Bose cube replacement question.

How much would you be getting the dual cubes for?

When you do replace them, buy some really cheap other brand cubes that look just like the bose. You can get them for a lot less and they sound the same as the bose.

Exactly. Bose takes $3 drivers, sticks them in a cube and charges 30X more. Find some cheapies and they'll sound exactly the same. You can measure the impedance with a multimeter.

No you cant. Impedance varies with frequency, and often has low peaks that cause problems for amplifiers. Impedance is basically AC resistance, and the value you would get from hooking up a ohmmeter would be inaccurate at best.
Here is an explanation of how to do it: http://www.fixya.com/support/t174447-measure_speaker_impedance
Edited by jdcrox - 2/7/13 at 10:33pm

Yes, impedance does vary with frequency. But most all speaker manufacturers list an impedance rating which is normally the rating measured across the terminals with no power applied.

What you're measuring there is resistance, not impedance. Resistance is on average impedance x 0.7.

I find it interesting that Bose does not publish these or any specs at all! criminal!

With all us "enlightened" nuts around, screaming at the top of our lungs every time a bose user asks a question you would think that more of the general public would know just how garbage these things are. (when i say garbage I mean not worth the money)

O well live and learn I guess.

This is why:
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

I've been wondering recently if this is also why Bose never went public. Investors might want to know the frequency response of those speakers, and they certainly would find out the cost

As an investor, I'd be tickled pink to find a highly profitable company like that, although I might find myself having an ethical dilemma about being a part owner of it. I'd certainly though, rather own part of the company than any of their products.

True, but it would a PR nightmare for Bose if their own measurements of their speakers or their actual costs were disclosed to the public. Instead of only a bunch of audiophiles complaining about it, their competitors would have a field day.

That is the same article I came across after researching speakers, unfortunately it was years after I purchased my lifestyle 35 system...that went out after about 5 years. Well you live and learn I suppose and now I consider myself better informed. I still get notices from Bose if I want to upgrade, got one earlier this week as a matter of fact. I just chuckled, ripped it to pieces and tossed it.

You go public primarily because you need investors to raise capital to do things like invest in plants and buy supplies to make your products out of. Bose has such a high profit margin that they never had any issues raising capital without going public. The problem when you do have shareholders is that you have to share your profits with them.

I'm sure that they could have figured out how to spend some extra cash to generate more money by expanding into other markets. How about Bose LCD TVs? Lower resolution, but better video quality because it's Bose (hehe)

No company is forced to pay dividends nor to execute share buybacks, which are really the only direct mechanisms for sharing profits.

I I think Apple is just getting sued for keeping too much cash and not giving dividends. Granted I don't think the suit has a real chance of winning.

Smart investors don't buy stock that doesn't pay dividends.

Nevertheless there are many non-dividend stocks out there, and there is no legal requirement that any given company has to declare one. I personally have strict criteria which include a five+ year history of regular dividend increases, but that's neither here nor there.

I am pretty sure the Bose cubes have three inch drivers, way to small to produce anything but high midrange!

He was talking about the "sub" having 5 inch drivers. The cubes use 2.5 inch untreated paper drivers.

Okay, good point...so the Acoustimas has under sized speaker AND bass module drivers!

This nets out to the following, per the article:


SATELLITES BASS MODULE
driver size 2.5" 5"
Frequency Response 280 Hz to 13.3k Hz at ±10.5 dB 46Hz to 202Hz at ±2.3 dB
Sensitivity (SPL at 1 meter)* 85.1 dB N/A
Impedance (minimum/nominal) 5.3/8 ohms N/A
Bass Limits (-3/-6 dB) 280/220 Hz 46/40 Hz

Here is the result of my (optimistic) speaker model:

2.5 inch satellite

Freq,Hz Max SPL, DB

10 45
20 57
30 64
40 69
50 73
60 76
70 78
80 81
90 83
100 85
110 86
120 88
130 89
140 90
150 92
160 93
170 94
180 85
190 86
200 88
210 89
220 90
230 92
240 93
250 94
260 95
270 96
280 97
290 97
300 98
310 99
320 100

5" "Subwoofer"

Freq,Hz Max SPL, DB

10 65
20 77
30 84
40 89
50 93
60 96
70 98
80 101
90 103
100 105
110 106
120 108
130 109
140 110
150 112
160 113
170 114
180 105
190 106
200 108
210 109
220 110
230 112
240 113
250 114
260 115
270 116
280 117
290 117
300 118
310 119
320 120

In my book the satellites are good down to about 320 Hz, and the "subwoofer" is good down to about 80 Hz.

Clearly these will never be contenders in a "Crank 'er up" contest. ;-)

Your efforts are appreciated, but IMO a standard FR chart would be more useful and user friendly.

I am under the impression that Bose actually invests a bit of money in those 2.5 inch cube speakers. Originally they had pretty marginal Xmax and were pretty easy to overload, but they have been upgraded for a while.

I might consider the Toshiba SBX4250 to be a more competively priced implementation of a similar concept, and while it sells for only a tiny fraction of the price, it still runs several $100's.

I guess I have been remiss in my explanations of my approach.

With the pervasive and economical implementations of DSPs it is relatively cheap and easy to produce equipment that in some sense responds over a wide frequency range, but lacks adequate dynamic range for that frequency range to be useful. This extends even to passive speakers, because if you make a driver with a sloppy enough suspension and/or enough mass loading (cheap to do) and put it in a relatively large box, it will in some sense respond to impressively low frequencies, but again it won't get loud enough and clean enough to be seriously considered to be "High Fidelity".

One relative parameter is the fact that the threshold of hearing at 20 Hz is almost 80 dB, and just hitting that mark takes a little bit of serious hardware. ;-)

the Acuostimas system has a wicked gap from around 100hz to arounf 300 hz, all way below -3 db (same article as linked above, I think...)
http://nyet.org/bose/