Horrific Confession and Question

From my experience, unless your guests are visiting with the purpose of listening to music it really does not matter what you are playing background music on. Over the last year or so I have put together a pretty expensive, great sounding two channel system that my wife and I enjoy almost daily. When we got visitors for the holidays, they were not too excited about sitting around and listening to it with us. It ended up being played at very low volumes (for our taste) and we just as well could have been playing a boom box from a discount store. Guests like to talk to each other, dance, eat or whatever. Unless you are entertaining a very small group of audiophiles or have correct seating for a lot of people I think background music could be played on just about anything. Unless your friends and family are diferent than ours, most won't even notice.

I think there is a huge allure to background music. I will never have a dedicated sound room because I use my system so much while doing other activities and pefer it in my living room. I use it when Im cooking, cleaning, drawing, or on the computer. I think the higher end system is always more enjoyable in any situation but agree it isnt as important while doing other things.

Bose delivers what the typical mass-market music listener desires, and that is mids, mid-bass, and more mids. They give the fans of popular music room filling mids and the chance to appreciate all the meaningful lyrics found on the pop charts [:(]. In the world of non-critical listening, it seems to me, many want to hear primarily vocals and mid-bass boom, and when that is heard easily and clearly they like it and say, "wow, aren't those Bose speakers something?" And, as a critical listener, you might be inclined to hold your nose and reply, "yes, they really are." [:)] This type speaker design fills the room with quantity, not quality, sounds. Perfect for shopping and I bet it would do well for your party background music as there is no "sweet spot," and can be done inexpensively. In comparison, I tried to design an ambient sound system in my veterinary clinic that would be high quality. In my waiting room I use PSB Alpha A/V's mounted up high like you see the Bose in a Gap. Unfortunately, you cannot hear music well [?] out of the PSB's when the volume is at an appropriately low level for a waiting room. (It sounds pretty good after hours, though.) As the goal is to provide some distraction with “background music” while waiting, I will probably change the waiting room speakers to something like a Bose. [:(] Yes, Bose is poo poo as far as critical listening goes, but it does what it does. This particular design is also beneficial for folks with certain types of hearing loss, so if you, out there, don’t take care of your ears, Bose might just be your label one day. Now, there's a thought! Take care, Charlie.

My confession is that I love my B&O 4000 System + 6000 Beolab speakers. I have these speakers in the masterbedroom and our two home offices they look great and deliver very satisfying background music for those environments. Of course it doesn't sound as good as my main audio system or even my home theater system, but it is great design and fits my objectives.

Just as a side note, I was shopping at Musicland in a mall before Christmas a few years ago, looking for new material. Background music playing, crowds making noise, cash registers going, you know, the works. I was about half way to the back when I heard something. Live music! Had to cock my head to figure out where it was coming from and walked that way, out of the store, around a corner and up a floor. It was a high school orchestra, playing Christmas songs and was able to cut thru all the din. I was genuinely surprised that it really is tough to fool your ears.