Slim, stylish with an incredible sound (Bose Wave Radio/CD)

Member Name: merv

Product:	Bose Wave Radio/CD
Date:	09/10/02 (2281 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sounds great, Compact, Easy to use

Disadvantages: Not much to play with, Very small remote, Only takes one CD

This has been on my wish list for years and I’m going to have one for Christmas.

They’re not cheap, though they’ve come down in price a lot over the last few years. A friend of mine bought one about four years ago and it cost over £700, nowadays they’re retailing at about £359 with the option of paying over twelve months on interest free credit and a free 30 day trial.

Its always seemed a bit expensive considering we already have a decent enough ‘Aiwa’ stereo system with much more bells, knobs and karaoke buttons than this has, but in common with most households our house is shrinking. Not so much that the rooms are getting physically smaller, rather that the furniture and fittings certainly are getting bigger. Over the last couple of years we’ve replaced the three-piece suite (half as big again as our previous one), the TV (wide-screen) and fire/hearth (enormous mock Adams instead of restrained 60’s slate). This has made quite a difference to our lounge making it look a bit cluttered especially with our black plastic stereo, complete with imitation chrome and speakers/sub woofers big enough to use at Glastonbury, sticking out like a sore thumb.

So my wife with her newly acquired minimalist approach and chairmanship of our finance committee has sanctioned my request to buy one of these on the grounds that it will fit nicely in the corner by the TV.

But we’re not just buying it for that reason. The sound which emanates from it, is absolutely incredible and all due to its inventor Dr. Amar G. Bose a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Disappointed to find that speakers with impressive technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance he carried out intensive research in the 1950’s into speaker design and psychoacoustics – the human perception of sound.

His findings resulted in signi
ficantly new design concepts that help deliver the emotional impact of live music and this is the most affordable access to those concepts. I won’t try to explain how wave technology works, because I can’t understand it – suffice to say that the wave radio has no conventional speakers, the sound just bounces off the walls. But it works, the sound is very realistic, the base is superb, full and rich and the sound clear and crisp and very natural. Tonal balance is automatically adjusted so you hear natural sound at all volume levels as the volume levels change. It really is a magic box, all things to all men.

As well as being a quality CD player providing skip, scan, repeat and continuous music modes and programming for up to 32 tracks, it has an excellent radio with digital tuning and 6 AM and 6 FM presets. You can use it to listen to output from your TV, CD changer, cassette player or computer For the affluent it can be used as an expensive but effective clock radio with dual alarms - one person can wake up to a track on a CD, and another person can wake later to another track or even the radio.

Available in Platinum White or Graphite Grey (H 11.1cm x W 35.6cm x D 21.6 cm ) with a slim and easy to use infrared remote which controls volume and programming from up to 6 metres away, the wave radio/CD has a simple, sleek, stylish look. All of its controls are on the top, and its only features are the display on the front, a pair of analog input/output jacks, and a 75-ohm FM antenna jack on the rear. The display is large and easy to read and the control arrangement is so simple and logical that you might not think your getting much for your money but believe me the sound is phenomenal equal to much grander systems.

Disadvantages: If you’re a Hi Fi anorak there’s nothing to play with. It only takes one CD at a time and I would imagine that by the end of the first week I’ll have lost the credit card type rem
ote – probably down the side cushion of our huge settee.

Apart from that its pretty near perfect – for me anyway, I can hardly wait!

Summary: