I remember when the Bose 901 III was first released back in the mid 70's. I was still in high school and a friend of mine had them set up in his basement. I was green with envy and I would impose myself on his listening time with freshly bought albums. The sound was very impressive for what it was back then. I viewed the 901's as an aspirational speaker.
Fast forward 40 years: I'm having someone assist me in moving a very heavy piece of electronics into my listening room in the last month for an in home demo. He takes one look at my 7' tall speakers present in the room here in Chicago and says "wow what did those cost?" My stock reply is many thousands of dollars to which he replies, "gee, do they sound better than Bose?"
So I would say that Bose is the standard bearer of speakers as far as reputation goes with the general public.
And I don't think that is a bad thing. Maybe some small fraction of those people that purchased Bose may eventually think to themselves, "there has got to be something better than this." That could be, just may be the beginning of a prospective audiophile's journey.