I bought a pair of BOSE Speakers today for my office. It’s intended to be a small speaker set for casual music listening and what not. My old set by Creative Labs was dying out. The sound quality was messy, and the volume would fluctuate at lower volumes – probably a circuitry problem. Anyhow, I went to Future Shop to test out some new speakers. At first I was hell-bent on buying a 2.1 Speaker set. In case you are not aware, the .1 decimals on speaker sets indicate a subwoofer added to it. So 2.1 means 2 speakers with a subwoofer down below. I love having subwoofers as I feel that it gives the music so much more beat while taking the load off the satellite speakers, making the noise much more clear. I’m not a fan of very heavy bass though – so it’s usually not on very high.

But when I tested out the BOSE Companion 2 Speaker set after checking out some Logitechs (which are great great speakers if I may add) and Altec Lansings (which by the way have very messy sound, if your ears are sensitive enough), I was blown away. I couldn’t believe how much sound clarity and weight was coming off a 2-speaker set without a subwoofer. Their slogan is “better sound through engineering” and they were not kidding. The difference in the clarity and tone of music was so obvious, I was sold in a few minutes. It was $99 in price. I could have gotten a 2.1 set from Logitech for around that price, or some lower-wattage models, even less, but I was still going to stick with the BOSE set I chose.

After some struggles trying to get my new AMEX card to put the transaction through, I brought them home to test it out.

Here is my critique on this speaker set:

1. Sound clarity is amazing. Especially considering these are single channel speakers. This one sounds better than the 3 channel speaker set by Logitech that I tested out. Usually speakers with 2 different channels sound better but this one proved that presumption wrong.
2. The bass is very powerful, even without a subwoofer. This is great, because it saves me a lot of space by not having that big subwoofer sitting on my bottom shelf. I can now utilize that space.
3. If you like to plug in other devices such as an MP3 player, or some kind of an external device, however, it’s a bit wonky. Usually these speakers come with an extra port for external devices other than the laptop itself, but this one doesn’t. It means you need to unplug-and-replug when you switch devices. Not a big problem for me however – I don’t own ANY portable music devices whatsoever.
4. The speakers cannot be mounted on the wall. So even though I saved space in my bottom shelf, I lost space on my desktop. Not much lies behind my laptop anyways, so it’s not a huge loss.
5. They could have made it a bit prettier. But oh well, it sounds good so I guess the looks can be compromised a little bit. But it’s basically a slanted box with a steel mesh covering – pretty typical for speakers.
6. If you’re used to having a wired remote sticking out for volume control, forget it. This has one volume knob on the right side speaker. No treble or bass or tone switches… but then it sounds so good

Overall, this was a worthy investment, priced at $99 and tax at Futureshop. They’re having a sale – they claim that regular price is $150. The BOSE website, however, sells them for $119.99, which is a curious thing in regards to Futureshop’s pricing. Usually manufacturer sites are the most expensive, and then the prices get slashed as you go to other more competitive retail outlets.