Their reputation in the US, as far as I've observed, is that they produce the best designed (in the UX sense) and highest quality (in terms of sound) audio equi

Their reputation in the US, as far as I've observed, is that they produce the best designed (in the UX sense) and highest quality (in terms of sound) audio equipment in the consumer price range, albeit at the high end of that price range. As others in this thread have stated, their reputation online seems to be much less positive. There seem to be two main groups of people who contribute to that less positive reputation: (1) those with expertise in audio equipment who state things like Bose doesn't have nearly as good range of sound as professional equipment and (2) those who don't provide an explanation beyond "Bose sucks" (analogous to the anti-Mac vitriol that was widely seen until the late 2000s). stonemetal presumably labeled the latter group as "audiophile hipsters" because their behavior appears to be the result of thinking it's cool to criticize products that are popular among mainstream consumers but which they believe to be deemed inferior by experts.