Bose Companion 3 Series II

I need to trace the story back to my trip in Bangkok. I tried to get away from the scorching sun one day, and was just walking around the shopping mall, Siam Paragon, to be exact. It is my favorite mall, as it is trendy, stylish, and does have some shops that I enjoy visiting a lot. That day I stopped at the Apple store. Apple had just released its new software, so I was thinking if I could get a better deal in Bangkok. Unfortunately no. Then I was drawn to a demo machine, which played beautiful beautiful music. Not the music was beautiful, but the sound quality was so beautiful. I stopped there for minutes, and picked up the speakers to take a closer look. It was a very tiny pair of Bose MusicMonitor.

The pair was just so tiny and appealing. I was really interested in how much they cost, and I remember there is a Bose store in Siam Paragon (I love that mall this much), and I hurried to the store.

I saw the pair the moment when I entered. The gentleman was very nice and introduced me to all their computer speakers, and played demos for me, one model after another. I was on vacation anyway and had all the time for myself, so I was very patient and took my time doing comparison among different sets of speakers. MusicMonitor and Companion 3 were better. I asked for the pricing, and almost had a heart attack when he told me the price of MusicMonitor. 26 000 bahts, which is 800+ USD. That is ridiculously high for a pair of computer speakers. I smiled and walked out of the store, and told myself to check our local stores in Taipei.

MM did a great job finding the local Bose stores, and we went there together. Sadly, they did not have MusicMonitor yet, but we tried their Companion Series too. Not having the one I like, I still had to admit Companion series sound great too. Although Companion has 3 models, we both thought Companion 3 sounded the best for MP3 music.

Pricing was also high. It is frustrating to know that people in the US only pay 250USD, but we have to pay as much as 400USD, but it is hard to compromise when you have enjoyed better things. We decided to get it anyway. It is luxury expense, but we can still afford it, although that means a tearful good bye to a possible trip to Macao.

Companion 3 is a 2.1 model. Normally I put the sub woofer on the floor, so these 2 tiny speakers do not take up too much space. Now that my computer broke, I placed the sub woofer on the desk, and put an old Christmas bear from 2002 on top as decoration. It actaully looks lovely.

MM was not content and did not stop here though. She proceeds to buy another device, which, according to her, improves the quality even more. She let me use it for few days, but as of now, I still cannot install it properly. The sound still comes out of the computer instead of the speakers. I tried a few times and have given up.