Bose Speakers

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
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Mi-Nigle
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I don't know if anyone has noticed but nearly all of the speakers around the park that play ambience or anouncements or whatever, are all Bose. Now these are just about the best speakers you can buy.

I bought a set of thier in-ear earphones and paid £70 for them. (they are VERY good btw) but thier speakers are a hell of a lot more i can tell you. Especially outdoor ones. For one of these it just over £200!
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Is this where all the money is going lol? Do AT get a discount?

But then again, what is £200 to Alton Towers?
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mattcharles
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I generally thought that the quality of the music/sounds etc in Towers is pretty naff, but I thought this could be as some speakers have to be waterproof, or maybe the quality of the sounds themselves or cabling etc is not brilliant.

Then again I'm used to Hi-Fi at home so you set your own standards..
The thing that scares me the most about nemesis is.............One day it will close.
Chris-TT

Tussauds defiantly had a deal going with BOSE. Look at the speakers in Nemesis Infernos station, there not even being used 1/100th of what there capable of. I expect they probably get a hefty discount or free upgrades to the top range in return for displaying the BOSE name on every speaker in the park
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Thomas
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Speakers around the park IMO are naff at the moment, yes when there new they are very good and clearer like on Spinballs & Rita's but Oblivion's are all crackly & so are Submissions. The ones on Towers Street now are like speakers on some sort of poll/tower kind of thing, they seem to play ok quality music.

I'm sure all of Alton's speakers are due for a change in the near future.

Mind you saying that the speakers in the actually stations like Oblivion & Nemesis sound amazing, even Rita's station speakers.
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Beaver Dude
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Now these are just about the best speakers you can buy.
Bose are no where near the best and although they are good their stuff is overpriced. Their stuff also seems a bit unreliable too as some of it seems to die rather quickly. The thing is they make these dinky little speakers like the 32SE's which sound terrible. Alton Towers would be better off buying some big speakers and theming them as this would probably work out cheaper than Bose anyway.
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notts nat

Bang nd olufsen are amazing at audio i thing they should switch to them they have amazing designs that are instantly recognisable.
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Quickey
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[quote=""Beaver Dude""]The thing is they make these dinky little speakers like the 32SE's which sound terrible. [/quote]

My Dad has his home cinema set up with those and it sound friging awesome!
(Don’t know if they are the 32SE's, but they are small with a huge woofer.)

I when in to a bose shop a few weeks back and they were selling the same speakers that you see around Alton Towers. I think they were about $600, and I realised that Alton Towers are defiantly not using them to there full potential because I turned them to about ½ volume and it blasted the shop out. They are also very good quality, but then again, I am not a sound expert, but it sounded good to me.

Alton towers must have a deal with bose because almost all of there speakers are bose.
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stigzy
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Must be some sort of theme/amusment park thing - because even Blackpool Pleasure Beach use Bose speakers. But - however, Chessington don't... I think!!! And if anybody know's where I could get hold of one of those huge Bose Bass tube thingy ma bobs in Inferno's station let me know - because I want one!
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PeteB
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Its because Bose are supplied mostly to the trade instead of consumers. They will also be chosen by sound installation companies. You can find Bose speakers just about everywhere these days, all kinds of theme parks, leisure facilities, numerous bars and clubs etc.

They ARE very high quality, not the best, but are kinda considered 'industry standard' for this type of application. In theory, speakers should never wear out, and the ones in gloomy wood for example still work fine even though they've been burried in trees/dirt/leaves etc for over 12 years.

The poor sound quality around certain areas of the park is most likely caused by worn/damaged cables. Unless they use super thick high quality cables, they will eventually rot and degrade the sound quality. Also, despite these speakers being 'environmental' ones, they can still get debris inside the cone which will cause a muffled or distorted sound. A simple clean up would fix that.

KC ones still work fine I think, but they need to get that theme tune back on!!!
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Mattia
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When in Gardaland on Wednesday i saw loads of speakers that look like the evnvironment ones (the ones used in the flume and catcf etc queuelines) but on closer inspection ( i am too observant for my own good! lol) they weren't bose but they were slightly thicker and greener and sounded slightly better BUT no logo of bose. Then i saw the speakers like the ones on the catcf boats but again no logo of bose....thought this was rather random because bose are the first to splash their logo everywhere. I mean, here in pietra ligure (italy) along the seafront they have the bose environmental 5.1 speakers and they have the logos one them...wierd..... :sus:
Hark

Yes I've seen those speakers and find the ones near CATCF in the queue absolutley terrible!
Anonymous

As some of you know, I work installing such systems at theme parks and museums etc around the world.

The reason Bose are being used is because Electrosonic the company who do the sound systems on the rides have an exclusive contract with Bose, so yes the price would be a lot lower.

Also even though Bose are not really any good as a speaker, they are one of the few who make all weather speakers which last.

The reason the Nemisis system doesnt do much is because it was never set up right in the first place. Exactly the same reason in CATCF.... but then again a lot of the kit that is fitted doesnt work anymore anyway, because AT wont keep the service contract up, hence the reason why the tracking system on CATCF doesnt work anymore.
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PeteB
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To be honest I dont think they need to bother with service contracts, all they would need to do is hire a sound engineer for the whole resort. Somebody who knows what they're doing, like us, who would be able to keep the systems in top shape and working correctly.

I probably wouldn't be much use though, I'd insist on installing Funktion One systems everywhere which would eat up most of your millions for rides :lol:
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kt
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The theatre i work in has just completly been converted over to Bose, even though it was expensive, when you think about what we got it was quite a good deal, we also had all the speakers that run the Dolby around the auditorium replaced with Bose, so naturally we had to try them out. 3 people sitting in a 600 seat theatre with Pirates 3 in Bose speakers was pretty awsome.

So yeah, Bose is quite good, and the other theatres in our chain may be going over to them as well.
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Big Dave

Bose are fairly good speakers that last for many years in all weather conditions. Like mentioned above, the speakers on Charlie never have worked properly has they were installed poorly and maintained even worse. I was shocked to know that there was only a volume control for air but no bass control. Hence wen we had fireworks last year n changed the soundtrack, we ended up smashing glasses in the shop above because we could reduce the bass. As a result we had to have the volume realllly low. :(
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Kaz
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[quote=""kt""]The theatre i work in has just completly been converted over to Bose, even though it was expensive, when you think about what we got it was quite a good deal, we also had all the speakers that run the Dolby around the auditorium replaced with Bose, so naturally we had to try them out. 3 people sitting in a 600 seat theatre with Pirates 3 in Bose speakers was pretty awsome.

So yeah, Bose is quite good, and the other theatres in our chain may be going over to them as well.[/quote]

You don't work in the playhouse do you?
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kt
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No one on the isle of Wight call Medina, only small. But the island is only small.
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