Thanks...
I hated that.
DeKay
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I know it is fashionable to bash Bose 901s, but in 1972 when my wife and I bought Series 1 901s and a McIntosh 2105 amp to drive them they sounded damned fine to us, college kids who loved to party. We spent a little money my wife had inherited to buy our stereo and for that year our audio purchases exceeded our gross income. They were followed by Magnepans, electrostatics with 18" JBL subwoofers, DIY Dynaudio towers and now best of all my DIY Triamplified horns. One interesting thing about the Bose and Macs is that now half a century later they have required no repairs and they still play fine at my son’s house in his basement party room. |
If by "like you've never heard them before", means through the crappy speakers on my HP laptop that I use to watch YouTube videos, then you are correct sir! But it does bring back memories of the Bose 601 speakers I loved back in 1978. Be honest, is there anyone on this site that hasn't owned a set of Bose speakers at some time in thier life? 🤣 |
My dad bought a pair. Loud. Gigantic,room-filling sound. This was before precise imaging meant much in high-fidelity, however, so when true, accurate imaging became popular the Bose sound became more the object of derision than anything a kan-noiser would cotton to. When Dad got his Tannoys, the 901s ended in my bedroom. My sister constantly yelled at me. Turn that stereo down!!! |
Magnepan’s don’t image well either and they have an equal amount of sound firing from the rear. I’ve owned the .7’s and the 901 series V. I never found the 901’s to sound remotely as bad as others make out. Also, I’d bet if I blind tested many, they would fail miserably. But since they can’t get of their hifi high horse, they’ll always choose to hate them. Just so you know, I hate marketing more than anyone in this forum, I’ve said that in several of my own videos. Also, several fail miserably to admit that the video sounded absolutely fun and stunning to say the least with a pair of headsets. That video sounds as if a live band were playing in the room because the 901’s have a HUGE soundstage.
Certainly videos can’t be used to judge sound accuracy, but from a “relative” point of view, this video is the best Ive heard and much better than any videos I’ve made. It amazes me that nearly every comment on that video was stunned and how fun it sounded, yet, so many just choose to ignore the fact that it’s a great video. Look at the gear the poster has. Doesn’t that tell you anything? Bias clouds judgement and you can’t hear imaging in any videos anyway so who cares. |
I heard my computer monitor speakers which had a picture video of Bose 901's.. But not to fear. I heard them in 1978 when I bought my 1str relatively hi end system. We A/B"d the 901 against the Original large Advent. I went home with the Advents. Now its true that the901's sounded pretty decent at very high volumes. But The Advents sounded better at every volume level I generally listened. |
I remember they bought a slough of those thing for the skating ring and hung them all way up in the top. They sounded wonderful for about two weeks. Somebody got in the place and stole everyone. I worked there. I though it was funny. We rolled out the ol Western Electrics that were put there right after the great flood (Noah's Flood) and hooked them up and they played right on.. They weighed 400lbs. I don't think they could lift them to steal them.. WE amps too. Burn the crap out of ya..:-) My wife had Bose because her brother did. I used Jensen Imperials back then. I liked my Imperials better. :-) Mac tube gear.. No SS MC275 would make the Series II Bose cackle pretty good. Series 1 was a PIG. 300 watts I've seen piped into Series I, they just got louder and louder.. Regards |
Folks, I was heading to Vietnam for the evacuation in 1973-74 on an amphib asault ship (USS Duluth) and when we got back, the 901's were the bomb. With the Navy Exchange stores they were side by side with Mac gear and we all had lots of $ to spend. Have to tell all you naysayers, they had there time, served an amazing purpose of loud but fun sound and we all grew up. |
Yeah, those were the days. People would cut holes in their car's panels, put in a few speakers, and perhaps an 8 track and the sound was so much better than the car radio. Subs in the trunk weren't even a thought or an option. Bose...I went thru that experience. Had a pair of 301's and decided to go for something better. The 901's were the sought after model by those wanting the best the brand could offer. Retail price, in those days, was high. I ran across a pair of 901 series 3 with stands and EQ for $350 and bought them. Cabinets were in excellent shape. Sound was just OK but didn't impress me much. After researching the 901 I found that, with age, the foam surrounds would deteriorate. Took the grills off and found that the surrounds melted to powder with a light touch of the finger. Ordered a kit to replace them. Still no improvement in sound. Up to that point I hadn't connected the Bose EQ to the system since I had a very good 12 band EQ. The Bose EQ made a startling improvement in the sound???? Not to be a 901 hater but after hearing other speakers (at a much lower cost) I developed the opinion that Bose was, and still is, overpriced/mediocre gear. But, in the day, the 901's were a sought after model. They could blast very loud but offered almost no bass. That's what a lot wanted back in the day.
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Went to a Bose dealer 1978 or so advertised special one night show. It was in Tempe, AZ. Huge Macintosh mono blocks and preamp. A Revox B77 (?) rtr for source playing a master tape at 15 ips. It sounded awesome, but not enough for me to give up my ESS Heil AMT4s. Only song I remember was RS Sympathy for the Devil. Never owned a pair of Bose speakers. One of my 10-inch woofers blew out, went down to the local speaker recone shop. He took one look at the very cheap ESS woof and brought out a pair of Bose 10's. Price was right, they were a lot better than the OEMs and were good for another 15 years. Rankaudio Magnepans are very picky about their location in the room-4 to 5 feet from back wall, 3 feet from side walls. Imagining has always been very good. |
Stereo means "solid", and in stereophonics, the ability for two point sources to use phase and intensity to generate a consistent audio sense of solid sound sources in depth as well as width (an image). Most stereo sources (LP, CD, Stream) are able to create this effect. There is no other reason to have speakers laid out left and right of the listening position. |
The hifi speakers were designed to be near the wall with the "flat" side containing one (?) driver pointing into the room and the other little drivers pointing at the wall...right? Mondo el reflecto. The pro P.A. version just has the 8 drivers pointing at the audience in a black tougher box...I've used those to great effect (with their EQ of course) as with a powerful amp they kick butt. |
Back in the early 80`s my friends and I party at a club in Ellicott, City MD. Just out side of Baltimore, they had 12to15 Bose 901`s series1`s hanging from a 40 ft. ceiling. I was so impressed I went out and bought a pair of 901 series2 and hung them from my 8ft leaving room ceiling powered by Mac C28 preamp Mac 2105 power amp. The Bose and the Mac really sucked the Bose had to be played very loud they were very bright very weak bottom. The Mac being Dark and Veil tone the brightness down some what. However I got rid of the garbage and discovered the love of my life to this day Audio Research Pass Labs and Maggies |
Everyone has a Bose story. I mentioned Bose 901 to my wife in 1988 when we were married and she bought me a pair for my BD. I wish I would've mentioned anything else. I've had them in my shop hanging from the ceiling, never placed inside house. there a decent shop speaker for background music at low levels, what other speaker could you hang from a ceiling. Oh and btw the speakers are almost mint condition still with the foam surrounds like new. A fellow on AK reworked the eq after I screwed it up. The speakers are very fatiguing, if they weren't a present they'd been gone. |
Well, so many ideas come to mind. First was the hysterical laughing fit we had in my shop when we finally got around to hooking up a pair of these (1974). I still remember my tummy hurting from laughing so much. I think we actually fell on the floor and rolled around--we were young in those days. I had never heard them before and we were going around the room hooking up one pair of speakers at a time for my "education" since, at that age, I "knew everything" of course. I thought we had them hooked up wrong or something. NOTHING could sound that bad, especially from a company who's print ads featured very tall young guys dressed in white lab coats with Buddy Holley glasses and clipboards. Naw, they were just as bad as they sounded. Funny, I had a couple of old Mac 275's (I think--long time ago) but we did not hook them up as we were using all Audio Research stuff for this education session. Whew--funny even now. But hey, the ads were wonderful, no? Cheers! |
Yes, everyone has a Bose story. My roommate in college had these. We were both budding audiophiles. We discovered if you turn them around and play them backward so the drivers are facing you, the imaging improves and they do sound quite good, in a way that most multiple small driver systems can sound. I might add, in playing them backward you do not have to play them so loud and the overall sound is nonfatiguing. They just lacked deep bass. |
Yes @oldhvymec , my father had Jensen imperials with the flexaire woofers. When he got those I got the realistic Optimus 1s. He loved them. Couldn’t remember The model until I read your post. Thanks. |
I used to work at a mid-fi store that carried Bose in LA during the height of their popularity. They sucked then, they always sucked, no amount of modern mods can polish those turds. Lack of detail, flabby bass, and zero imaging and soundstage. We carried a cheaply built 'house brand' speaker that outperformed them. |
During the height of their popularity I worked at a hi-fi store (Pacific Stereo). We sold a lot of Bose speakers. Not because we loved them so much, but because the public demanded them. But my best Bose experience was during a product training meeting. In a rather small setting of about 20 sales people, the product trainer was Dr. Amar Bose. That was a real treat and a great experience that I remember to this day. |
No. Just...no. I call foul. I worked for a dealer in the late ‘90s who sold ATC speakers. We happened to have a Bose speaker cone to show to potential customers, and when we showed it to a lead engineer from ATC he laughed out loud and said those drivers cost 3 pence — about 6 cents at the conversion rate at the time. Bose is a marketing company that targets the everyman, and that’s fine. But don’t EVER think Bose is a legit audiophile company. They’re better at cancelling noise than reproducing it. |
totally ignoring their beastliness as a corporate concern, i own several bose products- a series II wave radio, an acoustic wave music system [wave radio sounds better to my ears but AWMS gets much louder], a sr1 cinemate soundbar [amazingly uniform wraparound imaging independent of listener position, but no depth], a lifestyle 30 system [good enough for movies, not so great for music 'cept for instrumentals, something about the system removed most of the harshness from bad recordings with upper midrange glare, music with vocals sounded like they were muffled], and a pair of their noise-cancelling cans [mediocre sound quality but useful for noise cancellation in noisy places, they enabled me to mow the lawn sans deafening noise when i misplaced my noise blocking ear hearing protectors. i've heard the 901s several times, to my ears they were basically neutral in tone, the image was vague but wide and had a pseudo-depth to it. they did something to 78 rpm crackle that made it much less nasty to the ear, like it smoothed it out or something like that. seems aside from the compact music systems, all bose products seem to have adequate bass down to 40 cycles and some usable bass left in the range between 30 and 40 cycles but nothing to write home to mama about. they don't seem to care about the bottom octave that much. |
the video was crappy. those speakers are not placed correctly! you can't have ANYTHING behind them except for WALLS! other equipment behind the 901s defeats the design! also too far out from the back wall and too damned close to the side walls. for those who complain about brightness, there is a treble control on the EQ. i usually set it in cut mode. |
I had a few sets years ago. They're a "fun" and in my opinion, good looking speaker when on their matching stands, especially the chrome ones. (I'm a mid-century modern fan). They must be used with the equalizer, if not, they sound worse than a cat fight at 3am. No, they don't image or have excellent detail, but I could see having a set in a large, open space like a large, living room where people congregate during parties or in a cool garage setup where you need tunes while out there tinkering on projects. They have their place for some people and needs, and that's fine. |
