A learning @ bose to share with fellow members

[anm]

Hi
I had some time to kill today so I went to the bose showroom in TGIP Noida. The guy was very pleasant, and ensured that he appears very knowledgeable to me. Like he gave me a demo of a missile scene from Ironman. Before showing the scene he told me I would hear sound from left/ right and center. The demo room's width was quite small and honestly I didn't hear any sound panning from speaker to speaker.
The he demoed a bose dock 10, which I found decent for the given size. Then he gave me a good learning:

Glass absorbs sound, while wood reflects it. I countered with my limited knowledge that I think glass reflects a lot. He said no, don't you see that the sound from the demo room is not coming out? Glass is absorbing it and hence it is not coming out.

I thought it would be good to share this knowledge with you guys.

regards

 

[Sidharth Trehan]

Poor guy, he just gave another reason to roast the wild BOAR ..err.. BOSE that is!

 

[ashishkesarwani]

Good to know the knowledge base of a competitor in this AV business. Keep up the good work.

 

[anm]

well your competition is very well trained in handling noobs and making a sale. I tried asking him for a home demo which he told me is not required given the great quality of Bose systems.

Good to know the knowledge base of a competitor in this AV business. Keep up the good work.

 

[shaizada]

Awesome! I think I will build a whole new house out of glass as I need this absorbing effect being talked about. One day Bose.... one day you will be mine in a perfectly SQUARE 12x12x12 glass room!

 

[GunMo]

Anm,
The poor guy is probably just doing his job in prepping you up for the missile scene so that you can hear the sound panning at least inside your head. Same is the case for avoiding the home demo. :lol:

But, seriously the glass vs wood theory beats me! :clapping:

Please, please bring him over to HFV and show him the world!! :cheers:

 

[gobble]

Hi
I had some time to kill today so I went to the bose showroom in TGIP Noida. The guy was very pleasant, and ensured that he appears very knowledgeable to me. Like he gave me a demo of a missile scene from Ironman. Before showing the scene he told me I would hear sound from left/ right and center. The demo room's width was quite small and honestly I didn't hear any sound panning from speaker to speaker.
The he demoed a bose dock 10, which I found decent for the given size. Then he gave me a good learning:

Glass absorbs sound, while wood reflects it. I countered with my limited knowledge that I think glass reflects a lot. He said no, don't you see that the sound from the demo room is not coming out? Glass is absorbing it and hence it is not coming out.

I thought it would be good to share this knowledge with you guys.

regards

didn't yo ask him why his speaker enclosures are not made from glass? hyeah:

Cheers

 

[ajinkya]

I think I'm missing the joke in this one. Are we laughing at his knowledge of the sound absorptive properties of glass? Because as far as my knowledge goes, glass does a decent job of absorbing low frequencies but is almost a perfect reflector at high frequencies. So to term glass as acoustically reflective in totality is physically meaningless and wrong. Take a look at the numbers given here:
Sound Absorption Coefficients

In fact, double-sheeted glass makes an excellent sound insulator, specially if there is lamination in between. I think we're neglecting the fact that no material is a perfect reflector or absorber at all frequencies of sound (or electromagnetic waves also, for that matter). So, I guess I'm wondering what exactly the showroom person said that was so wrong?

Thanks,
Jinx.

 

[vivekam]

anm,

I think we can rename this title as 'An unlearning experience at Bose"

 

[captrajesh]

didn't yo ask him why his speaker enclosures are not made from glass? hyeah:

He will say, "then no sound would come out of the speaker":lol:

 

[soundofmusic]

Once I had a chance of going to the Bose stores in Chennai, It seems that the person there is taught how to speaker. He had 10 to 15 sentences and keeps on telling the same thing . But they are very very knowledgeable about their product , when asked about the Power handling the answer was " It can handle any wattage " and " No ohms required for the Bose " and " No Placement problem" But these could definitely influence a common layman. My wife who was with me could not find difference between the bose and my NAD / Quad combo:sad: Bose is not bothered about the 2% Audiophiles and they concentrate on the 98% common man.

 

[Sumit]

Well, I can say that BOSE are doing fairly well in India and around the world. True, their products don't interest the budding audiophile or people who have a 'sound' ear for music/movies. You see, BOSE designs its products on simplicity and NOT VFM. Believe me when I say that there are scores of people out there who just want a plug-and-play system. They won't know the difference between HDMI or DVi or optical etc. They would probably faint looking at the back of an average AVR!!
I am not a BOSE fan. I don't have a single BOSE product till date. But, BOSE has a business model that probably won't interest many here on HFV but zillions outside HFV.

Coming to the Glass theory: Glass is actually a very dense material. It does take care of unwanted vibrations. There is company called " Waterfall Audio". They make speakers and their cabinets are made of glass.
WaterFall Audio - Crateur d'enceintes acoustiques en verre

Excerpts from the website:
"Glass, not only a stately and a beautiful material, because of its high density, helps eliminate unwanted vibrations from the structure of loudspeaker, therefore providing perfect sound reproduction".

My two cents:indifferent14:!!

 

[GunMo]

... So to term glass as acoustically reflective in totality is physically meaningless and wrong. Take a look at the numbers given here:
Sound Absorption Coefficients

Thanks,
Jinx.

In deed this is a learning! :signthankspin: Thanks much for the reference sheet Jinx.

 

[ajinkya]

Excerpts from the website:
"Glass, not only a stately and a beautiful material, because of its high density, helps eliminate unwanted vibrations from the structure of loudspeaker, therefore providing perfect sound reproduction". [/COLOR]

This is exactly my point. Thanks for the illuminating link, Sumit. I think we sometimes laugh at other people's knowledge without realising the limitations of our own. I've seen blanket statements being made over time in this (and other forums) about materials and technologies that are simply not true overall (metallic dome tweeters are sharp sounding, wood absorbs sound, negative feedback is bad, opamps are bad, and so on...).

The more experienced members of this forum have always cautioned against such generalisations since the final outcome of any technology depends on how it is implemented in the final product, than on any intrinsic quality of the technology itself. A case from the control engineering field is the ubiqitious PID controller, which can outperform many non-linear, high-order, optimised controllers, if the system it is applied to has dominant behaviour which can be linearised. The same is the case with speaker enclosures, circuits, amps, and so on. Let us not quickly generalise the shortcomings of any one technology/material without looking at its overall implementation and function in the complete system chain.

Thanks,
Ajinkya.

 

[anm]

couple of points
1. I don't know that much about music and sound engineering. So whatever he said, if this is true, it is indeed a learning for me.
2. he didn't say that glass absorbs low/ bass frequencies. just that sound is absorbed by the glass and that is why there is no sound coming out of the demo room. This logic is just plain wrong. If the glass is reflecting then too sound won't come out.
2. the glass there was not double layer AFAIK.
3. generalization that since you have wood furniture at home, sound will be quite loud. And HENCE, you do not require a home demo.

I think I'm missing the joke in this one. Are we laughing at his knowledge of the sound absorptive properties of glass? Because as far as my knowledge goes, glass does a decent job of absorbing low frequencies but is almost a perfect reflector at high frequencies. So to term glass as acoustically reflective in totality is physically meaningless and wrong. Take a look at the numbers given here:
Sound Absorption Coefficients

In fact, double-sheeted glass makes an excellent sound insulator, specially if there is lamination in between. I think we're neglecting the fact that no material is a perfect reflector or absorber at all frequencies of sound (or electromagnetic waves also, for that matter). So, I guess I'm wondering what exactly the showroom person said that was so wrong?

Thanks,
Jinx.

 

[ajinkya]

couple of points
1. I don't know that much about music and sound engineering. So whatever he said, if this is true, it is indeed a learning for me.
2. he didn't say that glass absorbs low/ bass frequencies. just that sound is absorbed by the glass and that is why there is no sound coming out of the demo room. This logic is just plain wrong. If the glass is reflecting then too sound won't come out.
2. the glass there was not double layer AFAIK.
3. generalization that since you have wood furniture at home, sound will be quite loud. And HENCE, you do not require a home demo.

Anm,
Got it. I like his reason for the home demo, actually, though it is wrong, as you point out. That much marketing logic, I think we should all learn from him

 

[shaizada]

This is exactly my point. Thanks for the illuminating link, Sumit. I think we sometimes laugh at other people's knowledge without realising the limitations of our own. I've seen blanket statements being made over time in this (and other forums) about materials and technologies that are simply not true overall (metallic dome tweeters are sharp sounding, wood absorbs sound, negative feedback is bad, opamps are bad, and so on...).

Glass like any other material has certain acoustic properties. It is a material that intrinsically rings and imparts a major sound of its own into the frequency spectrum of the music being reproduced.

Now imagine all the subtle musical information coming from the speaker driver with the glass injecting it's own "vibrational" information. That is a corruption of sound as glass tends to have a very shrill sound. This is the same reason we find wood to have acoustically beautiful tonal properties to our ears.

Finally, glass will completely reflect high frequencies no matter the thickness etc. Sure it might absorb some bass frequencies as they are much longer (by waveform) at can easily penetrate through the glass as well. Higher frequencies will bounce back and completely F up the sound. That demo room wala's knowledge base was actually COMPLETELY off as their room made the demo MUCH WORSE.

You will see sound panels (bass traps or high frequency traps) made of a porous glass fiber mixture or such. The matrix of fibers lets sound pass through naturally, then the density and properties of the given fibers decides how much sound is absorbed and how much is reflected back. It is this delicate balance that allows a person (who KNOWS his way around) tune the room for optimal acoustics.

Finally, a speaker can be made out of ANY material as long as the designer of the speaker has factored it into the final sound of the product. Different designers approach the reproduction of sound through their speakers differently. Some like to deaden the cabinet resonances completely, others like to "tune" (again the important word here...tune) the cabinet resonances to be part of the sound the speaker produces. The point is, materials are only as good as their designers who UNDERSTAND the property of the material and master is sufficiently to produce their version of the acoustic dream.

Finally, coming back to the demo room. Whoever designed the place, designed it for looks. NO MATTER THE INTENTION OF THE DESIGNER IN THIS CASE, glass is a an absolutely BS choice of material to be used in a listening room. In fact, one of the WORST things that can be used.

Can't wait to see a Stradivarius to be made out of glass some day Would love to get an XRCD of that...Linda Rosenthal will be thrilled!