Bose and Classical Music

[Christopher]

I thought I would splash out and buy Bose Soundtrack 30 speaker (£599) - it can play all the music stored in one's laptop via streaming wireless technology (or something..!), and the sound quality is impressive.

Anyway, a week later I took it back for a refund.

It turns out that, once you select a composer, the next category it takes you through to is "Artist" (ie - performer).  Whereas logically you would expect it to take you through to "Album" (ie - the piece of music).  I have over 20,000 "tracks" in my music library, I really don't know who performed every piece.  I rang the Bose helpline about this, and was informed that "Bose wasn't designed for minority or niche tastes in music" (!!). This made me see red, so I went on to linkedin and sent connection requests to everyone I could find that worked at Bose.  Some of them replied, and even expressed understanding. One even put me in touch with the head of Bose UK (I am London-based), who similarly saw my point of view, and said that Bose, unlike some other companies, is quite receptive and reactive to customer feedback. (Apple has a similar issue with regard to identifying composers, but they are impenetrable.)

The letter I sent is copied in below.

If this is also an issue which vexes you, please do the same and write to senior Bose people via linked in.  This will make them realise that it is a major design fault, though EASILY rectifiable, and not some "minority or niche" issue!


Dear XXXXX,

Thank you so much for replying to my cold-approach connection request!

I recently bought a SoundTouch 30, and love the technology, presentation and quality. As with all previous Bose products which I have bought, the sound quality is first class, best in the market.

However, there is a serious shortcoming which affects those who listen mostly to classical music, which I describe below. When I tried to talk this over with your helpline, I was told that Bose products weren't designed "for classical music or other minority tastes" - please tell me that Bose doesn't regard classical music as minority or niche, it is a huge section of the market, and a huge section of the music world! Maybe not as "flashy" but still....

The issue with the Soundtouch 30 is as follows:

You can select by composer, which is great. But from there, you go through to a list of artists (ie performers), which means nothing when you are searching for a piece of music.

So, for example, once you click on Puccini, you would logically expect to go through to a list of "albums" (ie Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Tosca, Turandot, etc), not a list of random opera singers and orchestras. I have over 1000 classical "albums" - I don't remember who sings/plays what!

Currently the only way to get round this is to click through the artist names one by one till you get to the piece of music that you want. This is time-consuming, and surely not what Bose intended.

To be honest, it vexed me to the extent that I took the SoundTouch 30 back to the store last weekend for a refund, as otherwise it would have sat on my shelf unused. I would certainly buy it back again if I found this fault had been corrected.

I (and many other classical music lovers with whom I have spoken) would be incredibly grateful if you could change this so that one is given the (more logical) option, after selecting a composer, to go through to the "album" list and not the "artist" list.

By comparison, when you search by Artists (say, Madonna), you DO go through to an album list, so please please please make it the same for composer searches!

I do hope that Bose is a company which does genuinely respond to valid customer feedback and that you will be able to give this your attention, or pass it on to appropriate colleagues at Bose.

I am based in London, UK and have also written to Terry Barnard, who I understand is your UK country manager.

Kindest regards,

[sdtom]

While I'm not sure that this topic belongs here I certainly understand your situation and sympathize with your frustration.
Tom

[Christopher]

Yes, I wasn't really sure where to put it.  But I was/am confident that others might have a similar frustration, and hope to create enough of a groundswell, in terms of (potential) customer feedback, that they might do something about it.  I'm fed up with classical music rarely being taken into account by the large music companies! So let's actually do something about it and not just grouse...

[TerraEpon]

Most audiophiles consider Bose to be overpriced anyway. So it's probably for the better.

[MartinH]

That their software behaves like this isn't at all surprising. In the mass market the performer is the most important item. Then the album/song. I don't use things like Spotify, Pandora, iTunes for much the same reason. I have several hundred cds on my completely out of date and abandoned Zune, but it's OS sure made it simple to play things the way I want. Bose is changing, to be sure. I have a 15 year old Bose system that still plays quite well and sounds great in a small room. When I first got it, they included a Bose sample cd - almost all classical. I suspect that in the youth-driven iPod/iPhone driven market that they are more interested in attracting younger people and that means being more attentive to the music they listen to.

[Alan Howe]

Not sure where this thread's going...

[mjkFendrich]

I have faced this problem (not with Bose) myself for a longer time - my short conclusion is:

    I am not aware of a single component out of the box fulfilling the demands for enjoying a large collection of digital files of classical music

But you have several options to assemble a system yourself that will do a great job:

The central piece of this system will be the music server software - in my opinion the best one for classical music is Minim Server
               http://minimserver.com/
which should be installed on some kind of a NAS, where your files are located. Minim Server also allows you to browse your
collection folder based - more on this below.

Then you need some renderer component (often called Network Player) to which the music is streamed, which is then output to
your HiFi equipment (amp, headphones, ...). There are plenty of these nowadays, ranging from 250.-€ to 1000.-+, you should ensure that
gapless playback and all of the common formats (codecs) - at best in HiRes - are supported. Some Network Players also support attaching
USB disks directly, so that you don't need any NAS - depending on the player software/"operating system" browsing of your collection might
be as cumbersome as on the Bose system mentioned above.

Depending on the renderer, it is quite convenient to control it with some separate controller software/device - Bubble UPnP on an Android
tablet is currently my favourite one, you can easily browse your huge collection with it and let the music be played on a renderer of your choice.

Most music servers depend on tagging - this can be quite cumbersome for organizing a large collection of classical music. One of the main
problems (some servers even aren't aware of the "composer" tag!) is that the concept of "composition/work/piece" - which in classical music normally
consists of several movements/tracks - is missing. You could substitute this with the available tag "album", but it tends to become annoying
if you have hundreds of albums called "Symphony No.2". If you have several recordings of the same work, maybe even in different performances
by the same artists, the situation becomes even worse.

Logically, I prefer a search tree of the form (optional elements in square brackets):

      [alphabet range] - composer - genre - [workgroup] - work - [performer] - [performance] - track

eg.  [A-B] - Brian - Symphonies - [Symphonies No.1-6] - Symphony No.1 - Boult - Mvmt.1..N

or perhaps with performer and work reversed, if you want to have all performances of Stanley Pope together in one group.
For myself, I have realized such a scheme folder based, which is easier than by tags. Minim Server can display this folder structure directly,
you can even switch to tag based browsing in any subfolder.

[Christopher]

With due respect only TerraEpon, how is it "for the better"?!?

[Alan Howe]

I think the issues have now been sufficiently aired, so unless there's a point to be made with respect to unsung composers....

[sdtom]

I think I can say that everyone has their own system and problems crop up with all of them. My system works for me but not for anyone else. I vote that we close this topic. Perhaps Alan and Mark might think about setting up a specific place to discuss system/computer issues.
Tom

[Mark Thomas]

Not worth the hassle, Tom. The topic crops up so infrequently on UC.

[sdtom]

This another forum I frequent and a couple of the members Martijn and Thor are pretty sharp. Pose your question and you might get an answer.
Tom
http://www.maintitles.net/forum/discussions/