Bose Companion 3 Series II
A friend of mine was kind enough to lend me his beloved Companion 3, so I can’t say anything bad about it… or can I? 
This should be an interesting one, since there is a lot of hype around Bose products with people getting emotional and so on.
Frequency Response – Bose Companion 3
The FR is quite smooth from 500Hz up. However moving down from 500Hz, it starts to drop very fast. Now, my measurements slowly start to loose accuracy below 300Hz, but the deep notch at 190Hz is not irrelevant at all. In fact, when doing HD measurements, there is a range around 160Hz when both the sub and the satellite have very little output. Meaning that there is a gap between where the satellites stop and the sub starts.
Filling this gap is always a challenge when working with small satellites, since there is a limit on how low they can go without producing too much distortion.In the case of Altec Lansing VS4121 the sub produces significant output up to 200Hz to cover up for the satellites, which is a very bad design decision. In the case of Bose, the sub starts to rolls off earlier(which is good), but the satellites are too small to pick where the subs leaves off.
I know Bose has a lot of emphasis on wide sound dispersion (which I like) in their designs by using small drivers. However, in this case they have taken that design philosophy too far.
Harmonic Distortion – Bose Companion 3
In comparison to Logitech Z-2300, Bose has higher 2nd order HD and a tad lower 3rd order HD above 1Khz, which means that Bose probably has a more laid back sound. Not surprisingly given the small driver, below 800Hz, Bose clearly has higher HD the Z-2300.
Note: Anywhere below 200Hz doesn’t really count in this HD measurement, because satellites do not have much output.
I guess that’s about it!
Again I encourage you to open the graphs of different speakers in different tabs, switch between the tabs and do your own assessment. It is the whole point of this blog!
hahaha, so you tested them?
i wish you had a better news for me, but nonetheless I’m still very satisfied with them 
for me their design quality compensate the audio quality… it fills the 192Hz gap 
))
by the way, lovely website, keep up the good job bro….
Try to get your hands on the klipsch 2.1
This really is an interesting article. I still have 2 questions in mind:
- Did you also test the Companion 5 system? What differences would you expect (satellites and subwoofer differ from 3 series; maybe the gap is closed?)
- Do you think it is possible to replace the satellites by other speakers in order to improve the gap? I have the chance to get some very nicely designed speakers which start at either 161 Hz or 95 Hz. Or is there some preamp in the acoustimax module which would limit the frequency range of the satellites anyway?
Thank you for the analysis. It is pretty hard to find justified remarks on speaker systems.
I have not tested the Companion 5. From the look of them, I can say they have two drivers in each satellite. This means that they will play lower and will be more comfortable, but I am not sure if it closes the gap.
I think there is a good chance that a high pass filter exists in the acoustimass module. That is the right design practice anyway!
So you might not be able to close the gap with different speakers. However, since the Bose satellites have a below average HD response, depending on what replacement speakers you’ll use, you might improve the harmonic distortion.
Thanks for your reply. It helped me a lot!
Hi, great work! I’m in the middle of shopping for new desktop speakers, so I’ve been googling around for a couple of weeks, reading technical stuff about potential candidates out there (Bose companion 3 series II are one of them)… No other “technical” review has been as clear, useful and really technical as this one!
Now let me ask you a question: do you know what class of amplifier drives these speakers? Is it a class-D? if yes, what’s your take on class-D amps for desktop speakers nowadays?
Thanks in advance, keep up the good work!
I’m happy that you find my blog interesting!
To be honest, I am not really sure what class of amplifiers drives Bose.
I also think you cannot judge amplifiers’ sound quality by their class.
I have heard amazing amplifiers in every class.
In my own setup, I use a T-amp which is essentially a class-D amplifier, and I’m really happy with it.
Yep, with the modern DSP electronics, I also think nowadays class-D amps do a fantastic job for audio… BTW, the Sony SRS DB500 use class-D (thus so powerful yet small) and I suspect these Bose do as well…