Bose: it's good but it's not magic, which fools rush to expect.

In fine, the Bose Wave music system is a little wonder.

Reading reviews here and there, it’s clear that people who don’t like this system expect things it wasn’t meant to do. Some complain that it doesn’t do what a multi-thousand dollar multi-speaker room-filling bunch of equipment will do. What sort of fool expects a compact stereo system to do that? Others don’t like AM reception. Who wants AM reception? There’s no music on AM, just a bunch of pseudo-musical noise, a lot of neo-fascist talk radio, and too much blatant superstition (“religion”). Some want bass/treble controls. We’ll get into that later.

The Bose is primarily designed for music on FM. There’s precious little music there, either. Again, mostly noise, superstitious nonsense, and Hitler-worshipping Republicans. But there is also REAL music – you know: Scarlatti, Soler, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss (J), Strauss (R), Scharwenka, Sousa, Spohr, St.Saëns, Suk, Sullivan, Stravinsky, Schmidt, Schmitt, Sibelius, Stanord, Surinach, Shostakovich, Sondheim, Schickele … that bunch. For other stuff, you don’t need good sound – a couple of tinny $5 speakers just fine. Get off the net and go to Good Will.

The Bose is also designed for the music lover who doesn’t have a lot of space for hardware. Space is for CDs, scores, the Grove dictionary … not to mention opera DVDs. This little wonder is designed to deliver great sound, but not multi-thousand $ sound.

I have 2 Boses (bedroom, kitchen) and am getting a 3rd (office). Like it? I’ll say!! The Bose has unusually rich sound, mostly because it has a very fine bass response. Sometimes it’s a little more than strictly necessary, but it’s often revealingly effective. It’s great for things such as the organ in St.Saëns’ 3rd Symphony. Yes: no bass/treble controls, and I know that there are people who like to fiddle with such things … often endlessly. It’s a habit, like channel surfing. My hearing is not so utterly precious that I need to make micro-adjustments in sound, in the hope that it will meet my ultra-refined senses of perfect pitch and perfect mix.

There are, strictly speaking, no controls on the radio at all. Everything that can be done must be done with the remote. The really good news is that you get a second identical remote with the CD player add-on. The remote is quite small, but it’s very easy to see what’s on the buttons.

The radio also takes 1 CD. The add-on takes 3, for a total of 4. That covers pretty much every opera and Mahler symphony known to Man. The add-on is hooked up with 2 very short connectors, so you don’t have excess wiring hanging about. The add-on comes with a CD that programs it, so basically this is a plug-and-play system that requires no fiddling. Apparently you can also hook the whole thing into a larger sound system, your computer, and maybe even your brain if you’re into digital prosthetics.

The radio’s display is clear and distinct … no backlit stuff that requires extreme magnification to make out. The display also wonderfully adjusts itself to the ambient light level, so that at night it’s not intrusive. The CD add-on has 3 little lights, one for each occupied slot. These are orange, changing to lemon-lime for the currently active CD. These do not dim, alas, and some people may find them annoying. I play the bedroom system all night (good for the brain) and did in fact quickly adjust to the CD lights.

One nice feature is that the CDs are played in sequence and the system goes back to the first CD when it’s finished with the last. You can also program different sequences with the remote. Another excellent feature is that the system will retain all settings for 48 hours if it’s unplugged or there’s a power failure.

The user manuals are thorough and full-sized (8 ½ x 11), so that you can actually not only see the print, you can read it.

The sound, as I’ve said, is remarkable for such a small piece of equipment. Amazingly, even turned down very low, the sound will fill a good-sized room. I haven’t turned the set up to its highest volume, but I’ve had it fairly high and encountered no distortion.

Reception: Bose sells a dipole FM antenna that helps with the stations with actual music but not much power. Our local station, XLNC, used to be only 1000 watts, hard to pick up on some equipment, but came in fine on the Bose (no antenna). Now it’s 7500 watts and will drown out any nearby crud. The Bose usually picks up KUSC, 100-odd miles to the north, very clearly. But of course I’d guess they have enough watts to run the State electric chair, if we had one. We use needles. Nobody has to share.

This is spiffy equipment. It doesn’t work miracles, nor walk on water, nor raise the dead, nor kill the undead. It doesn’t make the bed and definitely doesn’t do windows. Or Windows. What it does is give you sound that equals more expensive equipment (not a lot more, but more) and does it from a modest corner of your bookshelf. It comes in ivory or charcoal. As to stereo separation: what do you want from speakers 18 inches apart??? Do the math, people. Still, separation is better than you would expect.

If you don’t want to spend the money, get a boom box. You can enjoy complaining about your inability to microadjust bass and treble on that as well. If you want huge sound so that Wagner will cause your walls to tremble and crumble, spend a bunchabucks for 50 speakers and a receiver a yard long and 26 inches high. Go wild. But don’t send $500 to do $5000’s job.