DO NOT BUY SOUND TOUCH SERIES SPEAKERS - READ WHY BELOW

[stevebkk]

So I've owned these speakers for about 2 years and I've just about seen it all with them. To put it politely I think they are some of the most expensive pieces of SH1T I have ever bought and I feel I need to come here for a few reasons:

1) Warn people of their many flaws and failures

2) Give some people context in the market with regards to alternate products

3) I just want to scream because nothing else works with these speakers and their lack of support - TERRIBLE!!!!

Connectivity:

I have a place with a 100sqm lounge, dining, home office area where all of my 3 Sound touch 20 series 3 speakers are in line of sight from eachother (max distance is about 10m from one unit to the next) and also a state of the art Belkin router that sevices the rest of my 300sqm house with zero interuptions or disconects (all speakers are about 12m from the router, in line of sight). All speakers are also in line of sight to my PC that I use to try connect... the closest speaker to the PC litterally sits about 4 inches away from the pc tower.

THEY STRUGGLE TO CONNECT, THEY HAVE ALWAYS STRUGGLED TO CONNECT FROM DAY 1 and I have changed PC twice in that time, changed routers 3 times in that time, taken 1 speaker back that would never connect (which took BOSE 4 months to repair and send back to me and still does not connect every time)

These speakers WILL drop out on bluetooth, WILL drop out on WIFI and WILL disconnect regularly when linked making your sound patchy, random and basically unlistenable for anyone who is passionate about their music.

The Sound Touch App:

The sound touch app is really poorly designed, will lock you out of your speakers unless you somehow connect them the right way (which is completely random and the app does not advise you in which order it has identified your speakers so you are blind to try resolve it aside from WIPING all of the speakers from the app and re-installing them which is about 30min of work and will completely frustrait you and ruin the atmosphere you were hoping to make by putting on music)

I have regular situation where I manage to connect the speaker close to my PC by WIFI and bluetooth to my PC, I start playing music but the app does not recognise the speaker is connected and WILL NOT LET YOU TURN ON THE OTHER SPEAKERS IN THE NETWORK. Essentially you now have 1 speaker playing music and 2 paperweights that cost you nearly $500 a piece sitting in your room. YOU CAN NOT RESOLVE THIS PROBLEM. YOU HAVE TO UNISTALL AND REINSTALL ALL OF THE SPEAKERS TO RESOLVE THIS. Even after uninstall and reinstall you can go back to point 1 and read all of that again. IT WILL HAPPEN consistantly.

These 2 points alone are complete failure of these speakers to do what they promise (connect easily to each other and play your music seamlessly at good quality)

BUT WAIT!!! THERES MORE!!!

If you have a power outage - THE SPEAKERS WILL FORGET YOUR NETWORK AND YOU HAVE TO RE-INSTALL

If bose updates the app (which usually shows zero improvement to the terriblke app layout and functionality) - THE SPEAKERS WILL FORGET YOUR NETWORK AND YOU HAVE TO RE-INSTALL

If you upgrade any other piece of hardware that interfaces with these speakers - THE SPEAKERS WILL FORGET YOUR NETWORK AND YOU HAVE TO RE-INSTALL

THIS IS A TOTAL PAIN IN THE ASS, IT IS NOT INTUITIVE, IT IS NOT FAST, IT DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK AND WHEN IT DOESNT WORK YOU HAVE TO START AGAIN FROM ZERO

Please PLEASE PLEASE! Buy sonos, buy LG, buy a no name brand for a lot less cash.... I have friends with those systems and they work! they are awesome! they are fast! the app connects and stays connected! the app has no conflicts with other hardware! the speakers remember what they are and how to connect! BOSE SOUNDTOUCH CAN NOT DO THIS!

Please save your money and dont make the mistake I made. I hate these speakers because they have actually made listening to music a painful experience for me and Im sure every time I turn them on that I am only a few minutes away from another extremely frustraiting evening of trying to make them work and NEVER being satisfied that I can just turn them on, sync them and play my tunes.

 ADDED:

I noticed after posting this that there arre a LOT of unhappy soundtouch customers who are experiencing this problem. Im now investigating a class action against BOSE for all people who have purchased sound touch products in the last 3 years and have this same problem. If you would like to be included in the class action please email soundtouchclassaction@gmail.com with your name, location, number of sound tocu products and their model numbers. If I get 50 people responding I will engage a lawyer and begin litigation.

Thanks,

Steve

[Jbaker]

Steve I think you are a troll.

Connectivity issues aside. Some of what you stated just isn't true.

Soundtouch speaker doesn't forget your network when it's rebooted.

There has never been a need to wipe all speakers off the app.

Never had to reconnect the speakers when updating the app.

You really are talking a load of crap.

I'm suspicious of your motive as some of what you say simply isn't true.

[Richard.Millican]

I have much sympathy for this user -

a) Supporting Soundtouch software: The issues change with each supposed improvement we are forced to upgrade to. Little is done to direct efforts towards stable use.

b) Yes, I have many experiecnes of unstable WiFi connection and sudden 'no reason' loss of service, or big problems after power loss, involving Router resets and arcane practices to resolve.

I have had and still do have extensive problems using both a 10 and a 20 unit. I have also used Dell PC and an iMac, and this reflects experience in two houses, and with mutliple Routers.

Whilst you might feel obliged to point out the specific faults with another Community user's spiel, this person clearly has reached the "why would I buy from this supplier again" frustration that I and so many others have. I see no Trolling here.

I am truelly astonished how an organisation with such an outstanding reputation for their physical sound equipment is all at sea with its supporting software. Worse, it cannot leave the poor users, that finally get a stably operating sytem, alone with their rev. of software/ firmware without forcing more sh*tty problems onto us. God, I am annoyed about this. **bleep** am I doing to have, yet again today, to uninstall this software and re-install for it to work with my libraries for a couple more weeks?! Fingers crossed, eh?!

[Angryofm]

I agree, there is no trolling just someone very much like me who has totally had it with Bose - total lack of customer support, forcing useless *IMPROVED* updates (JOKE?) on us, the worst, unreliable product on the market - I have six ST boxes, three of them (2 x ST20, 1 x ST30) are connected via network cables and pretty much every day all or any of them will drop off the network, even the cable connected ones will disappear... 😞

Bose tech support (joke!) have actually admitted to me that running 6 ST units on a home network is pushing things to the limit - don't remmeber seeing that published *anywhere*....

This company deserves to go the way of Blackberry, in fact I hope it does and I will be doing all I can to make sure that people looking at buying this rubbish know what they are getting themselves in for - an expensive and nice sounding box that will almost certainly NOT live up to the promises that the Bose sales team spout at the time of purchase.... 😞

[stevebkk]

 @Jbaker                     I would happily send you my 3 sound touch 20 speakers in exchange for yours including all receipts and extended warranty after the failed 4 month service/repair carried out by BOSE in germany.

please email me to organise the details at soundtouchclassaction@gmail.com

This is not trolling, have a simple scroll (not even open to read) through any soundtouch review page, forum or comment section and you will very quickly see there are HUNDREDS of customers who can not find a way to make these speakers work as advertised.

Moving on from that point this topic is for people who have problems with their speakers. If you have no problem with your speakers this topic does not apply to you and you have no need to be in this forum.

Cheers,

Steve

[mattius]

It will come as no surprise to anyone i am no fan of Boze with regards to the soundtouch product line.

I have sympathy for your problems, but they do seem quite unique to you (im not denying they exist), if you complain enough to Boze support you will get offered a full refund (i know i did) it may be worth pursueing that route.

Your not going to get very far with a class action unfortunatly, as long as Boze has tried to help you, is working on a fix or offered a refund there is not much else they could have done. It would be a different story if there was a hardware fault which meant everyones speaker failed to do something it was sold as doing.

[stevebkk]

Hi Mattius,

Please read through the forum. I am not the only person experiencing difficulty with Soundtouch products by any means. There are a LOT of people who are having ongoing problems with this product.

Thanks,

Steve

[mattius]

@stevebkk i suggest you read through the forum, you will see i am far from an advocate of Boze's software and have worked constructively to try and resolve these issues with Boze.

Just because there is a lot of people with a lot of issues does not mean you have any legal standing...

You have a case under consumer protection laws to get a refund if you can prove it in your country, but that is an individual case you should pursue, a class action case would only work if everyone had the same issue and if Bose were not fixing it  (they may be slow but they are trying to resolve things).

[stevebkk]

I dont take legal advice from random forum posters. I take legal advice from my litigation lawyer whom advises if I have 50 people email soundtouchclassaction@gmail.com with their details then he will begin a proceeding based on the product being advertised to connect seamlessly but consistanly failing to do so under many different and varied connectivity settings. Thsi same lawyer has been successful against walmart, bestbuy and several other household names. I have much more faith in his interpretation of the law than I do of your Mattius.

Thanks

Steve

[mattius]

In my view you are just trying to cause trouble for the sake of it, there are ways you can get a refund if you tried, instead you are trying to take on another waste of time law suit which will only take up time of those working for Boze who are trying to resolve issues a lot of other people are waiting for...

But hey thats my view good luck...

BTW i've just recieved an email from an african prince, he says if i give him $5000 he will give me back 3 times the amount, want his email? 😛