Bose 901

I purchased the 901s in 1976.  They were my first good speakers.  I really liked them but the equalizer was confusing and I felt like I had to play them very loud to get all the music I wanted. They did look spiffy though. 

I worked for a high end store in the 70's and the owner decided to try out the Bose lineup. Our showroom was not a favorable place for the 901s. There was a large window in the front of the store that ended up being where we put these things. They still sounded terrible, just not as terrible. I thought the 301 was the only decent sounding speaker in the line. We also sold Sonab for awhile. They were much better than the Bose and appealed to the person who was looking for a different design.

Although I never cared for their sound, I couldn't get over how many people would turn them around and face the multi driver side towards the listening position. Totally defeated the direct/reflect sound concept.

The monster Bose power amp MC refered to was 250 WPC, not 350 (that was the Fizzle Linear at 350), and it featured a distortion curve that rose steadily above the upper midrange, no doubt due to minimal open-loop bandwidth limitations on the output transistors.  But with no actual tweeters...who cares!  But it was a beast.  After Series III came out they stopped making it.

I think there are more satisfied listeners overall of 901s than higher end audio listeners..