I have blasted my Bose stereo to extreme levels and never heard a distorted sound come out in my life.
You really won't be able to tell unless you compare another "new" Bose system side by side. I used to compare them all the time when brought into the store for repair or if they needed info on hooking something up to it.
Which system do you have, the 3-2-1 or the 5 speaker Hometheatre set? Whichever one you have, just check out the Sub. It is NOT a powered, meaning an individual powered unit, unit. That means it doesn't have it's own amplier built into the unit. When that happens, you draw power away from one amplifier source and since the sub module(Bose calls them modules not woofers) will draw the most power, you take away output from your speakers. Now since they are small cubes anyway, they won't need much power, however they don't have any midrange level. That reliance is on the sub module. And for a sub module to make "middle" sounds, you actually lose quite a bit.
It will always sound better than most standard stereo equipment because they atune their frequencies to just what the human ear can detect. However even though there are frequencies that we cannot detect, they still affect the wavelengths of the frequencies we do hear. That's why some music will sound "glassy" or have a high raspy sound to them.
For less than half of the cost, you can purchase other small cube systems, Polk Audio or Infinity, with a separate subwoofer, and a decent amplifier, and have just as good or better sound.
Not to mention most of these companies have a longer warranty on their speakers than Bose.
Their marketing plan is great, it's just too bad their product is overpriced for what they offer.
