But why would anyone take the wave radio outside? It’s not a Boombox, it’s a table radio. Also, until you’ve personally heard speakers with multiple identical smaller drivers, you might want to reserve judgement until you do. Up until I heard my Polk speakers (which has 8 6.5†drivers), I never expected much bass but man, does it hit hard, in fact much harder and deeper than any 15â€, 16†or 18†woofers do (that I’ve heard) in a normal stereo system, and for which these speakers are intended for. You asked if they can get loud without distorting, but I’ll welcome you to visit someday when you are nearby for a listen. I honestly think that even as critical as you are, that you’ll be thoroughly impressed, and your only complaint might be in size. I believe you’ll find that your eardrums will blow out well before the 6.5†drivers distort. I can’t feed them more than about 40w of the 250w available on the adcom amp that’s pushing them before the volume exceeds my comfort level and the speakers are rated to handle some impossible 1000 watts or something like that.
As for action movie soundtrack, come on now, that’s like complaining that a pickup truck doesn’t fit in a garage, or a Prius won’t hold a sheet of plywood, or a dodge demon doesn’t get good fuel economy when going 180 mph. Action movies, or cinema in general should be powered via a home theater audio system which includes, yes, a subwoofer. But when listening to actual music, guess what, home theater systems typically sound like crap. The speaker systems aside from subwoofers are usually comprised of, yep, tons of small drivers spaced all over the room, usually with no tweeters. Music sounds anything but colorful and dynamic, but voices and scores sound great and grenade blasts have that desirable butt tickling shake. But that being said, I believe my Polks might be able to pull it off anyhow. Well, maybe not the earthquake butt shaking rumble of a tank, but gunshots & explosions will certainly push your eardrums to their limits.
Anyhow all I’m saying is try it before bashing it. Bose is a tremendously successful $2B/yr company and regardless of how you feel about them, there’s no doubt that if they only peddle junk, nobody would buy from them again after initially getting taken. Instead, they have a following. Are there better products? Yes, there always is, for almost everything. Anyway, I don’t know about the door to door sales practice, you have personal knowledge on that so I’ll take your word for it but that’s the subcontractor trying to make a sale, not Bose, and you said yourself that they sound good and in the end, isn’t that what’s important? As to value, that’s up to the end user to decide. All the emails I get from owners wanting to restore their radios however tells me that the owners like them, a lot.
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Ok, I'm editing my post. I just now took a look at eBay and what the wave radio looks like. It's not what I had in mind, it's the Bose Acoustic Wave music system that gets more interest (although the wave radio too, to a lesser degree). I'm not going to defend the pricing, as the $499 price tag of the clock-radio looking thing does seem rather high and which I personally wouldn't pay. But $299 doesn't seem out of line for a good sounding piece of gear. Perhaps the extra $200 was the commission for the sales "contractor" to make it convenient for you to get one sold to you at your front door. But don't blame Bose though, it's almost a certainty that door to door sales people will have one with them when they pitch the sale and if the owner listened to it, on their counter, and paid the $499 for it, that's on them. As for the AWMS, it seems the MSRP is a whopping $2499 which again, is something seemingly outrageous. But you can get used ones for $200 and for that price, the reviews are mostly all good except for a few that expected more bass. Anyway, my initial post was in reference to the Bose 901's which priced at $1399 MSRP (you can get them cheaper) which in my opinion and that of many others, is reasonable and a good value.
