Bose Wave SoundTouch Music System IV Review
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Bose was kind enough to sponsor this video, and in this video I’ll be reviewing the Bose Wave SoundTouch Music System IV. This is a room-filling wireless speaker but with some other convenient elements built-in to it. So stick around and find out if this is right for you.
The Wave SoundTouch Music System IV is a feature-packed speaker that is looking to be an all-in-one solution for music lovers. It currently comes in 2 colors, espresso black and platinum silver. The system is about 5.5” tall,14.5” wide, and 8.5” deep and it weighs just under 10 pounds. You can wirelessly stream music to the speaker via Bluetooth or WiFi using a compatible device such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer. It also has a built-in radio which I was able to tune into my favorite radio stations just fine with no need for an external antenna. It has dual alarms which come in handy if you and your partner need to get up at separate times, and it also has a CD player just in case you can’t seem to give up those mixed CD’s that you burned in 2007. You know who you are.
First thing you may notice is that the design is really attractive. It’s very sleek and will most likely look good just about anywhere in your home. There is no physical power switch because to turn it on and off all you need to do is tap the top of the speaker which is cool and all but could be a potential nuisance if you accidentally touch the top and music starts playing at full blast when you’re not expecting it. Other than the fact that it’s an all-in-one system, the sound that it produces from a fairly compact speaker is one of its best selling points. It’s able to produce a clean, rich and room-filling sound by utilizing Bose WaveGuide technology. This is essentially a series of passages from the speaker driver to the speaker grill that guides air through two 26” folded wave guides. It makes it possible for a compact system like this one to replicate a larger system’s stereo sound. And it works from what I could tell. I was able to play music from the corner of my living room and you couldn’t really pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from. So it has crisp loud sound quality for sure, but as with most Bose products it has very strong bass. Luckily if you don’t like strong bass it’s easy to reduce the bass through the system settings.
Even though it does have an AUX port, this speaker’s most notable feature is its wireless capability. With built-in Bluetooth you can easily pair it with your smartphone, tablet, or computer and start playing audio immediately. But with the free SoundTouch app you can easily connect the Wave SoundTouch Music System to your WiFi network and play music from popular music services such as Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Prime music, thousands of Internet radio stations and even your own music library. Once your music sources are connected you can play them through the speaker via the SoundTouch app. I pretty much exclusively use Spotify and Pandora on mine, and it seems to work great with both of those. One drawback of playing music through the SoundTouch app is you can’t use your phone’s volume buttons when your phone is locked to adjust the volume. You have to unlock your device to do that or you have to use the included infrared remote.
Now I love this speaker’s ability to set presets with the SoundTouch app. You can set any of your connected songs, albums, playlists, artists or stations to any of the 6 presets and you can then use the SoundTouch app or the remote to press any of those presets and the speaker will automatically start playing that music even if it was turned off. I also love the informational display that shows the title of what’s currently playing.
Since this music system is part of the Bose SoundTouch family, you can easily add more SoundTouch speakers to your home and use the free app to play music across all your speakers at the same time or play different music on different speakers. It’s not cheap, but if you’re looking for an all-in-one music system that has built in alarms, AM/FM radio, and a CD player but mainly excels in sound quality and wireless playback then the Wave SoundTouch Music System IV may be a good investment for you. I would definitely recommend it to people who want a high quality speaker combo.
By Andy Slye