Woah there!
The "kind of like Bose?" question, was just that ... a question!!! I was questioning the intended meaning or hint of one by Wgauci who posted the original comment I quoted. ... Which is very similar to what could be said about Bose. It was not sarcasm in any way. Actually, I am very poor at sarcasm, both at detecting it, (especially in written form), and at applying it. For those reasons, I usually try to avoid sarcasm completely. I did not "bash" anything at all that the OP considered. What are you even ranting about? Actually, speaking of disrespect, I find your entire post to be extremely disrespectful to me. I was just trying to help and to clarify things so that the comment would not be taken the wrong way by the OP, and you went completely off topic into a diatribe.
Hey guys, sorry I'm a few days late on this thread but given that
I was the one with the original statement, I feel compelled to clarify what I meant.
What I meant is that there are people who will buy Sony unconditionally, and others that will bash Sony unconditionally, often with little correlation (on either side) to the actual quality of the products. My own experience (and it's not extensive by any means) showed me that Sony products are typically above the average price of their competitors, but are also often (though not always) above average in quality. Sure you can find better products in most categories, but they will often cost a lot more.
Their TVs are a little pricier than most, but they're also better than most. When I was shopping for mine, I narrowed it down to Sharp and Sony. To me they were very comparable, outperforming most others except units that sold for a lot more. The Sharp was a significantly less expensive then, so I went with that.
Then you have gaming consoles. In terms of hardware and built-in features, they beat the competition hands down in my eyes. The PS3 is more expensive than the 360, but you get a lot more for your money. Last time I checked just adding Wifi networking to a 360 already made it more expensive than a PS3, yet it still had a lot of features missing.
Their computers are very pricey, but they're also among the most stylish ones and often provide built-in features that competing products don't even support as options. If I needed these extra features like I do the PS3 extras, I'd probably buy a Vaio, but so far I don't so I skipped.
And finally, the original topic was their AVR units. Like I said I got the 720 because it had all the features I needed at a price that couldn't be beat, and although they get a lot of criticism here I haven't run into any issues, quite the opposite, and am still very satisfied with my purchase. Just thought I'd mention it given that the OP was considering the exact same unit. Now sounds like he was convinced to pay twice as much for a competing product, and I just wish him the best of times with his new baby.
All that being said, I also interpreted your question as sarcasm on first read, given the short paragraph and the especially negative connotations Bose has around here. To help you with your "written people skills" (never easy, granted -- I find myself in trouble too often myself), I think if you had said "Would you go so far as comparing it to Bose?" for example, that would have left no doubt about your well-intentioned question. I'm sure René read your reply the same way I did and didn't mean to be disrespectful in any way, so don't overreact like we did.
Final word, the consensus seems to be that Bose is extremely well marketed and as such ends up being at best an average product sold at premium prices (I have no experience with them myself, just relaying what I read here), and in that sense I don't think the comparison is fair. Sony also has good marketing but overall you seem to mostly get what you pay for in their case. Sometimes they're overpriced, sometimes they're underpriced for what you get. I
try to be discerning and buy the latter.