> "Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile community but, to me, it seems like they don't blow at all[0]

That comment is not wrong, you are imo just not making an important distinction that the criteria on which audiophiles judge Bose as “blowing” (which is almost purely the sound profile + a few other smaller things like physical comfort/connectivity/price/etc.) vs. what you judge it on (which is more in the long-term technical user/community product support, idk how to describe that area much better) are almost entirely disjoint.

It is perfectly fine and valid for an audio product to “blow” from an opinionated audiophile perspective, while being exceptionally great from the long-term product/user/community product support perspective.

I heavily agree with you btw, Bose should be heavily lauded for making a decision to open-up their speaker firmware after it reaches the official end of support deadline. The fact that this is an exceptional practice is imo, a little bit sad, because I believe that it should be way more common.

In a previous life, I was the platform architect for the Bluetooth headphones at Bowers & Wilkins. We, naturally, did tons of competitive analysis, and I tend to agree Bose blows sound quality-wise, but their active noise cancelling is hands-down the best in the biz, and they have the weight and comfort extremely dialed-in.

Glad to see them setting a great example here instead of letting these speakers become expensive paperweights.

> "Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile community

I have a 15 years old Bose system. Is it audio-transparent ? Absolutely not, its frequency response is well documented. But the sound is very pleasing, it's reliable and nearly invisble in my living room.

I'm not an audiophile though, just a music lover.

"Bose blows" is typically in regards to their price/performance, and especially with how they marketed themselves throughout the 90s and early 2000s.

Bose used to advertise that they were the best sounding speaker out there, while also running advertisements that made claims which violated the laws of physics.

For the same price as a Bose system you could get something much higher quality. Bose was selling at luxury prices w/o luxury quality. They got away with it because compared to the cheap garbage most people listened to, Bose's stuff was nicer. Their quality was mid to upper mid tier, and the build quality was generally good.

But people got irritated by a decade ads saying a tiny speaker is more powerful than a proper speaker setup.

Now days Bose makes good quality noise cancelling headphones (and I suspect they made more revenue selling NC headphones during the open office and then COVID era than they ever did selling speakers in the 90s!) and they brand car stereo systems.

Their noise cancelling headphones are good, even if the ear pads wear our way too fast.

Pretty much no one has a home hi-fi setup anymore, everyone just has a sound bar. I do have a hi-fi music setup, people are rather shocked when they come over that I even bothered. I got it for $2k on Craigslist years ago, the setup cost someone a small fortune when they were brand new. IMHO buying new hi-fi gear is pointless, Speakers made in 2005 sound just as good as speakers made in 2025, the laws of physics haven't changed any!

Seems to me like an executive saw klipsch failures and saw an opening to kill two birds with one stone.

One, to show their support for audiophiles who supported them.

Two, make superior products to klipsch that - ummm - actually state the real ranges of the speakers and use real copper windings instead of “painted” copper.

Alternatively: Bose now provides highs! No lows.

Well, Bose has a long history of continually hyping whatever they're selling as the complete & utter pinnacle of sound reproduction technology, whether or not that's actually the case. Before the internet it was through their print media ads, starting with their Direct/Reflecting home speaker tech, continued through the 800 series PA speakers, Acoustic Wave tabletop radio, etc. Not to say there were not benefits, but that the choices they made -- single driver size, requiring certain room boundaries/geometry for optimal sound, need for active EQ/processing to get full-range response before the tech was really there to do so optimally -- did not always equal great trouble-free sound as advertised.

That said their implementation of noise-cancelling headphones/earbuds was a legit game-changer. And good on them for open-sourcing these speakers!

not an audiophile but is it possible to tease out those aspects of sound reproduction if the software is open source?

i always heard "no high, no lows, must be bose"

The audiophile community is so far up it's own ass it doesn't see a distinction between bose and a piezoelectric buzzer.