Bose is designed to appeal to the masses. It’s an ok product at prices people can afford. Bose gives the impression your buying up market gear and it’s the leader in cutting edge audio, that’s the part that stings some people. Sites like AK are a rough place to solicit opinions on mass market gear such as Bose. The members are dedicated to audio so the bar is set much higher than some mass market box store gear can deliver. There are other audio sites on the web where products like McIntosh, B&W, Magnapan, Klipsch Heritage, etc are considered for the masses, the gear is relative to the company you keep.
I personally use an Acoustimas 10 series 5 for my AV set up in a small space, it preforms it’s job exactly how I wanted. It’s basically invisible and sounds fine for AV, no complaints here. I have to add while you do get some haters, which is ok, people can like and dislike how they feel, this is a very diverse crowd. It’s refreshing to read about some super badass 35k JBL studio monitors from some obscure shop in Tokyo, then the next post will be about a fellows Goodwill score of some Zenith Allegros, both threads met with enthusiasm.
I look at it as comparing Bose to let’s say a Toyota Camry. It’s a reliable product that will last probably forever, it does what you bought it to do and nothing more. Auto enthusiasts don’t go to car shows to look at Camrys, even though the new Camry looks like a NSX, it’s a Camry. People don’t build dedicated garages for a collection of Camrys.
On top of that you can’t mod or really do anything with Bose products, you can’t really incorporate them with other gear, it’s super frustrating sometimes at how proprietary their products are. To me this comes off as more of an appliance than audio gear in the traditional sense.
I had some 141’s, they didn’t do it for me, I have some 601 series II from Habitat for Humanity waiting for some love in my mothers garage, looking forward to having a listen. I think it’s far from being snobby it’s just a product that doesn’t create any excitement in this crowd.