Bose 901

Dazzdax...The 901 did have one of its drivers facing the listener, and the imaging was not as bad as you might suspect. The earlier time of arrival of sound from the front speaker probably made it dominant with regard to imaging.

I have four of the MKVI. Wanna buy? Like stated already, they are good for the $$$. Only if conditions are favorable. They need room as 87% of sound hitting you is reflected. Not for the bookshelf. Hanging them from the ceiling reduces the bass response. The highs seem distored and the lows were out of control at high volumes. I listen to Lamb Of God, Godsmack, Metallica, etc, mostly and like to get it loud without it sounding like something is being stressed beyond...I just got some Klipsch R7s. Seem much better so far...Like I said the Bose can sound wonderful for certain applications, but not for mine. BTW...mine are in excellent shape. Two are just broken in and the other two with only 1 hour use.

Got to agree with the early-901 nostalgia. Bought a pair late in my Navy days, around '76 I think it was, with some sort of receiver and a used AR "on/off-switch-only" turntable. Was married to a professional violinist for seven years after that, and we were just in heaven (listening-wise, not marital-wise!) listening to Rabin, Heifitz, Oistrakh, Guarneri and Julliard Quartets, etc. The 901s sure sounded mighty fine to us back then, and to our professional musician friends as well! Sometimes wish, in the immortal words of Bob Seger, that I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

I had the same experience with the 601's and a Pioneer receiver

I was a student at MIT when Amar Bose (a professor there) introduced the 901. My audiophile friends and I agreed then (and still do) that the direct/reflecting idea is basically flawed, because both the direct and reflected sound of the instruments/vocalist at the original venue have already been recorded on the source medium (CD, tape, record) so the introduction of additional reflections just serves to add another layer of "acoustics" that were not on the source material, and can only "muddy" the reproduced performance.

Nice marketing ploy, but lousy audio!

.