nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (12/15/84)
I was at Bose today and saw a demo of the most amazing thing. They showed us an audio/visual type presentation of a new Bose product. The first thing I noticed was that the Bose 901s that they were using for the presentation sounded amazingly good -- a lot better than the ones I have. Any way it turned out the product being announced was a portable stereo, a getto blaster like thing that ways 19 pounds, has a receiver, tape deck, and speakers built in, and at $649.99 costs a bit more than your typical getto blaster. The revolutionary thing about this getto blaster, the audio/visual said, is that it uses an acoustic wave guide speaker system that allows it to get amazingly good bass out of a 5" woofer and low power consumption. At this point I'm filled with doubt and can't imagine that anyone would pay $650 for a getto blaster. At the end of the presentation, two people came out and took apart the 901s to reveal that the 901s were not 901s at all, but really just hollow cases for their getto blaster things which were inside. Now I understood. You could not possibly imagine how good these getto blasters sounded. They sounded as good as any high fidelity system I have ever heard. The bass was strong enough to shake the floor, etc. with no distortion. It also has some sort of nifty active equilizer in it that automatically adjusts the frequency response so that it sounds the same (except for volume) at any volume. The bass is only mono, not stereo, but I didn't notice. The rest is stereo. The acoustic wave guide thing works supposedly on the same principle that makes a pipe organ work. The woofer is in a tube that is 80" inches long. The woofer is 20" from one end of the tube and 60" from the other and radiates in both directions. The tube is folded in such a way that it all fits inside the getto blaster, and you'd never know it is there unless someone told you, or you took the thing apart and wondered what the maze of plastic is for and why it no longer sounds good. Apparently Bose is not going to sell these things through stores, you have to buy them from Bose direct. To repeat, these getto blasters are the most amazing things I've seen in long time. It's too bad that there is no way the fidelity of the tape deck or the radio is going to equal that of the rest of the system (but there is an auxiliary input -- no turntable preamp though). They said that within a year these things will probably come with Sony's mini CD player built in. Has anyone else heard one of these things? If you haven't, you should. You will be AMAZED! -- -Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC "What does 'I' mean"?
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (12/15/84)
A friend of mine at Stereo Review was recently at the Bose press conference
announcing their new "Acoustic Wave System" and also spoke very highly of
its sound (and he regularly disparages my Bose 901's whenever he visits.)
For the record, this is an integrated stereo speaker/tuner/cassette/amplifier,
with an AUX input for things like a CD player or a VHS HiFi deck. It is NOT a
ghetto blaster, for it does not have a carrying handle and it requires a 120V
outlet. Wags have called it a "yuppie blaster" for townhouses and condos with
limited space.
The Boston Phoenix in its mammoth holiday issue of 12/11 has a very good
review of it by Brad Meyer, one of the officers of the Boston Audio
Society. Overall, he was very partial to it, but there were some annoying
problems: first, its plastic enclosure has almost no shielding, magnetic or
electronic. A CD player placed on top of the unit generates some hum (from
the CD power supply) and hash (from the CD's RF emissions) in the tuner's
output. The tuner is less sensitive than most components available today,
and does not have a variable HF-blend circuit as signal strength decreases.
Placed on top of a TV, the voice coils produced significant picture distortion.
And finally, the integral loudness circuit is calibrated for the tuner and
cassette deck; present models have no level-matching circuitry for the AUX
input, and thus these signals may sound rather bass-heavy.
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPAnessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (12/16/84)
> From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) > For the record, this is an integrated stereo > speaker/tuner/cassette/amplifier, with an AUX input for things > like a CD player or a VHS HiFi deck. It is NOT a ghetto > blaster, for it does not have a carrying handle and it requires > a 120V outlet. Wags have called it a "yuppie blaster" for > townhouses and condos with limited space. A rose by any other name.... They make a carrying sack for it that contains a built-in power source. The whole thing with the carrying sack, power source, and integrated stereo weighs 18 pounds and could be very easily used as a ghetto blaster. Are we going to start hearing high fidelity funk in our subways? -- -Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC "What does 'I' mean"?
ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (12/17/84)
> The acoustic wave guide thing works supposedly on the same > principle that makes a pipe organ work. The woofer is in a tube that is > 80" inches long. The woofer is 20" from one end of the tube and 60" > from the other and radiates in both directions. The tube is folded in > such a way that it all fits inside the getto blaster, and you'd never > know it is there unless someone told you, or you took the thing apart > and wondered what the maze of plastic is for and why it no longer sounds > good. > Sounds like a kludge that may work. Electrovoice Sentry IV's use folded horns and are the most efficent things I've ever seen. They are also the only speaker that EV makes that is worth anything. There other idea, gluing a wait to the front of a woofer to simulate the column of air that the speaker would have been pushing if they were larger. You needed this crazy equalizer to make them sound even marinally OK. -Ron