whats so bad about bose audio quality? i don't understand.
They depend on a trick. It's based on the science of human hearing. Really it is related to the way that MP3 works. It turns out you can remove a lot of information from sound and we humans don't seem to miss it. Bose typically gives you bright highs and the overtones for bass that is missing and much reduced mid range. It sounds snappy and clean. Until you become critical
There really are not short cuts. With speakers larger is generally better
As for the CD player. It will not be the weak link. Even a cheap one will be better than a $500 pair of speakers. At $500 budget, speakers will be the weak link.
In photography I tell people who want to judge which photo is sharper to look for objective questions you can ask, like "can you see the buttons in the shirt in each? How about the thread that holds the buttons? Can you see fibers in the threads? Eventually in one of the two photos you will have to say "no". If you just look and guess there are things that can fool you. Like making the background blurry can make the subject look sharp. The same with music. Bose (and MP3) would fail the objective test but sound good by use of trick akin to the out of focus background that a photographer might use.
And WHY use MP3 CDs in 2012? If you don't like iPods, find a music player that plays SD cards. You can buy 16GB SC cards but a CD holds only about 700MB (or 0.7 GB) at the most.
