The future is here, and all I got were these awful little speakers
Which one sounds better?
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)When I was a kid in the 1960s I was obsessed with the future. The space program was in all its glory, the moon landing was within our grasp, and that, combined with rock music being at its creative peak, what more could a teenage boy ask for? The future looked bright, science would soon feed the starving, cure all disease, and technology would bring prosperity to the entire world. Once those humdrum needs were satisfied we could get to the fun stuff and develop personal flying gear, teleportation machines, and start colonizing other worlds. For kids, at least nerdy kids of my generation, the future couldn't happen fast enough.
Except now that the future has arrived it's kind of a letdown. Funny, back in the '60s we never imagined the internet and Dick Tracy never used his wristphone to listen to the Beatles. Strangest of all, no one dreams about the future any more, I guess we're done.
Sadly, 21st century audio technology has mostly been used to create ever cheaper and crappier audio--witness the boom of computer/PC and iPod speakers--but they're all laughably pitiful devices compared to what I was listening to 40 years ago. Yes, my long lost XAM brand speakers were comparatively gigantic but sounded awesome blasting Led Zeppelin and the Kinks. Music was so important we all wanted it to sound as good as possible; nowadays most buyers opt for the smallest possible speakers and/or cheapest possible price over sound quality. Good enough is a pretty low standard.
All of the technology advances of the intervening decades can't make a pint-size speaker sound like a hefty bookshelf or floorstanding model. Size definitely matters.
One of the prime 1960s future fantasies involved the "food pill." They predicted that in the future we would no longer need to eat food, we would just pop a pill that would provide perfectly balanced nutrition. The pills would supply the taste illusion of gourmet food, but without all the hassle of actually growing and preparing the food. Lucky for us the pills have yet to arrive, instead we got the Food Network, so millions of people can watch other people eat the yummiest food. Somehow the tiny pills turned into these awful little speakers.
Yes, they promise "studio quality" sound, but compared to any sort of decent bookshelf speaker, PC speakers sound like toys. They miniaturize not only sound, but also the music's soul. So it means less.
I'm not saying all PC speakers suck, just that the smaller they get, the smaller they sound (M-Audio's hefty Studiophile AV 40 ain't bad). Hey, if your space is that cramped it might make more sense to use headphones rather than any speakers at all. Take Grado's SR60 headphones, they sound worlds better than any micro-mini speaker I've heard.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
And while reading your article, I could not help but recall a line from "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) when the protagonist, Alex, approaches a girl in a record shop and says: "What you got back home to play your fuzzy warbles (records) on, little sister? I bet you got pitiful, portable picnic players. Come hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones!" OK, they didn't exactly go back to his place to hear music... but the parallel today would be about earbuds and "pitiful, portable" iPod speakers, and Alex would probably just have plastic satellites and mid-subs to play his highly-compressed downloads on. And nobody would blink.
I think the loss of the many independent "hi-fi" salons from 30 or so years ago, to the big-box retailers like Circuit City and Best Buy, may have contributed to today's lack of appreciation for achieving great sound at home. If you've ever tried to audition speakers or ANY piece of audio equipment in those stores, you know what a challenge it is. "Good enough" is what most people walk out with, never knowing that for a few dollars more, better equipment (heard under controlled & sane listening conditions) can offer a world of stunning music reproduction and pleasure they are continuing to miss out on.
Keep stoking the fire, Steve! You never know what curiosity you may stir up -- what earbuds you may pop!
Small PC speakers are not a replacement for bookshelf speakers. They are a different product entirely. It's like telling someone in workout shorts and a tank top that they'd be much better off in an Armani suit.
I also find it interesting that you decry the quality of PC music in one post, then imply that we should be running our crappy PC music through fancy speakers in the next. If we're going to insist on crappy music, can't we at least save money on speakers?
I might also want to add, that I do not download any music. I do not have a track of music on computer in a .MP3 format (WMA Lossless or FLAC only). I also do not own an MP3 player (would rather just tune into the radio, or listen to a portable CD player, which I do own and use), and I will not own an MP3 player until there is one out there that has full FLAC or WMA lossless playback.
For you Steve, I'd just like to let you know that I try to turn as many people as possible onto lossless formatted digital audio, and to stay as true to the original source material as possible (analog being the best in most cases). I worked for one of the Big Box stores for two years, and it was my personal goal to get people into the best audio products that I could possibly provide for them, and it was rarely BOSE.
But its also glib to blame the demise of boutique audio retailers on the rise of big retailers. There a lot of things that specialty audio retailers are doing wrong:
1. People want it to look good and not take a PhD to get buy and set up. Despite many audiophiles dismissal of Bose systems, this is something that company understand about the market. Same thing with many less than stellar home theater in a box system. Looks and ease of entry matter.
2. Put your product out there. If you hide out in the ghettos that are audiophile shops, you make yourself invisible to anybody but the already initiated. Why are so few companies not taking advantage of the huge playing feild leveler that is the internet and selling factory direct or offering 30 day trial periods?
Bose is a lifestyle decision and for those who purchase that "stuff", the benefits of a real system would be lost on them anyway. I almost fell out of my chair last night laughing when I saw an add for the Bose table top radio. It had an image of a large stereo fading to an image of their little plastic radio, with commentary saying "do you remember when you used to need all of this equipment to get great sound...not anymore." What was hilarious was the image looked like a pair of ADCOM separates and some nice 80's era large Infinity speakers with twin woofers. The suggestion that a table radio with 2.5" speakers could perform as well is completely ludicrous.
I agree that Bose has figured out its market, however the idea that "People want it to look good and not take a PhD to get buy and set up" is too much. If you can't connect speaker wire to a receiver and speakers then you probably should not be driving a car, leaving the house or voting for that matter. Bose products kind of look like crap too. The wave and table radio could pass for Sharper Image ionic breeze air purifiers.
People want it to look good and not take a PhD to get buy and set up.
Bose products kind of look like crap too. The wave and table radio could pass for Sharper Image ionic breeze air purifiers."[/i]
Sneering down your nose at people who buy Bose systems helps nothing. Dismissing their success as nothing more than clever marketing is glib. And it totally misses the lesson high end companies have to learn from Bose, Sony, and numerous other makers of prepackaged home theater systems: you aren't listening to what the people want.... and it isn't just cheap stuff (Bose's relatively expensive but good selling systems are proof positive of this).
Home theater ain't exactly easy to understand to begin with... and its not going to help you sell your products when you scoff at people who want a simple, good looking, all in one solution that they don't have to travel hundreds of miles to a specialty audio reseller to piece together.
It is the same as why is the sound of a floor standing speaker in general produces better sound than a bookshelf speaker. It is the internal space of the speaker box that matter. In the heydays, we generally judge a speaker by the weight and the timber used to form the box.
This is one aspect that the new technology has overcome. Despite generally lighter, the sound quality of some floor standing or bookshelf speakers are better off than those older ones.
Another comparison is between a box speakers and the small satelite cube speakers such as Boss. Without the subwoofer, these satelite speakers does not produce what one gets from a normal speaker.
When listening to music, one does not need to turn on the subwoofer for normal speakers but this is not the case for cube satelite speakers (correct me if I am wrong).
To summarise the above, the size and quality of speakers has an impact on the overall sound quality. Even if we were to compare box speakers (floor standing or bookshelf), it does not imply that the more expensive speakers produce better sound in general than the cheaper ones.
It all voiced down to individual hearing preferences.
P.S: Hi-fi system is one of my hobbies for over 30 years.
I think I will order them to try out. I find it astonishing that there just aren't any decent quality speakers that can be hooked up to your computer - even if they are a little larger than normal and need to be placed on stands next to your computer, some company out there surely must realize there are a few people who want quality. Even if they took some good but basic quality JBL or Polk (big name would get better sales presumably) and give them an internal amplifier so we can use them with the computer directly, if would probably help no end. I do thank you for writing about it, as I too find it very annoying. I love my B&W speakers in my living room, but I want something that's atleast decent to listen to all the thousands upon thousands of albums I have saved pristinely (mostly lossless format) on my computer whilst I sit at it for hours on end working each day.
It was well worth the $70 I was charged. 29 years old and still rocking as good as the day I got them. I was at a demonstration of the Bose wave system. Which cost a grand.
It was sad to hear something that's said to be one of the best sounding system sound like what it really was a clock radio. You get what you pay for my speakers were $1400
and worth every penny . I have seen several pair over the years for sale . Grab them if you can test them check the speaker rubber and you will be very satisfied.
OL SKOOL, yep sure is and you can't compare the sound to the poor excuse that's being sold on the market today. . Get real now ,,,, you know your not going to get great sound out of a 4 inch square box and a sub woofer. Bose again . Go back to ol skool and get the real thing . mrwgd
- by save-me April 1, 2008 10:59 PM PDT
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(14 Comments)Sonus faber & Vienna Acoustics?
Thank you Sumiko! These guys keep the torch going!!