no tone control

I finally succumbed to Bose's claims of acoustic superiority and bought the Wave CD for my bedroom. The bass is way too heavy. I guess Bose wanted to give it a big sound, so they boosted the bass response - permanently. It causes an ordinary male voice talking on the radio to come out boom, boom, boom.... When I complained to a Bose sales person, he said that the broadcasters are at fault, that they put in the heavy bass. My reply is that if that's the case, why didn't Bose give the listener the ability to tone it down? In other words, why didn't they put in tone controls? If you like every sound that comes out your radio to have a heavy bass throb, then the Bose Wave is for you. If you want realistic sound, look elsewhere. I returned the Bose thing 2 days after it arrived.

Fits on nightstand

Does not sound any better than a cheap clock radio

Wow, did I get ripped off. I was coming back from a fishing trip and won some money in one of those all night Poker games, so to make a long story short I bought a Wave Radio. needless to say I was not impressed with the sound. As for the clock, it is just as good as the clock radios costing hundreds of dollars less. I guess when a company like Bose stamps their name on a product people buy it. I had a set of Bose speakers when I was in college and loved the sound. I was told by many people that this radio is the greatest in the world. Boy do I feel stupid for buying one.

Similar Products Used:

None this expensive, but I have had a few clock radios in my day.

Good Features, Smart engineering, Good sound

Price, Price, Price

O.K. I realize this is a Bose-Bashing hangout but I honestly doubt many of the negative reviewers have actually heard the Wave Radio/CD, they usually don't have SPECIFIC criticisms about the system other than the price or "the sound sucks-- my home system is better... etc etc."
Let me start by saying I got the Wave Radio/CD from my wife for an early Christmas gift and she got it online for 100 bucks off the usual asking price of 500 dollars, so I don't feel as financially raped as others could if they paid full price with tax. But hear me out, I'll try to be specific.
1. THE SOUND: O.k. The sound is good. On certain songs and artists where live music and acoustics are used, the sound is VERY good, almost GREAT. This little thing is very lively in its play - its hard to express in words, but if you ever remember the difference in sound when you heard your first high-end discreet amp, such as Harmon Kardon, after you were used to the old, muffled low-end Pioneer or Sony receiver, it seemed like every nuance was 'right out front' for you to hear. You picked up small things, such as when a guitar player moved his foot or changed his hands on the fret board. Well, this thing recreates that discreet sound, putting every single thing that was recorded right out front for you to clearly hear. That is the beauty of this radio that you won't get in a Kloss/ Cambridge Soundworks knock-off or Harmony clock.
The circuitry does a very good job at setting the proper levels and changing them for whatever you're listening to. This really comes out if your listening to voices playing against bigger bands, such as Harry Connick Jr, Red light/ Blue light. Or, dare I add to it, even classical music - although I'm not the biggest classical fan, the sound imaging in Randy Newman's 'Awakenings' soundtrack is sharper than any I've heard on my Onkyo home system or my car, and I've been listening to that CD for 7 years now.
There is one drawback in the sound, however. This thing does not play RAP or heavy kick drums very good at all. If you're an Eminem or Dr. Dre fan, you won't like the sound of that music on this radio. It accurately recreates the sound of base in guitars and most live drums, but it doesn't do the really low megahertz standing-wave base drums very well, and if you crank it up on some rap songs, it will simply sound like its 'folding' the drivers and distorting. But at least its only on RAP, everything else, Rock, country, R&B, even talk radio sound very impressive. The FM tuner picks up stations I didn't know existed in this area, including college radio stations in town.

2. The Features are great. There are two independent alarms that you can program to wake you up with either the CD or radio, or one of each. Everything about the radio and clock can be reset to a different function, such as how dim the clock display gets after it senses the lights are off in the room, and you gotta love the slow ramp up effect of the volume on the alarms starting at zero and going up a few notches every second until you realize, "Hey, I'm suppose to get up." There are stereo inputs for your T.V. or a tape player, and there's even outputs for extra powered speakers or a subwoofer.

3. The Remote Control is too cool, and has all the functions you need, including mute, and track search, skip and other CD functions plus 6 am and fm presets

Summary
There are those nay-sayers out there that have a campaign against Bose. I don't know why, but it is evident. Despite the numerous engineering and design awards that have been won, the fact that most places of worship, concert and sporting venues, and even NASA uses Bose, and the fact that its one of the few companies that put most of its earnings back into R&D, there will always be critics.

I've seen the commercials on T.V., and for once, I agree.

If you can afford this thing, buy it. You can return it if you don't agree. But write a REAL review if you like it.

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nothing in same category

Compact Size

Everything else about it is WEAK

What a mistake. I've been wanting to get this radio for a few years, but always hesitate because of the high price. Finally decided to take the plunge. But, before I place the phone order, I went online to this site and read all the review about it. Majority are thums-down with 1 or 2 thumbs-up. Still, I told myself, Bose products aren't bad, these people are probably a bunch of Bose-bashers. So I ordered.
Came in yesterday. Open the box and set it up. You won't believe this. It's the worst sounding system I've ever heard. My daughter's $40.00 boombox sound better than this piece of crap. Unbelievable. There should be law against this kind of rip-off.
Called them the next day to return it. Thought I would have to go through a long explantion, but guess what? No question asked. Either they have such great customer service or those people are so used to these type of returns, they don't bother asking.
To make a long story short, this would be the worst investment you ever made if you don't believe these comments below. I'm no Bose-basher, as a matter of fact, I own a few Bose equipment (Lifestyle, AM15, 201) and am happy with them. Waveradio/CD, what a joke and a disgrace. Buy your radio at K-mart....

Similar Products Used:

$15.00 Kmart radio

Small

Bass at high volume

When I first tried out my Bose Wave Radio/CD palyer, using the Gladiator soundtrack, I was amazed at the sound it produced. It had awsome bass for its size. Then I decided to try out my other cds on this magical little radio. After placing the Godsmack cd in the cd player, I noticed that the bass wasn't loud. It was distorted. As a matter of fact, When you crank up the voulume up to 92, the bass sounded like loud thumping, not the deep rich bass that was promised to me. So I said to myself,"Maybe It's the cd", then I tried out the Creed cd and the same thing happend. What happened to the deep rich bass? I decided to read the reviews on this product. After reading "ALL" of the reviews, I decided to return this product. It hurts me to do this because I wanted to like it but I knew that I could could get a better product and better sound for the same price. And another thing, why all the Bose bashing? and why does Clutchfield rank it as a superior system? Anyways, thanks for letting me know that I'm an idiot for forking over $500 for a clock radio.