true! But if it is, the article provides precious little supporting evidence and a whole lot of irrelevancy. I will now document my claims. > In my long and only occasionally glorious past in the audio business, > the Bose loudspeakers have come to occupy a warm spot in my heart as > the all-time worst audio product ever conceived. Given my strong feelings > against it (it being one of the few products that I really get emotional > about), I must resist the temptation to lash out at Dr. Amar and his > Framingham gang of thieves. So, I think I must pass on this. I don't have a name for this argument technique. In essence, it consists of making an assertion and then immediately placing the subject of the assertion off limits. This makes rebuttal difficult. What he has said so far is essentially: "These speakers are terrible but it's not worth talking about it." Thus, if he were to stop here, he would be in a position to rebut any counterclaim by saying: "It's not really worth talking about." > NAAH! He has brought the subject back into bounds. Moving the subject out of bounds and then bringing it back has allowed him to create the impression that he is discussing it only reluctantly -- that he really feels that the 901 is beneath contempt, but that he is so angry about it that he is going to say something anyway, against his better judgment. Since this is all unstated, of course, it is IMPOSSIBLE to rebut: any attempt to do so can be met with some response like: "I never said anything like that." > Let's deal with some facts, here, boys and girls. The argument from authority. He refers to his audience as children because he believes that no one has the intellectual capacity to disagree with him. But let's ignore the insult. Where are the facts? > For the greater part of > its life, the Bose 901 was constructed out of some of the cheapest and worst > drivers available anywhere. This isn't a fact, it's an unsubstantiated assertion. Moreover, it is an IRRELEVANT unsubstantiated assertion. This article was posted in response to a request from someone who was considering the purchase of 901's. Now, not ten years ago. Modern 901's are very different beasts from old ones. What they might have been made of ten years ago is simply not relevant to this person's query. > The theory (marketing theory, not physical theory) > is that the variations between drivers would tend to cancel themselves out. Another unsubstantiated assertion. Three, actually: (1) 901's are built the way they are so that variations between drivers will cancel out; (2) this goal was established by Bose's marketing department; (3) the goal is not grounded in physics. All three of these statements may well be true, but I'm certainly not going to believe them just on Richard's say-so. In particular, if (1) and (2) were indeed true, I would expect Bose to make some kind of claims in their advertising that would be consistent with that. I have seen no such claims. Moreover, I can think of several reasons one might design a speaker the way Bose has that have nothing to do with these claims. > Well, that is so much bullshit, because one thing can be said about Bose's > supplier of drivers, and that is that even though they are truly wretched, > they are very consistantly truly wretched. All those anomolies such as > cone breakup and rim resonances all happen with a few percent of a given > frequency, and response plots and listening tests confirm that. Yet another unsubstantiated assertion. It may well be that Richard has personally made such tests. If so, however, he will have to give me much more information before I will uncritically accept his results. For instance, what reason do I have to believe his results relevant to modern 901's? What tests did he actually perform? With what measurement techniques and equipment? And so on. In particular, Bose claims they manufacture their own drivers. If this claim is false, I am surprised I don't see Richard hauling Bose up on fraud charges. If their claim is true, he is apparently discussing different drivers than Bose is presently using. What reason do I have to believe his tests are relevant? > There is so much wrong with those speakers that to discuss the objective > measurements would require a book. Argument from authority, again. It verges on intellectual dishonesty to say "I have a whole bunch of data that substantiates my viewpoint, but I won't tell you about it." If you don't wish to discuss the objective measurements, don't. But then don't mention them at all. > Try some experiments (I have). Take the > Bose 901 and another pair of loudspeakers. Have a friend make a decent > recording of himself saying the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc, with a pause > between each one. Then play the tape back, having him stand between the > loudspeakers, and have him say that even numbers while the tape is playing > back. Which pair of loudspeakers sounds more like your friend? Now, try this. > Get a piece of cardboard mailing tube about 3 inches in diameter and a couple > of feet long (a piece of PVC drain pipe works too). Have hime now say the > even numbers through the tube in response to the tape. Now which pair sounds > more like your friend? Try the same thing with a cardboard box, a small > kitchen garbage can, whatever. An interesting experiment, but I'm not convinced it's relevant. The reason is that I believe that it is a loudspeaker's job to make its output match its input as closely as possible, and that input may not necessarily match what you expect to hear. I am not convinced that even a "perfect" loudspeaker playing back exactly what the microphone heard would result in an accurate facsimile of my friend's voice, AS HEARD FROM A NORMAL LISTENING POSITION. > Please realize here I am being perfectly serious! The Bose presents such a > bizarre aural image as to, initially, defy identification. Many people, some > of whom are perfectly reasonable, intelligent, honest people, are taken in > by the absolutely unique (I mean, there is NO other sound like it anywhere! > even in the real world) that they are willing to plunk money down on the > spot without any critical and skeptical evaluation. In most cases, I have found > they live to regret their decision, but are totally unwilling to admit it. Another unsubstantiated assertion, coupled with an argument from intimidation ("if you don't agree with me, you are gullible"). > "What about the great reviews". When I was consulting to JBL, I happened across > one of the advertising reps for a major Hi-Fi monthly journal that Reviews > Stereo equipment, and another that is involved in the Audio business, as well. Clever. He is identifying the publications in such a way that he can deny having done so if challenged, but inviting us to read between the lines. > It was the stated editorial policy that "favorable reviews are a function > the commitment of the manufacturer to an advertising contract". Period. No > pretenses, no hidden costs, no under the table dealings. You commit to > 2 years of inside front cover advertising and we will say your speakers > are better than sliced white bread followed by multiple orgasms. This is > fact folks, and one of the things that irritated me most about the audio > business. I have seen a statement in one of the two publications indirectly cited above that flatly contradicts Richard's statement. This particular publication said, essentially: "We don't want to hurt our advertisers by publishing unfavorable reviews, but we don't want to lie, either. Therefore, when we find major problems with a product, we will sometimes decline to publish a review at all. If the problems are only minor, we will state them in the review." It is going to take more than one unsupported assertion to convince me that ANY commercial enterprise is guilty of fraud. > Flame me, Bosofiles, if you please, but the flame cannnot hide the facts. > If you want to deal with facts, fine. The Bose 901 does not, did not and > probably never will, give anything even remotely approaching an identifiable > analog of the things some of us use our stereos to listen to, MUSIC. I'm still waiting for some facts. If this statement were true, for instance, it would be impossible to listen to a pair of 901's and tell whether they were playing music or not, let alone what kind. As this is obviously untrue, I'll just toss this paragraph in with the rest of Richard's unsupported assertions. > An anecdote: In my early days in the business (at a long defunct store > called SoundScope in Boston), an 18 year old male type college student came > in to spout eloquently on the virtues of the Bose. He stated that the Bose > was the only speaker that satisfied his desires in musical experience. He > would not (could not?) listen to any of our arguments. He then proceeded > to demonstrate what he meant. He took the pair of Bose 901's from the > display area, placed them back to back about a 18 inches apart on either > side of his head, and proceeded to listen to them while clipping the > beejebers off a Phase Linear 700 power amp listening to Pink Floydd's > "Dark Side of the Moon". After a minute of this torture (we could not even > stay in the showroom, but had to observe from behind a hastily constructed > lead and concrete barrier!) we note that blood (yes!) was beginning to > slowly drip from his ears. The boy was nearly totally deaf from but a few > months of Bose-listening! We later were able to confirm a continuous > sound pressure level at the ears approaching 140 db!!!! (let's see > a pipe organ do that, Mr. Grantges :-)) It was rumored that the only > alarm clock that would get this guy going consisted of a Radio Shack > timer connected to a small tactical thermonuclear warhead. Non sequitur. This anecdote says two things about Bose speakers. The first is that they can handle a lot of power without melting. Probably true, but irrelevant. The second is a fairly blatant attempt at emotional manipulation that has nothing whatever to do with any other characteristics of the speakers under discussion. When reduced to essentials, this anecdote is trying to say: "Bose speakers are lousy because this young idiot liked them. If you like them, you are just as much an idiot." Of course, Richard can't say this quite so plainly, because then we would all see right through it. The proper response to someone who says "X is true because I say so," is "Well yes, I expect you do believe that, but your saying so doesn't make it so."
rdp@teddy.UUCP (10/25/85)
[] Well, I must say that Mr Koenig has succeeded in swamping me with unfounded assertions far exceeding the ones he is accusing me of. I fear that I could at least triple his output answering his charges but it's not worth it. The original article was, at best, anecdotal. The final conclusion he made about people are stupid to by something just because some kid who irresponsibly destroyed his hearing listening to the same product is interesting. Note that this kid could have just as easily destroyed his hearing with JBL's, AR's, or any of Mr. Koenigs favorite speakers. As to the assertion that Bose used grimly cheap components, well I would simply suggest taking aprt representitive samples over their history, looking at the parts, and seeing what prices they can be had for on the OEM market. If Mr. Koenig has done just that, fine, let him march his evidence out. As to the rest of the article and it's reply, well, I am chuckling more \at the reply. Some people are just TOO sensitive! :-) By the way, to those of you that have asked, the anecdote about the kid destroying his ear drums is, unfortunately, quite true. Dick (audiophiles take themselves too seriously) Pierce