BOSE 3.2.1 System now $1300! Unbelievable.

aaharvel · August 2005

I came across this at Circuit City yesterday. This is the Series II- although I don't know exactly what's different about it.

And I thought $1000 was absurd for this. WTF!

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Bose-Home-Theater-System-3-2-1-GS-Series-II-/sem/rpsm/context/99000844/oid/98038/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

:rolleyes:

(edit) I still dig their 301's however.

ND13 · August 2005

Marketing at it's best/worst.

ohskigod · August 2005

why 1300?, the answer is simple, there are dumb@sses who will pay for it. Its all about economics. Gotta give Bose the fact that they market and price well in order to exploit the completely ignorant.

neomagus00 · August 2005

ah, the genius of capitalism...

aaharvel · August 2005

seriously though. $1300.

for that amount of money i bought my 7.1 speaker setup PLUS my H/K receiver!
geez..

Mike682 · August 2005

So true about Bose & marketing...there's an article in this month's S&V (jul/aug) about the lack of places to demo stuff. In the article, the author says regardless of how one feels about Bose, their marketing is excellent...and their in-store set-ups allow the customer to demo the product..

ND13 · August 2005

You give me $1300 and I can get you one hell of a budget HT that'll blow that little BOSE pos out of the room.

Hell for $1299 you can get the HK CP35 HTIB, and I've got to demo it at HH Gregg's dedicated HT demo room and it really did a great job playing back Clapton's latest DVD release.
Much much better than the 3-2-1 Bose I heard at Sam's.

TrappedUnder Ice · August 2005

If you notice...in the 1st page of reviews....the folks who gave decent remarks spoke of "ease of set up", "hardly any wires" , " small and compact"
I laughed at the DEEP bass comment.

There is HT for folks like us...and there is HT for folks like them-even at a cost of 1300

Mjr7531 · August 2005

Almost as good as the Lifestyle 48 system, even better is that it's sold out at CC

$3999?!?!

RuSsMaN · August 2005

Imo, this is what Polk should be building, instead of the worlds greatest table radio. Sony just released their model, to compete.

Toxis · August 2005

That's the 321GS, not the base model 321. The GS (GemStone) version gives you "more power" and smaller speakers "yet it's their better sounding speakers." So you get more power and better sound, for $300 more (over the reg 321).

fireshoes · August 2005

Don't worry, the new model with the hard drive is coming out soon. $1699

dorokusai · August 2005

BOSE just makes me giggle.

Have you also noticed they don't have a user forum? I understand not every manufacturer has an active user knowledge base, but they are in the Top 10 when it comes to Audio manufacturers and sales volume. Interesting eh?

Most Car Audio folks have no love for Bose, and this isn't just local to our forum. I digress, as I have the Bose Symphony(Phony) system in the Audi, but I also don't sit naked and smoke cigars in that vehicle very often. It's simply functional, and came with the vehicle. My CA days are long gone.

I also think back to when my buddy heard my simple, nothing fancy RTi based HT system....and two weeks later asked me to sell his Bose 7.1 on Ebay. I naturally complied and while he didn't buy Polk Audio, he upgraded to the Paradigm Cinema series and has never been happier.

There is not a single product that BOSE can create in the corporate bathroom, that cannot be trumped sonically from someone else, period. They may have the "lock" on aesthetics, but that door is closing fast.

mldennison · August 2005

dorokusai wrote:

Have you also noticed they don't have a user forum? I understand not every manufacturer has an active user knowledge base, but they are in the Top 10 when it comes to Audio manufacturers and sales volume. Interesting eh?

you should try getting anyone at bose to commit to a frequency response on any of their systems. i remeber when i was in college we had a bose engineer come and give a talk during one of our circuit classes, it was hilarious listening to him try and defend why you get absolutely no specifications about any of their products.

i do have to say though that they are a smart company. they have a fantastic marketing department and realized a while ago that not everyone really knows what good speakers sound like. they make speakers that dont take up the living room but do put out alot of sound. granted, the sound they put out is not great but there are a whole lot of people who really dont care or realize what they are listening to. so if people are willing to pay $1300 for these things then all i can say is sorry to them and congratulations those at bose...

mantis · August 2005

If you guys only knew why......

fireshoes · August 2005

Uh, was I making fun of Bose? What I meant to say is "Bose is the best!"

Today at work, I won a Bose 321 - coming soon to a flea market/ebay near you!

Danny Tse · August 2005

I am no rocket scientist, but I don't see what's so hard about connecting some speakers. It seems like everything, not just HT components, are so "dumbed down" nowadays.

$1,300.00? I am thinking Bose is making a 90% profit. :mad:

Toxis · August 2005

bose is consistantly running at 60% profit margins.

It's not that the actual hooking up of speaker wire that's hard, it's finding a way to run it so it's not visible and not having "big clunky speakers" hanging all over the place.

mantis · August 2005

Bose just released a fully custom home system for Tweeter only. We are getting a killer high end bose system that can run up to 14 zones around the house. New bose wire, new bose plates , new bose head unit with U music.All zones have Rf remote control. With feedback. You even know right from the remote what your playing on the Umusic. How kick **** is that? For the money spend on there house system is totally worth it.

I wonder if any of you know what Bose has been up 2 lately? Umusic is extremely cool , RF remotes are extremely cool , there multiroom house system that can run 14 zones is extremely cool.

Bag on Bose all you want but the fact remains that more people respect Bose for what they do and provide for people then not. No other company including Polk has not earned the level of respect that Bose has. Sure there not audiophile quality , but not many people are looking for audiophile sound quality anymore. They want simple , small and easy to use. WAF factor rules this planet and thats just the way it is.

If I wasn't into audiophile sound quality, I would Buy the New Lifestyle 48 system and use the multiroom house features. I think Bose sounds good enough for most people. You would need to be in the house after I set one up and run a demo for my customers. they love it to death. They love the RF remote, they can but there Bose lifestyle system behind closed doors and work it perfectly, control there cablebox or dss receiver , control there tv without having to buy anything else.

Bose is made for todays market and they sell better then anything else. Ipods and hard drive music servers are here to stay. Just about no one wants a single cd player anymore. let alone a huge clunky 400 disc.

Bose does cost alot but there quality is excellent. I have had less problems with Bose then any other company we sell.

Bose also released a inwall version of there cube speakers. These are going to blow the roof off. I can see many many people going this way.

I support peoducts that make people happy. I like what I lke but I listen to my customers needs. I wish like hell everyone was into Tower speakes and killer pre amp and amps, but thats not what most people want.

We do however have a small amount of people who want that. Thats the reason we are now carring Krell , JM labs as new products. I'm very excited about it. I can see Krell in my very close future.

Dan

aaharvel · August 2005

A 14 zone U-Music Bose Super System? Great! I Can't wait to hear it. I'm sure it sounds awesome. But If Bose wants to alter it's reputation to KNOWLEDGABLE buyers then they should inform us of this "awesome" new technology instead of shoving 10year old plastic cubes and Napolean-complex plastic radios with 2.5" PAPER speakers down our throats in QVC and Circuit City demos.

and all at BEYOND reasonable prices.
jmo.

Toxis · August 2005

mantis wrote:

Bose just released a fully custom home system for Tweeter only. We are getting a killer high end bose system that can run up to 14 zones around the house. New bose wire, new bose plates , new bose head unit with U music.All zones have Rf remote control. With feedback. You even know right from the remote what your playing on the Umusic. How kick **** is that? For the money spend on there house system is totally worth it.

Really? Only tweeter can get the Lifestyle 28II (no umusic), 38 and 48? Guess I should let my boss know that.

I agree that the Umusic really is a kick **** feature and awesome to use. I'm not a fan of RF remotes personally, especially Bose's. We have so damn many problems with them in people's homes not working, dead spots and all.

mantis · August 2005

No the Custom system is only for Tweeter all the Lifestyles are offered to other vendors.
I have been installing Bose for 6 years now and never had Rf problems. I have installed in Plaster Latch 100 year old homes and was able to control the system 3 floors up. I agree with many Rf products having dead spots, Pronto is the worse at Rf. There stuff you have to cross your fingers with it in the damn same room 11 feet away.
Universal Remote control Mx series remotes Rf was a bit ruff but lately they seem flawless.

Dan

Joey_V · August 2005

I was at Tweeter today picking up my Martin Logan Mosaics. I saw the 321 system and it was getting some customer traffic. Meanwhile, I'm in the listening room demoing the ML Mosaics with my demo cd and wonder to myself how they havent sold the last pair of ML Mosaics in the last 2 weeks.

It's all marketing folks. Bose has the upper hand in the non-audiophile market.

PolkThug · August 2005

The best thing about selling Bose is hiding about 30 feet away from the display, then using the RF remote to trigger a full blast of crappy sound when a customer walks up to the display.

fireshoes · August 2005

Or if it is closing time and a bunch of kids are watching a movie instead of leaving, you can turn it off.

thehaens@cox.net · August 2005

Chiming in.........I love seeing all the Bose brand bashing here, it is quite entertaining, but I, (and I bet there are others on here in the closet), do have (4) Bose speaker systems throughout the house. The AM5 is in the garage....The 10.2's are sitting in my brothers house, (so I guess I only have 3 in the house, he has been "borrowing" them from me for 8 years), a set of 301's in the bedroom and 2 sets of the 151's outside that have been rained on and sprinkled on by my irigation system for 10 years running now. Thing is, they are all still working fine. They certainly don't sound as good as my Polk setup in my HT or 2 Channel, but their longevity is something to be admired. And I may be pushing it a little here as I don't have the numbers, but I bet they outsell every other brand on the market today.....Could this be that they just have better marketing than anyone? and all this without publishing any specs.....or is it that people really, really like the sound?
Scott

AsSiMiLaTeD · August 2005

thehaens@cox.ne wrote:

Could this be that they just have better marketing than anyone? and all this without publishing any specs.....or is it that people really, really like the sound?
Scott

Trust me, it's the first one...

If we're going to use number of sales as any measure of quality or anything other than simply number of sales, then that is where we will part ways.

Just because someone sells alot of something doesn't mean it's good...

thehaens@cox.net · August 2005

PM you are right in all counts, but for the masses it must be a good fit. I know for a fact that the wife factor would prefer the little cubes in the Living Area instead of the two racks of components and relatively large SDA speakers I have. I def. didn't say in any way that sales=quality, just saying that in my experience all of the speaker that I own have held up well over the years, hell my dad still owns some 901's that he got from a base exchange in Japan in the early 70's, and they are still working well, without even replacing the foam around the drivers. For the record he also has moved on to Polk speakers after visiting me for his HT, but still has the 901's hooked up to spin his old elvis records on...

AsSiMiLaTeD · August 2005

That is one thing I've heard about their products. They may be poorly designed and sound like crap, but they are rumuroed to be of good build quality

Ron-P · August 2005

My wife surprised me with a Bose job the other day.

aaharvel · August 2005

Polkmaniac wrote:

They may be poorly designed and sound like crap, but they are rumuroed to be of good build quality

Oxymoron

BOSE 3.2.1 System now $1300! Unbelievable.

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