Goodbye To The BOSE Store ..

[steve149]

Bose is closing down all of its US and European stores

Popular audio brand Bose has announced it is closing a significant number of its stores. The Verge reports that the company made the decision due to the popularity of online shopping and reduced consumer interest in brick-and-mortar stores.

www.engadget.com

Bose announced it's closing all its retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia (119 total). They'll keep stores in China, UAE, India, Korea and a few other places.

 

[rickryan.com]

Yeow. That doesn't sound like terribly good news.

 

[steve149]

Not sure they did a whole lot of business through them. Around here most were in outlet mall areas.

 

[ittigger]

Same here - most in outlet areas and I also don't think they did alot of business through them.

 

[djrox]

Bose is likely 95+ percent online & online resellers. Many such decent products no longer require a brick and mortar presence.

The Bose stores were, IMnotsoHO, a vanity play...those never work out well in the long run. Cap was a more reliable resource than any sales rep I experienced in the few Bose stores I visited.

Additionally, retail in general is, unfortunately, in it's waning period.

I doubt, hopefully, that this will have any negative impact on the gear's quality, performance and will likely make the company and brand more successful and viable.

 

[Jeff Romard]

Well that is quite a shock...I didn't know there were still Bose stores

 

[steve149]

US/Canada Locations

.......

 

[steve149]

I did like to go into the stores when I found one .. usually very little of the L1/F1/S1 models, but sometimes had good pricing on headphone closeouts.

 

[Albatross]

I will never forget the demo they used to do with the big bulky speakers that were dummy boxes, and then they get rid of them to show it's their tiny cubes producing all the sound.

I would guess that demo sold LOTS of home speaker systems.

But I would bet this is the right call for their consumer electronics moving forward. Sony doesn't need a store to sell it's headphones either.

 

[B-Sharp]

The demos they used to do in the 90s helped them sell of a ton of home theater systems... the stores were always placed in high-traffic and touristy type of locations because people there were always in a good mood with money to spend.

Their problem is that every manufacturer has a good-sounding home theater system now, and people aren't really buying standalone music systems anymore. Sonos is what Bose used to be... cutting-edge, high-quality and marketed to those who value the name as much as the product. Aside from marketing noise-cancelling headphones to travelers, Bose has really lost their footing and probably a good portion of the marketshare.

 

[steve149]

I will never forget the demo they used to do with the big bulky speakers that were dummy boxes, and then they get rid of them to show it's their tiny cubes producing all the sound.

I would guess that demo sold LOTS of home speaker systems.

But I would bet this is the right call for their consumer electronics moving forward. Sony doesn't need a store to sell it's headphones either.

Sony had a dozen or 2 stores (edit - 31 at its peak) at one point. I believe they still have one in NYC and maybe LA.

 

[steve149]

Might be time to visit one if you're close .. maybe some deals.

 

[Jeff Romard]

US/Canada Locations

View attachment 50157 .......View attachment 50158

That would explain a lot the closest one to me was in New Hampshire.

The last one I was in was somewhere between Orlando and Miami. I thought it was a very odd location it was off a the turnpike in the dead middle of a bunch of discount outlet stores. It was about 3 doors down from this massive discount electronics store

Sony had a dozen or 2 stores (edit - 31 at its peak) at one point. I believe they still have one in NYC and maybe LA.

I think they had more than that there was one here in Sydney in the 80's to the late 90's we aren't exactly the mecca of retail. I do believe it was either the only one or 1 of 2 in the Atlantic Provinces

 

[Handinon]

I will never forget the demo they used to do with the big bulky speakers that were dummy boxes, and then they get rid of them to show it's their tiny cubes

In the early sixties, Acoustic Research had a demo room in Grand Central Station, NYC, where they would actually have the Fine Arts Quartet playing live against an identical Stereo LP they recorded. AR-3 loudspeakers, Dynaco MKIII amps, Dynaco Pas preamp, AR turntable*. They'd switch the system back and forth while the Quartet air bowed, and you'd try to guess which was which. Interestingly, no equipment sales were allowed at this location.

*About $750 total at the time, if you built the Dynaco kits yourself

 

[dunlopj]

Their problem is that every manufacturer has a good-sounding home theater system now. Sonos is what Bose used to be...

Brendan, I'm in the market for a new surround sound soundbar system for my 70" TV. Looking at the Sonos Playbar system, the Nackamichi Shockwave 9.2 and the Samsung HW-Q90R.

Any thoughts?

 

[B-Sharp]

Brendan, I'm in the market for a new surround sound soundbar system for my 70" TV. Looking at the Sonos Playbar system, the Nackamichi Shockwave 9.2 and the Samsung HW-Q90R.

Any thoughts?

I've been a Sonos fan for about 10 years and recommend it to everyone, for a few reasons: Simplicity, Product Longevity and Sound Quality.

Regarding simplicity: The system works perfectly, everytime. While I'm a tech geek and can figure out how to use just about anything with buttons and knobs, my wife and kids are total opposites. With Sonos, you turn on the TV with your regular remote and the system comes on with it. Listen to music from Spotify and you can cast it to the system without touching it. Ask Alexa to play a song and she'll send it to the Sonos system automatically. There's no special power-on sequence, no inputs to select, no settings that can be easily messed up. My whole family can use Sonos, and I never get a call during a gig to tell me that they can't get the sound to play. I have a Playbar with 2 Play 1 speakers in my living room (the equivalent to a 5.0 channel traditional system), and a Playbar with Sonos Sub and two Play 1's in my basement (the equivalent of a 5.1 traditional system), plus an assortment of other Sonos speakers throughout my house. I can play the same source on all of them, or different sources on each of them, from dozens of options... TV sound, Spotify, Pandora, Sirius-XM, iHeart, TuneIn, Radio.com, Slacker/LiveXLive, whatever's on my phone, and my networked hard drive containing all of my DJ tracks.

Regarding Longevity: with the exception of their standalone remote controls (which were discontinued years ago and replaced with app controllers for iOS/Android), the oldest Sonos products still work perfectly in conjunction with their newest products. I've built my whole Sonos system mostly by buying it used on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, never once having to ask myself "will this be compatible with what I have already"?. Every product within the Sonos ecosystem is linkable to another, regardless of when it was introduced to the market. If you ever need to replace this system, it'll be because your house burned down or a zombie apocalypse happened.

Sound Quality: Better than average (as it should be, considering its price). Technically, it's a trade-off, because Sonos downconverts 7.1 and 9.1 audio to 5.1 and doesn't support Dolby Atmos (yet). It might at some point, but it's not a priority for the company. Their focus is on perfectly-working wireless audio systems, and there's only so many audio channels you can send wirelessly while maintaining perfect synchronization with what's on the TV. Still, the sound quality is impressive...I've yet to watch any movie where I wasn't blown away by the audio quality, and I never think to myself "hey, another two surround channels would really make this system kick ass". I'm a DJ and musician... having great sound matters to me, no matter the situation. If I had seven ears on my head, maybe I'd reconsider the advancements of 7.1 and 9.1 or 9.2 systems, but I've only got two. Sonos' sound quality is excellent by my standards.

You won't regret a Sonos purchase. If for some reason you do, it holds its value better than a Lexus. You can sell it for not much less than you paid for it.

As for Nakamichi... they're not the same company they were in the 80s and 90s (to be fair, few of those companies still exist like they did during the Japanese hi-fi boom in the early 80s). A few years ago they were selling cheap bluetooth speakers at Kmart. I can't vouch for the quality of the Shockwave 9.2 system but I noticed that the surround speakers that it has are not wireless (they use RCA cables that connect to the subs) and the system comes with a remote control (with a button for seemingly every little adjustment you could make to the system). Also, from what I'm reading, the satellite speakers are either surrounds OR Atmos up-firing speakers, depending on how you place them... vertical or horizontal. They don't handle both without reconfiguring their placement.

This review of the Shockwave system is interesting... 5-stars, but everything the reviewer details makes me think he's just trying to justify the cost of the system to himself. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-...ef=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07HHZ94BW

Samsung HW-Q90R: Go to Best Buy's site and read the reviews. Many people aren't happy with it.

 

[dunlopj]

Brendan, I'm not a fan of "no remote must use our app" for the Sony unit and due to the way my den is laid out (the Nakamichi's side and rear speakers are WIRED to a subwoofer), that system won't work.

Thanks for your detailed response!

 

[Scott Hanna]

There was a Bose store in an outlet mall in Cleveland bit I think they closed that a while ago. Outlet mall wasn't doing good either.

I have Sonos and Bose products. Love them.

 

[B-Sharp]

Brendan, I'm not a fan of "no remote must use our app" for the Sony unit

Just for clarification: the Sonos Playbar recognizes whatever remote you already use to control your TV. For me, the Verizon Fios remote and my Sony TV remotes are both able to control the volume of the soundbar and surrounds. The Sonos app is great for fine-tuning the equalization, grouping multiple rooms together and searching for songs from the services that you've linked up to it, but it's not mandatory for that - as an example, the Spotify app shows all of the rooms that I've set up with Sonos as devices that I can connect to, just like a Bluetooth speaker would be listed if my phone was connected to one. I hardly ever use the Sonos app myself... it's easier to tell Alexa to play whatever I want to hear on Sonos, which she does.

 

[dunlopj]

Just for clarification: the Sonos Playbar recognizes whatever remote you already use to control your TV. For me, the Verizon Fios remote and my Sony TV remotes are both able to control the volume of the soundbar and surrounds. The Sonos app is great for fine-tuning the equalization, grouping multiple rooms together and searching for songs from the services that you've linked up to it, but it's not mandatory for that.

Whoa...I did not know that. That may alter my decision.