I don't know anything about the Bose, but my Sony acts pretty much the same. It depends on how many songs are on the CD. If its a 12 - 15 track CD, it only take seconds; if its an MP3 CD with 100 plus songs it can take a couple of minutes for the player to read all the data and then start playing. I get a message on my display saying "reading track information" before it starts. If that isn't the case with your Bose, I don't have a clue.