May 7, 2001

12:52 PM

New Bose radio hooks up to PC.I just saw their ad in wired and when to check the site. It had some popups so I turned webwasher off and reloaded the page. When I did, I was just redirected to a teaser. So I turned webwasher back on and was able to get to this site, which shows off a new radio that connects to the PC. The funny thing is to try going to http://wavepc.bose.com/ with and without webwasher yields different results.
posted by TNLNYC (18 comments total)

The REALLY funny thing is your link brings you to a page that gives you zero information about the product. If people are interested, Bose, give it up! Don't make me "mark my calendar for May 10."

File under "customer harrassment."
posted by luser at 1:01 PM on May 7, 2001

The http://wavepc.bla link brings you to something with no info but the truly funny thing is that if you use webwasher, it gets you to a page that has more info... That's why I thought it might be worth posting :)

TNL
posted by TNLNYC at 1:06 PM on May 7, 2001

Bah! The Bose Wave radio sucks in the first place, so connecting it to my PC to play my MP3 files isn't going to make it any better.

Bose asked my former employer to help them with the Wave Radio a couple of years ago, and a bunch of our engineers suggested all sorts of improvements, but they didn't want "improvements", they wanted marketing. We told 'em go hire a marketing firm, then.
posted by briank at 1:19 PM on May 7, 2001

Hm. They have some weird deal setup whereby "editors" can view the real page, it seems. Unfortunately, they accomplish this by redirecting (with javascript only) people who don't have an "Editor" cookie set. So you can see the main site by killing the redirect or just turning off javascript while the page loads. I suppose they will just remove the redirect on May 10.

The page you get if you don't redirect has some javascript popup links for some "demos" and "visual details" that I can't access (because javascript is off to get around the redirect). There is a main informational WavePC site here that also tries to redirect. The smoothest way to view it all (for those w/o WebWasher) would be to just give yourself a bose.com "Editor=" cookie. It looks like it doesn't care what the cookie is set to, just as long as it exists.

They're not too bright, it seems... Never trust the client. :-P
posted by whatnotever at 1:25 PM on May 7, 2001

Bose Radio sucks? That little thing sounds amazingly good (with a CD player hooked up to it) in my little apartment...
posted by ParisParamus at 1:43 PM on May 7, 2001

Bose equipment is really pretty mediocre for the price. They significantly accentuate the bass and treble response of their speakers (the "cube" speakers have almost no midrange to speak of), which most people think "sounds good" even though it is not even close to being accurate. Also, they use paper speaker cones which tend to wear out after a few years, allowing them to sell you a new set of speakers that sound so much better than the ones you already have. Not because the new ones are actually improved, mind you, but because the ones you have have deteriorated slowly over the span of a few years. You didn't notice the deterioration as it happened because it was so slow, but you sure will notice it in comparison to new speakers.

What you're paying for when you buy Bose is their marketing, which is of course excellent.
posted by kindall at 1:51 PM on May 7, 2001

Speaking of marketing, I worked for the design firm that was supposed to do their whiz-bang Flash intro. There was about four months of intensive work on this Flash piece, which despite the completely stupid marketing copy, was actually a good use of Flash.

They fired us.

Well, them.
posted by solistrato at 2:36 PM on May 7, 2001

Bose is the poor man's BeO. And BeO is the yuppie's pale imitation of hi-fi. (My Technics + Denon + JBL system does me fine, thankyouverymuch.)
posted by holgate at 3:52 PM on May 7, 2001

It's not high-end fidelity, but getting that kind of sound from a little $349 amb/speaker thing is impressive. But it's no British stereo system.
posted by ParisParamus at 3:58 PM on May 7, 2001

I'd kill to be able to listen to Shoutcast servers anywhere in my house. Hear that bose? kill
posted by starduck at 4:47 PM on May 7, 2001

soeaking of BeO, their BeOLink/Office let's you control lots of BeO products from your PC, you can even listen to mp3s from your PC on your BeO music system. Looks like the Bose Wave Radio - PC is trying to do the same.

The next version should come bundled with the BeO player.
posted by riffola at 5:22 PM on May 7, 2001

oops I should've done a spell check. :)
"soeaking" should be "speaking"
posted by riffola at 5:23 PM on May 7, 2001

I have to throw in my two cents for the Audiotron that Turtle Beach makes. It scans your PEECEE (or Samba Box) for MP3s over Ethernet , and outputs them to your home stereo via rca jacks or an optical output. Its $300, and they say they'll be adding internet radio features to it in an upcoming firmware rev. I love coming home, putting the jazz playlist on random, and enjoying what it picks next. It's kind of a first rev geek toy, but the firmware gets better all the time.
Gateway sells a re-branded version if you want to see it in person at their County Store.

www.audiotron.net
posted by machaus at 5:54 PM on May 7, 2001

Whoopee. You can hook your radio up to your PeeCee. I've had my radio hooked up to my Mac for the past seven years (Okay, it's an $1100 radio...). What I want is a "radio" that gets Internet radio without having to be hooked up to a computer. R.I.P., Kerbango.... <sniff>
posted by geneablogy at 6:12 PM on May 7, 2001

Personally, I'm waiting for a car MP3 player with a big-ass hard disk and 802.11 support. I want to be able to mount my car stereo on my Mac desktop and copy MP3s to it wirelessly.
posted by kindall at 6:16 PM on May 7, 2001

I would like to see a personal MP3 player with at least a 5G
hard disk. I hear a lot of things from IBM about how they keep on shrinking these things and come up with all kinds of storage innovations. When are these innovations going to make their way into products like MP3 PLAYERS. I want to carry something about the size of your average Walkman and have a radio and adequate space for all my favorite songs. Do all MP3 players currently use flash memory?

It's funny how Bose products seem to sound better in the showroom than in the living room.
posted by sw11 at 11:00 AM on May 8, 2001

sw11 -- perhaps you aren't aware of products like the Nomad Jokebox....er, Jukebox? No radio (alas), but 6GB of disk and stereo interface.
posted by briank at 11:16 AM on May 8, 2001

Other hard disk-based MP3 players include:

Archos Jukebox 6000

Neo Jukebox

TreoPlayer
posted by kindall at 11:43 AM on May 8, 2001