When
Dr. Amar Bose visited the magazine where I worked in the early 1990s, he teased
staffers by hiding under a cloth the source of the luxurious-sounding music
filling the room. Moments later he revealed that it was actually emanating from
an unassuming clock radio. Since then, the Bose Wave radio has landed on countless
tabletops and nightstands. Now, Bose has introduced a new version of the popular
radio, called the Wave/PC ($449).
In terms of appearance, the only difference seems to be a connector on the back to link the radio to the serial port and audio jack of a PC running Windows 98 or higher. The supplied cable is 15 feet long, so you don’t have to put the Wave/PC right next to the computer. On closer inspection, however, you realize that the computer link and the software Bose supplies on a CD-ROM expand the capabilities of the Wave/ PC far beyond those of its stand-alone forerunner. (An accessory is expected in October that will let you use your computer’s USB port either just for controlling the Wave/PC or for bypassing your computer’s sound card entirely. Its price hadn’t been announced as we went to press.)
The Wave/PC is meant to provide quick, easy access to all the MP3 and WAV music files on your computer’s hard drive, to music on a CD, and to a multitude of Internet radio stations without your having to sit in front of the computer. And when the computer is turned off, you can still use the Wave/PC as an AM/FM radio or its speakers to play an external audio source. Like its predecessor, it has two wakeup times and a snooze button, and it comes with an antenna, a 9-volt battery for clock/alarm backup, and a neat credit-card-size remote control.
Setting up the hardware took me less than 10 minutes. I inserted a tiny battery in the remote and the 9-volt battery in the Wave/PC, attached and strung the antenna, and connected the cable to my computer. The unit’s beige exterior (it’s also available in charcoal) matched my PC to a T. You’ll need about 200 megabytes (MB) of hard-disk space to accommodate the Wave/PC software, which includes a classical-music sampler compressed in the MP3 format at a classy 192 kilobits per second (kbps) — 128 kbps is the de facto standard.
After you install the Bose software on your hard drive, it automatically scans for MP3 and WAV files for inclusion in a general playlist. It found 129 MP3 tracks on my PC but ignored music files encoded in other formats, like Windows Media Audio. The software also installs a list of your local radio stations from a national database on the CD-ROM and scans the airwaves to gauge signal strength. Seeing all the stations’ frequencies and call letters in my area listed on the PC screen, including icons indicating strong reception, made the setup process a snap. Click on a frequency, and the Wave/PC tunes it in. And the clock is automatically set by the computer.
The ease of using the Wave/PC became even more apparent when I set the system’s presets. As on the original Wave radio, a sextet of buttons atop the Wave/PC can instantly call up six AM and six FM stations, but now you can assign them by dragging the call letters from the station list to the soft buttons onscreen. The Wave/PC also lets you assign each of the presets to an individual song or whole playlist of songs on your computer’s hard drive as well as to a Web radio station. And with the infrared remote, you can use the presets from up to 20 feet away, toggling seamlessly between traditional radio, Web radio, and stored music by tapping buttons.
Another cool feature of the Wave/PC is that the Bose software downloads the song titles for a CD the first time you insert it in your computer’s CD-ROM drive by automatically logging onto Gracenote’s compact disc database Web site (www.cddb.com). You can then use Bose’s integrated MP3 encoder — or ripper — to turn the whole album, or selected tracks from it, into MP3 files stored on the hard drive. This is the first encoder I’ve used in which the default data rate is 192 kbps, though you can also choose 64, 128, or 160 kbps as well as 256 or 320 kbps. To play a CD burned with MP3 files, you must add your computer’s CD-ROM drive to the available sources from the setup menu.
To enjoy Web radio, you’ll need an active Internet connection — the faster, the better. You can set the Bose software to automatically load your browser and connect whenever you switch to Web radio mode. This even works with America Online’s dial-up service, though I typically had to wait a few minutes for the first station to be heard. You can’t set the alarm to wake up to Web radio, but given the occasional flakiness of the Net, that’s probably a good thing.
Truth be told, when I sat down to load up the presets, I was thwarted from locking in KFOG, a favorite San Francisco radio station. The Bose software recognizes only the RealAudio format used by most Webcasters. But KFOG embeds its bitstream in a Yahoo! player format that isn’t compatible with the Bose software. Nonetheless, there were plenty of other choices to fill the presets, including an on-demand newscast from the ABC Radio Network, London’s BBC Radio 4, and a National Public Radio station in Texas that carried a performance of the Boston Symphony from Symphony Hall when my local affiliate did not.
Bose should be commended for including an easy-to-understand manual with crisp illustrations, a glossary and index, and — something rare these days — an 800 number for support. During the course of a week, all of my calls were answered promptly and knowledgeably by human beings. What a novelty!
Keep in mind that if you’re thinking of installing the Wave/PC but are already using external speakers with your computer, you’ll have to disconnect them. In my case, I moved out a rather clunky pair of desktop towers and an under-the-desk subwoofer. I don’t miss them. At 14 x 4 3/16 x 8 1/4 inches, the 6 3/4-pound Wave/PC occupies only a corner of my desk, but it gives me all the sound I was used to. And, like the original Wave radio, the Wave/PC gives you an amazing amount of bass for its size.
Thanks to one of the idiosyncrasies of dial-up connections I couldn’t help but marvel at the difference between mono and stereo on the Wave/PC. When a streaming-radio source’s bit rate fell too low for stereo, it unceremoniously switched to mono. When it returned to stereo, the audible difference was startling — I felt enveloped in sound, not just oriented to a single source.
Bose hasn’t put the radio’s own readout to much new use, except to flash “PC” when you’re booting up the computer. That’s too bad, because it would be nice if song titles crawled across its face. It’s also too bad you can’t run the software under Windows 95, since earlier PCs have the necessary serial ports. Still, I’m not complaining. Since an easy-to-use database manager is integrated into the software, switching between over-the-air and Web radio, a CD, or a library of MP3 songs is like twisting your own custom music dial. As computers are used more and more to deliver audio from a variety of sources, the Bose Wave/PC is primed to bring out your PC’s musical talents. And it’s an excellent alarm clock, too.
Bose, Dept. S&V, The Mountain, Framingham, MA 01701; wavepc.bose.com; 800-999-2673