Acoustic Wave Music System

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• Expert Rating

  2.00 / 5

• User Rating

  0.00 / 5 (of 1 Review)

• Price

  $ 1,999.00 (AUD)

Ross Catanzariti Good Gear Guide 15/03/06 Follow @pcworldau

Pros

• Excellent clear and crisp sound quality

Cons

• Overpriced, Lacks any sort of features, No bass or treble adjustments, Design could have been improved

Bottom Line

Make no mistake, it sounds great, but at this sort of price you'd expect it to be able to fly you to the moon and back.

Would you buy it?

• Yes 1
• No 0

Own this? Write a review

The Wave Music System is quite compact, but then again, a simple CD player and radio doesn't tend to take up much space. What!? Yes, you read correctly. The Acoustic Wave Music System is a CD Player and AM/FM Radio. That's all. No, it doesn't play MP3s. No, it doesn't play DVDs. No, it doesn't do anything else, besides play a single compact disc and allow you to listen to the radio. And yes, in case you forgot, whilst you just spat out your cornflakes, we're in 2006...

And herein lays the basic issue we have with the Wave Music System. For its asking price, we can't help but feel you are literally throwing away money if you decide to purchase this horrendously overpriced music system. We aren't saying it isn't any good; in fact, the sound quality for such a small system is excellent, but in terms of value for money, we can't recommend this to anyone at all. For far less money, you could purchase a fully fledged wireless home theatre system.

For $1999 the Wave Music System gives you a single top loading CD player and an AM/FM Radio with five (5) presets for each band. We're guessing now's the time you're waiting to read the long list of options, inputs and sound settings that spending this kind of money gives you, right? Well you're waiting, but unfortunately you're not going to get it.

The Wave Music System is as basic as they come. There are no sound presets, nor is there an option to adjust bass or treble levels. In fairness to Bose, the treble is above average as it is, but we felt the bass wasn't adequate. Being able to adjust such sound settings is a very basic function that is standard on almost every one of these types of units. To see it absent on a system at this price point was almost unbelievable. A credit card style remote control, an auxiliary input, Microphone Jack and Line Out round out the features list (or lack of).

The design of this system is also a letdown and coming from Bose, we quite frankly expected something a little more exciting. It does look different and stands out from the crowd with its odd shape and sleek curves, but the colour scheme just doesn't do it for us. Perhaps a silver or chrome model would have been a nice option. The Wave Music System CD is a top loader and is surrounded by its controls to the left, with the radio controls and small orange backlit LCD screen to the right. This design really isn't practical, as the screen can't be seen unless you place the system lower than eye height.

Despite all these problems and the ridiculous price point, the Wave Music System does sound excellent. It produces thoroughly crisp sounds with outstanding clarity; especially evident in classical pieces such as those included on the Bose demonstration CD. Results were a little mixed on other types of music though and tunes from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers lacked the bass and bite that you might be used to on other systems. In fact the lack of bass impact on all Bose systems we've reviewed is somewhat of an issue. We also experienced slight hissing at higher volume levels, which did have a significant impact on our listening experience.