MojoLists

Refurbished is a word every budget-minded hobbyist should know. Over the last 15 years I have purchased at least 50 items considered refurbs. I have never had a problem, not one, with any of the refurbished equipment I have purchased.

Refurbished items are more than simply factory rebuilds and fall into several categories that we will discuss along with their relative merits and weakness.

First off, why should anyone consider a refurbished product? To save money, get more for your money and overall being able to put that little piece of magical equipment in your house sooner. Refurbs are a great buy for many items but others are best avoided depending on the type of refurb it is.

Recertified: An item that has been returned, most often to the manufacturer for repair. These refurbished products generally made it into someone’s home where it failed to operate properly. It could be that it had a failed part such as a hard drive or the firmware wasn’t correctly installed. Recertified products are a great buy because they go through much more rigorous testing than the original units and carry a warranty, often the same as buying off the shelf.

Open Box: These are the marked down items you see when browsing, most often, the local Best Buy or other brick and mortar. They often went home with someone who decided they didn’t want it for whatever reason and returned it. Look out for missing parts such as cables and manuals. The nice thing about buying an open box item is that you can return it easily if it fails to work. Open box televisions are generally the best buy in this category but make sure it wasn’t a demo unit.

Floor Models/Demos: Products that fall under this group should have a serious savings involved, like 30% or better. If it is an item that uses power like a television, it has likely been on for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, in full burn mode for months. This is not a good buy, I also avoid receivers, computers and other items that the public have had a chance to dismantle. Non-power items or items that come from a high end dealer where they have seen light use are a better buy and worth considering.

Damaged: This is likely a unit that has a few scratches, dents or other cosmetic flaw. If the unit will reside in a hidden area such as a cabinet or there is a scratch on the back side where nobody will ever see it this is not a bad buy. It is really up to the buyer to determine if a damaged unit will work for them based on the amount of savings involved.

Previous Generation: Big savings on last years model can be a great deal as long as it has a feature set that works with your system. Many of last years products may not have a key feature, for instance HDMI receivers are new to the market. You may not see a need for HDMI in your system but it does future proof your investment. Research the missing feature, many of which will have no impact to you at all.

Factory Seconds: Very small scratches or dings that make selling an item at full price impossible. The cosmetic damage is far less than the damaged category so the savings may be less. These are a great buy if the savings are right.

Buying refurbished products from a respected dealer is important to ensure you are able to get help if there is a problem. I have found many bargains at Fry’s, Best Buy and Amazon but my favorite shop is Ecost where I have received great service and the pricing is right.

 Aside from times when my son or wife talks me into seeing something at the Alamo Draft House in Austin I buy or rent movies. I see no reason to endure the crowd, rude people, poor sound systems and dull pictures so often associated with going out to a movie.

 I buy a pretty good number of movies on DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD but most of the movies I watch are rentals. I have belonged to both Netflix and Blockbuster, even both at the same time at one point and I have been reasonably happy with both. A recent thread at my favorite online hangout, The Home Theater Forum, was about which rental service is better. The main complaint about both was the long wait for many titles and I have experienced the same problem but I have always been able to make it work. I don’t bother with downloaded movies so I will not be discussing that option, available from both parties.

 I started with Netflix about a month after they came online. I was in hog heaven, movies right to my door, no late fees and an amazing catalog of movies to choose from. I dismissed Blockbuster altogether at this point because of a grudge over late fees that I felt was unfair and it was some time later that they introduced their online plans.

Years later Blockbuster came up with their trade in deal. Instead of mailing the movies back, I take it to my local brick and mortar in exchange for an in store rental, at no cost. I decided to give it a try and it has worked so well for me I dropped Netflix.

The movies I put in my Blockbuster queue do tend to be older classics, cult favorites and concert videos. These types of movies tend to have a short, long or very long wait associated with them. While that would be a problem with Netflix, it isn’t for me as the wife and I make a pilgrimage to the store every Saturday and pick up the latest releases, often on Blu-Ray. Occasionally, if there is a standout release I will go in on a Tuesday morning. This works, I get the best of both worlds for the cost of a single subscription.

  If you sole purpose for renting online is to never walk into the store again and you order a lot of older movies and classics you are likely to be disappointed by the wait associated with these types of selections. My advice is to brave the sun once a week or so and take advantage of the Blockbuster trade deals, they let you have your cake and eat it too.

I am just estimating here but I would say 99.746% of people believe Bose is the best speaker ever made or as Bose claims are the most respected speaker ever. I hear it all the time, some guy bragging about his superior Bose system.  Bose owners look down on the rest of the audio world as if they were driving a Ferrari. The problem is that they are in fact driving a Yugo and not even a new one.

Bose survive, hell they flourish because of an amazing marketing drive. They have brainwashed the world into believing they build the greatest speakers in the world.  Nothing could be further from the truth, Bose are simply the biggest rip off in the audio world.

Bose uses paper cone drivers that have been around for decades, unchanged. Why does this matter? The sound these diminutive paper cones produce require the elimination of a vast swath of the frequency range used in common recordings. They don’t just remove the top end or the bottom end, they hack the mid frequency range to pieces as well. A full 80Hz is missing if you use one of their Acoustimass modules, while a mind blowing 180+ Hz is missing without it. According to Intellexual.net the actual frequency response of the Bose speakers is 280hz – 13.3kHz, even the cheapest speakers fill 120Hz – 20kHz and better speakers, even at a fraction of the cost of Bose are 40Hz – 22kHz.

Just for a reference, the same cone speakers found in most Bose systems are also used in alarm clocks that cost under $25. So how can they sound so good? Well, they don’t but they certainly sound better than my alarm clock. This is accomplished by removing much of the frequency range from the music before it is sent to the speaker. This is why it is difficult or even impossible to use the Bose speakers that come in a kit with other brands components. This is especially true of the Bose car audio systems that require a complete rewire to replace the head unit and speakers.

In addition, the cheap plastic boxes and cubes used for Bose enclosures are inexpensive and reduce the quality of sound even further. Anyone who has ever looked at how to build a speaker understands that plastic is one of the worst materials you can use. I will concede that building an enclosure out of aluminum cans would be worse but at this level of badness I don’t see that it would make a difference.

I can go on and on about how Bose refuses to release frequency response information for their systems, something that every other manufacturer, and I mean every other manufacturer provides. I can go on about how Bose displays in the store are designed to provide sound within a very specific area that cannot possibly be recreated in your home. How about the fact that they use amps that cost thousands to drive them, instead of using their own system, which is what they make it appear to be doing.

Enough about why to avoid them, what should you get instead. One of the things people do really like about Bose is the size of the speakers and I admit that is a tough one to find elsewhere but you don’t have to go much bigger. Almost any Home Theater in a Box will sound better than Bose once calibrated. I am including the Panasonic unit that can often be found under $150.

Will the Panasonic unit give you great sound? No, not even close but it is as good as anything Bose puts out if you set it up properly. Home theaters in a box are easily bested by buying the speakers and receivers separately but if you want Bose equivalent sound at a fraction of the cost, this is a good place to start.

Don’t fall for the marketing hype, anyone legitimately serious about home theater or audio will tell you about Bose, if they suggest otherwise, you are talking to a home theater poser.