One Pissed off Dan-o

This Is Spinal Tap
Marty: "I've noticed that your amps have and 11 on them, why is that?"
Nigel: "Our amps go up to 11."
Marty:"what does that mean?"
Nigel:"Everyone elses amps go to 10, ours go up to 11, see."

What's my deal folks? Well, today I had good reason to be ticked off. At the Mr. K job today, one of the younger electricians was there for the electrical company doing the job. He's got to be no older than 22. That's weird to say that's young to me. I digress. He comes up to me and asks if I'm the A/V guy on the job. I say yes. So he follows up by asking me what I thought about Bose. I said "In my honest professional opinion?....It's crap. They are not a Dolby licensed product which in Theater or any A/V standards is a huge benchmark. The CEO knows that his product can't become Dolby licensed due to the fact that they are a simple single cone loudspeaker design, similar to ones at a drive through where they talk to you at over the mic. This design gives the speakers a flat sound, but since the speaker is non-directional, it is a room filling flat sound, which can trick the person's ear into thinking it is a good sound. Which is why Symphony music is usually played to demo them. Whether you have flutes trombones sax's or trumpets, a flat symphony sound is going to sound alot better than a flat rock track or R/B. Also I find fault with a company that advertises their product as much as they do. They always say 'hear the difference' yet when I worked at Best Buy back in the day, the Bose rep was in when I took one of their speakers off of their display to set it next to a better and cheaper (mind you) JBL bookshelf. There was no way, other than me moving it, that the customer could hear the difference in the sound. " (The customer ended up buying the JBL by the way) prior to a nice friendly encounter in front of the rep and Mr. Belcastro(<------Steph, you remember him!!!!) Rich laughed after the rep left and said that customer service-wise, I was in the right, but Bose paid for that space away from the rest of the speakers in the room for a reason. Which stands to reason why they also have their own stores. ANYWAY, the electrician proceeds, only after I gave him even more incriminating evidence and suggestions of other fantastic sounding brands for cheaper $$$'s, to tell me that "Well, I bought the Bose AM10 system and I think it's fantastic...blah blah blah." I stopped him immediately and said "Man, don't do that...that is wrong on so many levels. If you have them that's fine, don't try to snowball me after the fact. This is my job, I know what I'm talking about, you're an electrician apprentice. They are a below average speaker for an astronomical price and the only reason they've survived over the years is because of their relentless stream of advertising. If you spent $1500 for the speakers and an amp, you obviously said 'hmmmm, I have $1500, what can I get for that.' Insead of saying 'what's out there for a reasonable price' and then shop around to see what is out there and MAYBE save some $$$." Did he honestly just do that? Advertising done properly, can get certain people to drink the peverbial ' kool-aid.' If you drill it into their heads long enough, they'll buy into it. His coworkers laughed at him for being an idiot by the way. Don't get me totally wrong, Bose isn't a terrible speaker, it's a simple product, with a simple design. They are just way overrated and WAY over priced. Shop around, PLEASE!!! If anyone out there is shopping around, here are a few web sites for brands that I'd recommend. Bye and bye, I have a Paradigm system in my mansion:
Paradigm

Energy

JBL (check out the Synthesis line.....I highly recommend it, if you have the means, it is so choice.) @$150,000 for the Atlas line.

Mission (Good luck though finding a local dealer for this one though...great sound!!!)

I know you're always in the market to spend a little $$$ Mol's. Let me know and I'll set you up.