Daily Blog – Piero Gabucci – March 25, 2008: A VISIT WITH BOSTON ACOUSTICS.

I had a chance to visit with Boston Acoustics and see some of their new products. We are late with this report, but here it is anyway.

You knew Boston Acoustics had something special in mind when they unveiled a new slick logo replacing their longstanding conservative emblem as a symbol of things to come. Introducing three significant new concepts in the audio world, BA has developed in the last year or so some new and hip concepts. So come play!!

 Responding to the current market of customizing and personalizing your gear, Boston Acoustics introduced their Personal Options Plan, or P.O.P. With this new “make it your own” concept, Boston Acoustics developed the first modestly priced and sized series called Horizon that allows the buyer to select from a number of off-the-shelf colors for grilles and for the speaker shells. An upscale series, called Vista (Horizon today, Vista tomorrow, get it?) is now available.

The Horizon series is a youthful looking package that is complete from small bookshelf units to full size floorstanding speakers and subwoofers. Very nicely engineered, the bookshelf units, HS 40, 50, and 60 priced at $99.00, $129.00 and $150.00 each respectively can be stand or wall mounted, or literally sit on your shelf – the same for the larger LCR HS 225 at $249.00 each. The HS units are 2-way designs, rear-ported with 4 ½”, 5 ¼”, and 6 ½” drivers respectively. The LCR units each have dual 5 ¼” drivers.

Floorstanding speakers with the HS 450 and 460 priced at $300.00 and $400.00 each continue the variable color theme. Subwoofers available include the down-firing wireless 150w powered unit HPS 8Wi at $399.95 and three larger front-firing (non-wireless) subs, the 10” 150w HPS 10SE at $299.99, 250w HPS 10HO at $399.99 and the 300w 12” HPS 12HO at $499.99.

Along with Horizon, Boston Acoustics also jumped into the lifestyle products game by introducing the TVee™ Model Two – a small “bar” array stereo speaker meant to replace the often poor quality sound from the flat panel displays flying off the shelves. Not to be confused with the other surround bar packages out there, the TVee™ product is strictly 2-channel with an important twist – a wireless (don’t call it a subwoofer) woofer. At an affordable $399.00, the package sounded terrific and in keeping with the Play Smart™ concept, a variety of new trendy colors are available.

“Smartly” designed, the TVee™ series product learns the commands from your own remote for volume and mute. It features 4- 2 ½” mid-base drivers and 2-1/2” dome tweeters. The system delivers a healthy 100 watts total power.

Boston Acoustics also introduced in the Horizon line, the MCS (multi-channel series) with the 5.1-MCS 100 priced at $499.99 and 130 at $799.99. Consistent with their P.O.P. concept, this package is available in the same variety of colors, currently 8 for grilles and 2 shell colors. The LCR’s have 1” tweeters and multiple 3 ½” drivers with 5-way binding posts and the powered subwoofers are 8” (100w) and 10” (200w) for each series.

Lastly SoundWare – a cubic flexible speaker designed for indoor/outdoor use at $99.99 each continues the play fun attitude BA has adopted. The 2-way unit features a 4 ½” driver along with a ¾” tweeter. Although the face is flat, each of the other surfaces have chamfered edges to allow corner, or wall-to-ceiling installations staying very tight to the surface.

All in all, some very interesting product design and engineering from our friends at PEE-buddy, don’t-call-it Pea-body Massachusetts. Can’t wait to see Vista!