This def needs to be celebrated and rewarded. I am more likely to purchase Bose now.
"Bose blows" is a popular comment amongst the audiophile community but, to me, it seems like they don't blow at all[0]. In fact quite the opposite: this is a fantastic example for other companies to follow. Top marks, Bose!
[0] What is actually true is that they are opinionated about sound reproduction in ways that a bunch of people don't agree with but which in the right context are often effective and enjoyable to listen to.
That comment is not wrong, you are imo just not making an important distinction that the criteria on which audiophiles judge Bose as “blowing” (which is almost purely the sound profile + a few other smaller things like physical comfort/connectivity/price/etc.) vs. what you judge it on (which is more in the long-term technical user/community product support, idk how to describe that area much better) are almost entirely disjoint.
It is perfectly fine and valid for an audio product to “blow” from an opinionated audiophile perspective, while being exceptionally great from the long-term product/user/community product support perspective.
I heavily agree with you btw, Bose should be heavily lauded for making a decision to open-up their speaker firmware after it reaches the official end of support deadline. The fact that this is an exceptional practice is imo, a little bit sad, because I believe that it should be way more common.
If you want really good stereo or 5.1 sound there is no substitute for big speakers that can move a lot of air.
[1] maybe it is that gene polymorphism that makes my ears overflow with wax and has my doctor warning they will plug up one of these days
I love the new airpods pro for my daily commute (subway, not a car; just clarifying before I get hammered down in replies for driving and using airpods at the same time), doubly so given their compactness+heavily improved ANC.
For home, I love my open-back Beyerdynamic DT1990Pro pair, due to the audio profile + insanely good physical comfort when worn for prolonged periods of time.
For gatherings with friends for when I need a somewhat-portable bluetooth speaker (that also happen to look good when sitting on a bookshelf outside of active use), I have a TE-OB4.
If I had a larger living space, I would consider getting a pair of high-quality speakers again too.
But there is not a single "this is it" piece of audio equipment that would just replace everything, so you gotta pick and choose your poison.
But for awhile Bose's headphones had the best noise cancelling out there.
Their old ads were super irritating though, and many people (such as you and me!) are still irritated about them decades later.
A minor nitpick: while Apple entering the ANC arena certainly set fire under the existing mainstream brands to improve their ANC headphones, imo Bose started facing serious competition on that front even before Apple moved in.
I remember Sony releasing their MDR-1000X par being the first crack in the wall. I specifically remember this, because I picked up those headphones in favor of Bose options at the time.
P.S. Yes, the naming scheme on Sony's side is atrocious, because MDR-1000X is the first gen of their very popular WH-1000XM line of ANC headphones that people treat as a flagship ANC headphone pair (with the most recent one being WH-1000XM6).
I actually had a pair of Sennheiser noise cancelling headphones and they had a really good BT implementation, super low latency and the ANC was really good. Sadly they developed a persistent hiss in one earpiece.
They don't fall out often and when they do I'm not worried about losing them.
Out in public is different. (1) It's a pet peeve of mine that people are wearing them and oblivious to warnings about environmental threats or sitting in a machine at the gym for 20 minutes doing nothing looking at their phone and hard to get in contact with. (2) I am doing a practice that increases sensory awareness when I "go out" and listening to music with noise canceling isn't compatible with that.
On the newest ones, the tips have a foam core inside them.
My personal experience of Bose PA and HiFi equipment is that is belongs in the trash.
I like how they color sound, and how they use psychoacoustics to do what they do.
Audiophiles using music to listen their systems are missing the point.
If we gave tax breaks for open sourcing EOL products, we'd see a lot more of it. Code escrow companies might not like it, though.
Glad to see them setting a great example here instead of letting these speakers become expensive paperweights.
I have a 15 years old Bose system. Is it audio-transparent ? Absolutely not, its frequency response is well documented. But the sound is very pleasing, it's reliable and nearly invisble in my living room.
I'm not an audiophile though, just a music lover.
Bose used to advertise that they were the best sounding speaker out there, while also running advertisements that made claims which violated the laws of physics.
For the same price as a Bose system you could get something much higher quality. Bose was selling at luxury prices w/o luxury quality. They got away with it because compared to the cheap garbage most people listened to, Bose's stuff was nicer. Their quality was mid to upper mid tier, and the build quality was generally good.
But people got irritated by a decade ads saying a tiny speaker is more powerful than a proper speaker setup.
Now days Bose makes good quality noise cancelling headphones (and I suspect they made more revenue selling NC headphones during the open office and then COVID era than they ever did selling speakers in the 90s!) and they brand car stereo systems.
Their noise cancelling headphones are good, even if the ear pads wear our way too fast.
Pretty much no one has a home hi-fi setup anymore, everyone just has a sound bar. I do have a hi-fi music setup, people are rather shocked when they come over that I even bothered. I got it for $2k on Craigslist years ago, the setup cost someone a small fortune when they were brand new. IMHO buying new hi-fi gear is pointless, Speakers made in 2005 sound just as good as speakers made in 2025, the laws of physics haven't changed any!
One, to show their support for audiophiles who supported them.
Two, make superior products to klipsch that - ummm - actually state the real ranges of the speakers and use real copper windings instead of “painted” copper.
That said their implementation of noise-cancelling headphones/earbuds was a legit game-changer. And good on them for open-sourcing these speakers!
And I'm couching this all in very neutral terms, not because I have an axe to grind with them, but because I don't want to get into a flame war with the kind of audiophiles who hate Bose.
FWIW the Bose products I've heard and used all sounded pretty good. At the end of the day they're designed for people to enjoy music within a particular target context, not necessarily to be the most accurate at reproducing the recording exactly.
(I'll say this as well: reproducing the recording exactly isn't necessarily what you want to get something to sound good. A lot of albums from the loudness war era benefit significantly from rolling off some of the higher frequencies, where clipping occurs, for example. So I have one amplifier that includes - gasp, shock, horror - tone controls that I sometimes use and, on another system where the amp doesn't have tone controls, I've hooked up a [true] stereo graphic equalizer. You also have to take the listening environment into account and when you do that some element of processing the sound before it comes out of the speakers can also prove to be beneficial. Anyway, I shall now go and brace myself for some righteous abuse from the purists.)
- mechanical CAD, schematic and PCB files: https://docs.teufel.de/download/MYND/Open_Source_Hardware_Fi...
- firmware: https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware
- Bluetooth API documentation: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/image/upload/v1748589486/product...
- battery repair/replacement guide: https://cdn.teufelaudio.com/products/MYND/pdf/Teufel_MYND_RM...
I believe that they designed the mechanical parts to be 3D-printable as well.
Budget-aware folks will buy these second-hand, neophiles will buy new, confident that long term solutions will exist even after "long term support" is over.
Heck, even knowing there's a second-hand market makes me more likely to buy Bose new.
Between that and the good-will they're getting from this move, this is making a ton of life-long Bose fans out of a lot of audio geeks. And if there's a community well-known for creating religions out of their hardware preferences...
The most amusing anti-example of this was the Switch generation: $60 for a cartridge, or $60 for a digital license. Guess which is actually more valuable? Guess which you were more likely to find discounted, even if only by a marginal amount, by some store desperate to move stock out of the way?
By contrast, I'm not worried about the fact I can't resell my copy of Game X I got on Steam when I only paid $5 for it in the first place.
> Uhhh I’m gonna tell all my friends to stop eating there
I have decided to not spit in your food after all. Praise me.
I'd avoid, even if they happened to do this.
This may be subjective. Bose might sound good to some people's ears and less good to other people's ears.
I personally prefer corded headphones and mains powered speakers, but if I were to buy a small wireless speaker I would buy a cheaper brand and ideally second hand, because this category of devices are basically consumables.
Sound quality is not the same as music quality.
To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music
To be even more specific, Signal Reproduction is not the same as "Pleasant Sounds*
The goal of music is not always high fidelity of reproduction; if it were, over-driven valve amps would never have been a thing.
The only thing objective in this context is signal reproduction, which is not the highest concern for music production.
If a speaker reproduces some music with 100% accuracy and the result is unpleasant, doesn’t that just mean the original music—as created by the artist—is unpleasant?
Where possible, I’d prefer a speaker that respects the artist’s decisions instead of inserting itself into the creative process.
IMHO, people place too much importance on "accuracy". While accuracy might be objectively measured, it means nothing when it comes to individual taste.
Hi-fi speakers, tube amps, and other accessories generally "degrade" the sound with added harmonics and natural smile EQs. That's what makes them sound more pleasing.
(I'm not disagreeing with you, just adding more color.)
A good example of this is a target curve, often used in room calibration. Dirac has a good explanation: https://www.dirac.com/resources/target-curve
(highly recommend Dirac room correction, by the way)
There's an argument for both, but frankly, if studio monitor setups don't sound "as good" why bother?
A $40 Bluetooth box from any big name brand is better than the speakers in a smart TV.
I am very happy with my QC-35 headphones. They are probably 5y+ now and they go with me everywhere. I think it is unfair to state their hw quality is low. It is much better than low.
Until quite recently, they were widely one of if not the most recommended wireless headphones. The new Sennheiser's that come with a USB-C dongle might have finally stepped past what Bose has been delivering, but at a higher price.
Now if I could change the firmware to turn NC off, that would be something entirely different...
We also like the Bose soundbar as it has a mode that makes dialogue more intelligible on our TV.
They are such a standard response that presumably a real audiophile will come along to point out that their favorite model is much better, than a particular well known Sennheiser model, but as far as one can say in brand terms they are solid.
All the Chinese-made Sennheiser stuff has awful QA.
Also, there are multiple forums and subreddits you can ask this question on. You will get more answers than you would from me and the rest of HN.
Their build quality is exceptional, and they're built like tanks. The only problem, imo, is the Beyer house sound is very shouty and fatiguing, especially with the "990" versions of the product line over the years.
Disclaimer: I owned a Beyer DT880/600ohm (the neutral one of the 770/880/990 siblings), paired with an amp that could properly handle it. Its one of the few headphones I sold and did not retain in my collection, it deserved someone that could love it. The new Tesla-based drivers are better (such as that 1990), but still retain that Beyer sound.
Where'd you see they're exiting pro/flagship tier stuff? Everything I can find says they're continuing to hand-make their higher-end stuff in Germany. One such source: https://www.whathifi.com/headphones/100-year-old-headphone-b...
I recommend HiFiMan Sundara/Ananda if they fit your head and there aren't any CPU fans in your room.
Hifiman QA is exceptionally bad, and they tend to not stand by their warranty, and their US repair facility is just some dude's house.
The threads on /r/headphones over Hifiman shafting them are numerous.
Disclaimer: I too had a Hifiman pair, they sounded great, but their physical design just didn't hold up to daily use, no matter how much I babied them.
My best sounding headphones are a pair of old Stax with the worst construction I've ever seen on anything, so I mostly keep them locked up assuming they'll break if I breathe in them.
I may just end up replacing them with something from ZMF.