New lows at Bose as firmware update woes infuriate soundbar bros Hoity-toity hi-fi purveyor Bose has inadvertently silenced a bunch of its own soundbars with a recent firmware update. The problems were first reported on the Bose support forum two weeks ago and affect the company's Soundbar 700. Users connecting the overpriced telly speaker via HDMI are being advised to use optical …
I'd take the TV at a pinch. But what is in effect a glorified amplifier ?
Maybe El Reg could run a competition where readers submit their suggestions for the most unexpected piece of kit that got borked after a "firmware update" ???
Not heard any delivery men today ? Hope your doorbell wasn't borked after a firmware update.
Going out ? Make sure your trainers are patched first .....
Because it isn't just an analog amplifier, if it has HDMI and Optical inputs. something has to convert those digital signals.
The problem is that I think you will find is that converting digital signals is something this sound bar did pretty well, just until the update stopped it from doing that.
But like others have said: why on earth is your sound bar connected to the internet anyway?
what the actual fuck you can't STOP a soundbar from automatically phoning home and updating it's firmware now?
what next? will it be background analysing all the stuff you're playing extracting music tastes and movie choices and uploading that to some fucking database somewhere to sell to people to make more money for bose to market more shit at you FUCK THAT
"I remember when expensive TVs actually had good speakers in them, rather than being an optional extra."
Ah - the good old days when TV's were deeper than they were wide, weighed a ton (comparing screen diagonals then and now) and had to be kept away from L/R and Centre speakers (or soundbars) as the magnets in the speakers caused interference on screen (namely colour blotches nearest to the speakers).
Of course, having plenty of room inside allowed the designers to ensure some decent bass could be produced from the large air volume that was available...and they could magnetically shield the speaker magnets to ensure good picture quality.
Move on to the present day and "customers" want frame-less flat screens that can be hung on the wall - which pretty much prevents them from sounding good (unless maybe they come with a Bluetooth-equiped subwoofer that can be carefully hidden out of view).
So, one can understand that "soundbars" can help solve the sound quality issues with flatscreen TVs...and hene why Bose and others have jumped on the bandwagon and produced expensive speakers to replace the "tinny sounding" toys the TV firms use.
I mistakenly bought a Denon soundbar for my new Samsung Series 7 TV. Denon are hifi specialists and I had high hopes. It was ok. The extra bass was nice, but the treble was sadly lacking.
It kept disconnecting. Richer Sounds were, as usual, excellent and refunded my money without a quibble.
The cruncher was that quite a few times over the couple of weeks when I had the soundbar I thought "Well, it sounds better, clearer today" only to discover that I was listening to the tinny TV speakers.
My new audiophile setup is a pair of 12"x4" MDF panels angled at 45 degrees placed under the down-firing speakers. They bounce the sound out into the room very nicely indeed, and at a couple of quid are more satisfying than the £300 Denon.
Samsung
*Shudder*.
It might be good, right up until it explodes in a Death Star-stylee fireball and burns down your house..
(I went through several soundbars to try and get some decent sound *and* for it to auto-switch on when the TV did[1]. Ended up with an LG soundplate which goes under the telly (separate bass speaker) which has been pretty good.)
[1] Elderly mother couldn't get the hang of turning the sound bar on as well as the TV - I'd get met with "tried to watch TV but got no sound" despite leaving written instructions by the TV and soundbar remotes..
My 48 incher has terrible sound but the old surround sound system from 1999 ish can wake up the street If I fancy watching Apocalypse Now. Just a shame it can't use the tv remote for volume but it is good enough not to have to change the volume constantly and it *defiantly* didn't cost £700 or need firmware updates :0
Its a real shame that older kit that was not super expensive can still out perform modern crap sold at stupid prices:(
SCART cables quality counts.
Audio interconnects depends on components.
HDMI, a simple yes no.
But I have found through personal experience that a decent pair of thick well shielded interconnect cables are fine. And not expensive.
SCART, that however cheap are junk, I had to pay quite a bit to get a decent one. All comes down to shielding, cheapies you can see interferance, better quality are fine. This is for RGB.
HDMI, I get middle ones, I buy on quality of manufacture not magic metals. Most were free though.
Simply put, does it pass the following.
Will it fall apart? WIll it be secure? Will it mess up other cables.
Our nice big TV has rotten lip-synch. Sound is processed faster than video, and no built-in adjustment available. Unwatchable. I need a soundbar with a simple knob on the front to adjust delay - yes I know the gubbins behind can't be simple, A/D:D/A and all that. Do you think I can find one online that offers just this and no other gizmos or reemotes? Cheap suggestions welcome.
Found the soundbar, and checked the manual.
For starters, the manual begins with 9 pages (!) of legal and regulatory blabber. The Table of Contents is on page 10. I went to the Recommendations page (page 14) where I read that the soundbar must be kept at least 1 to 3 feet away from any other wireless equipment. Well sorry, but my TV receiver is right under the telly and it's wireless and it is staying there. Not that I will be buying anything that phones home anyway, and especially not a soundbar.
If you are incapable of making proper speakers without having to tweak them from a distance, you're not getting my money.
Is it's becoming increasingly difficult to nail my 70's to a modern TV since its pure analogu, so ultimately will be forced to use one of these bits of tosh.
Thankfully my recent TV's sound isn't half bad normally and having a large void behind it also seems to help give the speakers half a chance at sounding reasonable.
Is plural Lexi?
If I HAD to have one it would get rebranded ASAP.
Why have a LS400 when you could have a Toyota Celsior?
I love correctly rebranding cars.
If I was in charge all GM Adams would be recalled to gain Adams surname (Opel). All Land Rover Evokes would be rebranded Freelander Coupe.
And all Subaru BRZ and Toyota GT86 get the new brand Toybaru.
Toss Sony into that mix too. I have one of their high-end ATMOS soundbars and it's crap. Consistent no-sound issues requiring a power cycle, fails to auto-switch to new HDMI sources, or worse, switches, then switches back, then gives up and drops you on its "Home" screen where you get to pick the source. Not to mention the occasional "POP!" you get from it, after which it is totally TITSUP and needs the plug pulled for 30 seconds to recover. Just waiting for it to die - I know it's coming - but then I'm not sure what I'll replace it with. Lusted over the Creative Labs ATMOS soundbar ("The soundbar of the Gods" - really, that's how they market it - see for yourself https://us.creative.com/soniccarrier/), and while the reviews are amazing, I just can't see myself paying $4,000 for a soundbar. BTW, that's a price drop. When they released it the price was $6K.
Sound bars.
Are they actually any good?
I run a 5.0 system (never got round to adding a sub, but front stereo pair are floor standers).
Used for films, games, music.
Front pair are where a pair of HiFi speakers would be, actually they are.
Rear pair on brackets on the wall.
Centre on a microwave bracket above the TV.
Since I would need HiFi speakers for music, to me a sound bar would be no benefit in space used.
My neighbour popped his head over the fence on Sunday morning to ask me what the hell I'd been watching on Saturday night that made it sound as though the world was ending. It was of course Godzilla - King of the monsters amplified quite loudly through my 6 year old Panasonic soundbar and remote woofer. This thing didn't cost the earth, and doesn't need to be internet connected or updated to literally rock my living room to pieces.
Other than some shit label-brag, I simply don't understand the need to pay so much for these things.
To those who haven't rerad up on HDMI recently it does carry ethernet as per " HDMI Ethernet Channel technology consolidates video, audio, and data streams into a single HDMI cable, and the HEC feature enables IP-based applications over HDMI and provides a bidirectional Ethernet communication at 100 Mbit/s.[43] The physical layer of the Ethernet implementation uses a hybrid to simultaneously send and receive attenuated 100BASE-TX type signals through a single twisted pair. " so yes . if HDMI is used with a suitably manufactured tv connected to a std ethernet port the bar SHOULD see the connection and communicate on the network.
BOSE is to audio what Trabant is to cars
Except, BOSE is overpriced cheaply made tat.
(Opinions are own and I have been underwhelmed with everything I've ever heard that they've made)
Better off with the cheaper brands or buying proper hi-fi that exists around their price bracket.
What really bothers me is that they actually have some decent technology available to them. There are technical arguments for and against waveguides, but regardless what you think of them, there's no excuse for using one to compensate for bottom of the barrel components while charging top-of-market prices. Every time I hear Bose equipment I find myself wistfully thinking of what it could have been.
I volunteer for a repair cafe and have seen a few BOSE wave-thingies brought in to be fixed. One had a duff speaker after a gravity induced incident, the others were mostly tired/dirty CD transports. The components used, and the internal build quality is actually pretty good, it's the special BOSE sound processing "technology" that turns the output into nothing more than noise.
I was once active in the Bose Community Forum helping others find fixes to some of Bose's equipment.
I left because once I got enough "Kudos" I was also meant to "toe the party line".
I once made a comment that contained the phrase "needs to be taken out the back and shot" and Bose sprang into action and accused me of promoting violence.
I told them to f*ck off and I'll take my knowledge somewhere else.
Want a smallish and good looking brand new 5.1 setup without having to wire rear speakers? Get 2 pairs of Q acoustics 3000 series bookshelf speakers, optional center speaker, Polk 10" subwoofer plus a Denon AVR or Sony STR 5.1 receiver. Add a rocketfish wireless speaker kit and you have a system that will blow the arse out of your Bose soundbar with change to buy a PS4 for playing Blu rays.
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