Bose or Bloze: Your Choice?

While at work I have the "luxury" of working with various types of professional equipment. Part of my job is managing and working (fixing) equipment in a theatre that seats about several hundred people. Theatres are strange beasts in that each one; no matter how fine and wonderful it appears on the outside always has its quirks. To the outside observer a theatre is a theatre, you sit in your seat the lights go dim and the show starts. Hopefully if everything is in order the show goes well, and all the work/money/sweat that went into it is completely unimportant. The truth is though, that behind the scenes there are so many pieces of tape, glue and sticky putty holding everything together. The theatre I work at is actually probably one of the nicest I've been in as far as equipment goes. It has a full fly system with arbor's and all, so bringing things in and out is a cinch. We have a nice wide cyclorama that costs a pretty penny, and is frequently leaned on by inattentive performers. We just steam wrinkles and dirt out, but don't let a hole get put in it because then it's your ass, and a hefty $5000+ bill to go along with it. There's no stitching in the world that'll fix it, it's pretty much throw it away and buy a new one. Altogether the place is quite nice, very few patrons use it to its full capacity but that's okay, I don't mind sitting on my ass in the office, writing blog entries when things get boring, calm, and I have no more people to yell at.

The real reason I write this blog though, is that our theatre has a Bose MA12 audio system in it, that is on paper seems like it should be the audio equivalent of well... god. The system sounds good, it sounds damn good in fact, however I still feel like I've heard better. Acoustically the system sounds great when the hall is completely empty, even in the upper seats. Put a jazz band behind it, and it's golden. The delay and audio angle are superb. Throw a loud ass hip-hop/dance track in there, and the systems just seems to fall flat. I can't determine if it's a lack of power, or perhaps the system itself being EQ'd incorrectly. We frequently have DJ's that come in that refuse to use the system. They in turn lug in there $300 JBL, my-first-PA speaker set in. Which they always claim sounds 10 times better. Yeah okay so maybe they're louder, but they sure as hell don't sound better. One DJ in fact brings in a huge stack of EV speakers with multiple sub's and all. His system sounds great on that material, but when I asked him why he didn't just use the house system he simply replied

"Because the system has no balls...".

Comment accepted. I agreed with the man, but to be honest, I think a lot of times today audio quality is sacrificed at the sake of loudness or impact. When the room is filled with these Bose speakers, the system still sounds good it just appears it's not that loud. But I'm sure if the DJ worked with it he could get more than acceptable sound out of them without breaking his back by lugging in all those useless speakers. I know when (and if i'm ever a DJ - I can dream) i'll try my best to work with what's in the house.

I suppose my final point is that Bose once shared a special place in my heart. I still have an appreciation for the things that they make. I mean hey, that snazzy wave radio they make sounds pretty damn good. It's no replacement for a pair of Klipsch Pro-Media speakers or anything like that, but for its footprint it sounds good.

It's just that well, Bose I have to tell you something:

"Get Over Yourself".

You guys make great stuff, but it's not really anything that seems entirely revolutionary anymore. Why not list your specs? Compare your product to other's in the market? Stop making me have to find out what your system is like on it's own. I love working with your equipment, but stop making it so hard for real professional people to appreciate it. I'm so torn over your stuff, It sounds pretty and beautiful but I never feel like I can push it. Yeah, your imaging sounds great, but why is it really better than a pair of JBL's, or EV's. Please tell me in numbers and specs not silly scientific terms that really have no bearing on my purchase decision. The speakers you have sound good and I can make them work for me, but stop making it so flippin' hard. Geez.

Ah you know what, on hindsight, this rant is so inconclusive, I don't know how I feel anymore. All I know is that I feel like you're making it hard for me to care Bose, you're like the girlfriend on the way out. You lied to me. You looked like you had D cups, but when the bra came off, they were just B's with that Victoria's Secret "Very Sexy" push up bra. You disguised yourself as this beautiful woman but when it came down the nitty gritty, you let me down. Take the make-up off, stop playing around, you know who you are; and you know what, that's just messed up man... really really messed up.