Bose is closing all of its retail stores N America, Europe, Japan, and Australia | Hacker News Reader

Bose is closing all of its retail stores N America, Europe, Japan, and Australia

theverge.com

24 pointsSQL221917 comments

Bose has an excellent brand name, akin to Rolls Royce in automotive(I understand there are more higher end audio companies, but they don’t have general public reach of Bose).

But it does appear they are getting chipped away at by upstarts like Beats & Sonos on the low-end luxury slice.

I wonder if Bose will have to choose going the way of Leica & Zeiss and conduct more licensing deals?

I do find it odd that a company with a physical product that demands in-person experiential evaluation would remove the experience.

If I had to guess, I suspect they will follow with in-store experience kiosks with retail distribution partners, much like what is found in some key airport locations.

This does put a dent in the concept of experiential retail.

In the 90s Bose speakers used to be the thing for upper middle class men. They used to proudly show off their systems when you visited their houses. Is this still the case?

I don’t think so...

My techie friends are buying Sonos.

Also, Sony has made some serious inroads to the noise canceling headphones lineup with the 1000XM series.

Adding to their injury, my brother in law is in the corporate av business, and they have a saying: Go Bose - no highs - no lows. (Basically, no one gets fired for buying Bose, but they are no longer the best)

There's a similar saying in the AV industry for BOSE: Buy Other Sound Equipment.

no highs no lows must be bose ?

Sonos? Their equipment age like milk and have even worse sound than Bose.

I'd recommend Marshall, nice base and excellent value.

If noise canceling is what you're after then the Apple and Samsungs seems to have eaten the cake.

Bose was never the best. They were attractive and well marketed, but there’s a reason they were the only major manufacturer that didn’t publish a frequency response for their speakers.

I have a set of the WH1000XM3's, coming from a couple of different QC over ear headphones. I love the WH1000XM3's to death. They sound great, are comfortable, and have very good battery life.

Maybe in the same way that some people show off their Hummers.

No one who knows a thing about audio would proudly show off a Bose product.

Bose were almost always panned after the 301 by audio people. While they have good design, their performance always seemed secondary. They were more of an 'I can afford it' thing. While I dislike their products, their branding is stellar.

I don’t think this is about product quality or even competition. It is that retail is dying.

I don't think some people even knew they had stores, so not sure if a big deal or not. I always thought Bose was the best though, but maybe I fell for the marketing. Then if you travel a bunch, some travel blogs recommend their headphones too. Only Bose thing I own is a the SoundLink Mini II which is a bluetooth speaker.

I know it seems people really like Beats too, which Apple bought out but never had any of those. I always though Beats were more just branding then anything, make a pair of headphones and slap Dr. Dre's name on them, so I figured more marketing driven then tech but maybe with Apple owning them that's opinion might be a bit dated then. Then I also seen people recommend JBL and Sony too, but I don't really have much of a opinion on either.

But have you got an onion on your belt tho.

I'm not sure that Apple owning a company is an endorsement of quality as much as an indication that it's a complementary product with a similar business model (high perception, high margin). I've owned one pair of Beats (wireless Studio headphones with noise cancelling), and a small handful of Bose products. I prefer Bose.

Bose is getting screwed by the competition and they know it. On the speaker side you’ve got Sonos and the smart speakers, plus tons of low cost home theatre systems that sound plenty good (heard a Visio system recently, sounded fantastic).

Then on the headphone front, everyone is going with first party systems like AirPods. And it’s only a matter of time before Apple brings out over ear headphones. I’ve been a loyal QC customer for over 10 years, but the second Apple brings out its competitor I’ll probably switch (and Bose knows it).

I worry a bit about the audio space. I think there's a lot of good competition out there but see it as becoming increasingly siloed due to network effects of connectivity standards. Maybe this has changed but it kept me from purchasing some Sonos equipment a few years ago and Apple seems hellbent on pulling everyone into it's system to lock them in (I say this as someone who owns Apple products).

I think the backlash against Bose is a bit undeserved. There's plenty of good products by other companies now, but Bose still makes some really great sounding equipment. A lot of the criticism of their products I think is a kind of contrarism due to the hype that existed at one time. I have one pair of speakers of theirs that every so often I become convinced I could find something better by now, but when I actually listen to the alternatives, they sound nowhere near as good (including Sonos and other, audiophile type brands).

It seems there's always these cycles of one or more brands being the hipster equipment to buy, some audiophile non-conformist backlash, and then the reintroduction of a new cycle.

That being said, it's hard for me to imagine any brand having standalone audio only stores, except maybe a couple of locations or something. People either buy blind online (which leads to really distorted statements about relative quality on the internet imho) or go somewhere to compare multiple brands' products in person.

Apple already has over the ear headphones. They own Beats.

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