The PR propaganda that came with the Wave Radio claims that Dr. Amar Bose (the man behind the biggest speaker company in the world) has harbored a lifelong dream of building a tabletop radio that really sounds like a hi fi. Well, Amar, you can put a tick next to that dream and move on with the rest of your life.
As Penn Gillette (Teller's vocal buddy) will tell you, a lot of magic is just plain lying. In this case, Amar's lie is "What you see is what you get." While the Wave Radio is only about the size of a college dictionary, inside there's actually a corridor almost a full yard long and as convoluted as your intestines. Sound travels from one of two 2.5-inch speakers through that wave guide and produces bass all the way down to 70 Hz, which, while it may not match what emanates from rapmobiles, is still utterly convincing. Meanwhile, both speakers handle stereo chores above 250 Hz, producing clean, sweet sound that will have your friends wondering where you've hidden your fancy speakers.
Not only does Wave Radio sound good, but it's loaded with useful bells and whistles. For example, it has finger-friendly, soft, rubbery control buttons. It has a neat credit-card-sized remote control, so you can adjust it from across the room. You can fall asleep to one station and wake up to another. And it has two separate alarms: You and your bedmate can set different wake-up calls – guaranteed wake-ups, since the volume gradually rises to intolerable.
The bells and whistles are fine, but it's the sound that makes you smile at this baby. Turn the volume control all the way up, so loud you've got to shout to hear yourself – and it doesn't distort. At all.
My bedmate and I have been listening to the Wave Radio now for more than six months, and this little box is so good we still haven't invested in a proper hi fi. What we did was buy a portable CD player and plug it into the Wave Radio (it could have been a tape recorder too).
At US$349, this isn't the cheapest clock radio in the world. On the other hand, what's the realization of a dream worth?
Wave Radio: US$349. Bose Corp.: (800) 358 2673, +1 (508) 879 7330.
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