Firmware update borks Bose boxes: Owners report crackles on Lex-i of the soundbar world Owners of Bose kit are filling support forums with moans that a recent firmware update has introduced a deeply irritating crackling noise to "the world's best performing soundbar". The issue has been blamed on firmware update 4.0.8 and so far the company seems unable to offer a way to roll back the update or a date for an …
Overpriced , underperforming tinny speakers for people who know the square root of bugger all about hifi - a triumph of marketing over substance. A cheap (150 quid ish) amp and proper speakers sound far better than almost any soundbar on the market (and even manage to do a new fangled concept called stereo properly!), never mind the more upmarket stuff. A dumb amp shouldn't even need "firmware" other than for bluetooth and USB and that should never need upgrading.
I tend to agree as far as music is concerned. But if you want sound for TV without filling your room with speakers, it's hard to beat a decent soundbar. Some can even direct sound to one side of the sofa so that a couple with different hearing abilities can hear the soundtrack at two different volumes (but still in stereo).
Almost ANY 1970s HiFi plugged into earphone socket or using a China $20 5.1 optical decoder is better. I don't believe good sound bars exist.
Also why do so few TVs have real external speaker sockets (electromechanical)? They make the TVs so stupidly thin that the internal ones are like laptop speakers.
I agree with this but, at the risk of another slew of downvotes, there's no getting away from the fact that there are decent soundbars. Whether they are value for money (the Yamaha YSP-2700 costs £600 and that buys you a lot of conventional stereo) is another matter: but if you want an approximation of 5.1 without speakers everywhere (not my preference, by the way, I'm a 7.2 fan!), this is, IMHO, the way to go.
The particular use-case I have seen, with a couple with markedly different hearing abilities, works well: with a loud seat and a quieter seat on the same sofa. Also it's worth pointing out that a lot of 5.1 -> 2.0 (stereo) converters aren't strong enough in the centre, with the result that dialog (especially for the hard of hearing) becomes harder to make out.
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There are one or two nice "Soundbars". They are usually massive, and expensive.
Most of the others are the same as a TV incorporated speakers, with a wooden box to the side pretending to be a sub.
Pity I don't have the space or the budget for a nice soundbar, but am using a cheapo one currently just for a PC speaker solution.
Any fool knows that no matter how many meters of pure gold interconnect you have you wil never full enjoy the sound until you remove all that pesky air from the room with its random mix of different gasses, the room needs to be full of 99.999% pure argon, only then can you (briefly) enjoy the sound as originally intended.
Caught a featurette on Click once about a japanese guy who had spent about £300k on his home hifi setup (including 13k on an upgraded power pole to supply his home)
Strangely he still didn't think it sounded right and planned to spend more.
Stopped my hi-fi spending in its tracks.
I've been baffled by people who blindly buy into this "firmware update" bull by consumer electronics giants. I mean, I bought a telly and it (...) works, or else, I would have returned it on the same day. I don't need any (...) v3.535b firmware for it to keep working.
Actually, one reason: if there were firmware / hackware to make it into _substantially_ more useful device. Or to block it spying on me (if I'd let it do it in the first place).
Dumb fucks, bose or not (make good headphones though).
Unfortunately the more they "enhance" a product the more annoying it becomes. For instance I definitely do not require it of my TV that if I happen to point the remote off the right hand edge of the screen that it pops up a list of suggestions of what to watch. Yet this is, I find, what it does. And you can't turn the bastard feature off. Nor do I require it to do anything beyond display what's coming in on a single HDMI cable, and allow me to adjust the volume (for when I don't fancy the amplifier being on), and picture. Possibly I like the remote control on my phone, as it allows me to turn the thing off (standby) when I can't be bothered going back to the lounge from the bedroom. I certainly don't need a Netflix, Prime, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Spotify, Plex etc etc app. I don't need it to connect to the WWW (0.5millibytes doesn't even allow a modern web page to render, so don't bother), I don't need it to listen to my voice, I don't need it to show an enhanced programme guide by connecting to some slurp-factory.
I think I just need a bloody big monitor, really.
My last TV required 3 or 4 software updates to keep working.
First was due to BBC bending rules on service naming. Rather than 01 BBC1 02 BBC 2 03 BBC Choice 04 BBC News 24, suddenly 1 on TV up pops the news, 7 BBC1 and so on.
Then there was another
Finally an update to enable CAM support so I can see those not very good pay channels.
AFAIR Two visits from Sony and a couple of updates on a card to shove in the port on the back.
"...they didn't spend £800 on a speaker to muck about being lab rats for Bose and politely opined that maybe the engineering department could fix it or offer a simple rollback procedure"
This.
As IT creeps into consumer electronics. It really makes me itchy to see mid/high-end amplifiers offering clients for streaming services like Napster and Spotify - things where you will need to update firmware/software. Of course the true high-end gear will offer just one input and a pair-matched stereo speaker output, leaving everything else to add-on boxes and a source selector, but those of us without the pennies to buy glowing wires in miniature glass houses like to pretend we have a half-decent system at least - one that doesn't make everything sound like Jamaica Inn.
I bought my stereo 25 years ago for £4 at a jumble sale. (including speakers and a turntable) It's an Akai AA-R21L tuner/amp. The stereo decoder on FM radio no longer works but I can just switch to mono. The amplifier part is still going strong, I now have quite large Sansui speakers. (630mm high)
I don't have a *TV, Facebook or any streaming service so it's YouTube all the way.
*Well I could use the same DVB-T dongle that I use for SDR on a Raspberry PI running TVheadend. But firstly I don't have a TV licence, secondly I can't be bothered to plug it together and thirdly I have never done this honestly your honour.
Yeah mate. There's your problem, see? Pinhole in the sleeve, innit? Let the air in, haven't you? All that oxygen, see. It's oxidised your copper - THAT'S the source of your trouble. Oh dear, oh dear. Spend all that dosh on a decent cable, and you just don't take care of it, do you? Tell you what, in the back of my van I've got something special. Yeah. Second hand, mind you, but it's top quality gear. From the presidential suite at Trump Tower... Solid. Silver. Conductors. Yours for just £1,000 a metre.
I don't think I've ever heard a decent-sounding Bose set-up. Whether it's all down to the folk who own them and/or set them up, I wouldn't know, but as far as I'm concerned, it's all boom and tizz. Probably appeals to Joe Punter initially but after very few minutes it gets a bit tiresome. They do some powered speakers which go extremely loud and are brilliant for a small, full-range PA system but that's it. Hi-Fi they ain't. As has already been said, even a fairly modest conventional system (Hi-Fi or surround-sound) will knock spots off a sound bar,
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