Bose and Bozos

["Geoff Jenkins" <jenkinsg@pilot.msu.edu>]

[SNIP]
> In general, the Bose system seems not for more than the "average, casual
> listener."  Bass is worse in some circumstances than my 5k's stock 10
> speaker system; noise at low volumes and with the engine off is quite
> noticable, as are slight "poom!" noises when turning on and off the radio
> which get on my nerve.  Distortion at higher volumes is fairly noticable
> with anything close to strong bass line.  Not to mention the
> cassette drive
> makes very, very annoying motor noises occasionally.  The prev. owner
> unfortunately pulled a swap on my and put the old radio back on me, when
> there was a S4 unit in there(BTW, is the S4 unit a "better" one?)

As far as I can tell by comparing the tape unit from the '94 S4 and the '93
90 (which I _know_ to have been a Blaupunkt), they're almost identical. They
even make the same annoying noises, and start to behave badly (fluttering,
chewing up tapes occasionally) if a tape's been playing for more than 2
hours (books on tape, long journeys etc.). The tape deck's bad enough to
have justified getting a CDR drive and converting my favorite tapes to CDs
(interestinly, the S4 CD changer plays audio CDRs fine, while the older one
(Alpine?) would get "lost" at the end of each track).

As the S4 CD changer is a Sony (thanks to those listers who supplied the
info), and the radio/tape appears to be Blaupunkt, is there anything besides
the speakers that Bose had much to do with? Or do they claim a royalty as
"systems integrators"?

Oddly, the Bose systems (at home and in the car) do reproduce voice
recordings very nicely, but for music they're just so-so, and not worth the
price. (Why then, you ask, do I have one at home? My wife's aesthetics, not
my technical tastes (still, as her tastes are probably about to replace the
aging Sony boombox in the bedroom with a Bang & Olufsen, who am I to
complain?)). The key, though, does seem to be the volume and style of
recording you enjoy.

Geoff

...who thinks Spike Milligan and Terry Pratchett sound much better than Nine
Inch Nails for the drive to Detroit...