Dr. Amar Bose introduced his new Bose company and premiered his sole product, the 901s, in mid-May 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, just a couple of weeks before RFK was shot and killed at that same hotel. It was at the large, national annual Hi-Fi show, with exhibitor booths in the large hall and in dedicated hotel rooms rented out to exhibitors. Dr. Bose had a room to showcase and introduce his 901s. Julian Hirsch was there, and as he did monthly, he would write his review which appeared a couple of months later in the HiFi Stereo Review magazine - the classic magazine of that era, and his review is still a classic.
Not far from the Ambassador, on Olympic Blvd. between Vermont and Western, was International TV which had a large listening room with walls of dozens of amplifiers, receivers, and loudspeaker systems, all the biggies of those days, Fisher, Kenwood, Marantz, JBL, Altec, AR, etc. They had it wired so any turntable, receiver, amp, tuner or loudspeaker pair could be A/B compared with the flip of a switch. I would spend many hours in that room listening.
I had just turned 15, but I was also at the Ambassador. I sat and stood in that room for 6-7 hours, listening to the original Bose 901s. I moved around and then stood still while the "men" came and went, adjusted what was playing and while I listened in on their comments and talk, making observations with one another, then checking my own listening to theirs. I considered the "point source" issue that, regrettably, requires someone sit in a specific listening spot to "get" the ideal sound--something I never experienced at concerts or live venues. (Those were the days of Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, Paul Revere and the Raiders, occasionally the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. ABC Studios where they played and taped in the afternoons to a live audience was 1/2 mile from my junior high school.)
I was astonished at something I never got when I was comparing other sound systems, not even my beloved JBLs could match. (In those days, JBL was headquartered in the Atwater neighborhood about 1 1/2 miles from where I lived, before they moved to Northridge.) None of the conventional systems were possible of producing clearly audible stereo separation when I was standing directly in front of, and close to, either the right or left speaker. You simply could not distinguish, hear, one channel if you were standing directly in front of the opposite channel. With the 901s I was astonished to not only hear it, but equally loudly and clearly. The sound was tight, it was definitive, dynamic, and it was all encompassing. It was all there. There was no need for a sweet spot; indeed, requiring a "sweet spot" ever after became, for me, a definition of an inferior system, for what good is a system to be enjoyed alone? Or where you can't wander about a room without offending the system?
As to the "lacks bass," well, that may be said about the bottom octave from 20-40Hz, but not above. As to the highs, I cannot recall any deficits.
The memory of those days caused such a impact that I have never forgotten the experience. I was a kid, but I sensed there was something going on at the time, something that I had no clue what would become. As a subscriber to the HiFi Stereo Review, I devoured Julian Hirsch's review, clipped it, and saved it.
Since those days I have subscribed to open baffle design, but those only project 50/50 rear/forward (not Bose's formula 8/1), and have neither the dispersion to fill the voids to the sides of the drivers nor the power offset to do so, and so do not create the spacious concert hall sound or live concert sound as the 901s.
In the late 1970s I built similar cabinets and used two 8" drivers in the rears, but as a college student didn't have the budget to get the drivers needed, and while that would have projected 2/3rds to the rear and addressed dispersion, there are impedance issues that affect the power distribution. I've considered inserting a balance control to direct more power to rear drivers, while also directing more to the front if I wanted point-source, but never spent time to figure it out. I have considered using the legendary JBL LE-8 drivers that are flat to 20k, but haven't gotten around to doing so. That would put three 8" drivers on each R-L side, and move a lot more air, or six 8" total. You just can't fool Mother Nature's physics to move enough air for satisfactory bass.
To me, the Bose 901s are a continuing enigma. Surely there are better drivers today, better crossovers, equalizers, etc. than then. The Review above is a fair review and very well done. My only comment might be that, in fact, instead of playing down the 901s with a "what do you expect for $1,400?"-type attitude, I would suggest that they may outperform many systems for multiples of their price. The sound, when they are set-up right, wasn't anything to mock. Not because they didn't check all the boxes of the purists, but because, in my opinion, the boxes that too many purists set-up to check miss the mark and miss the musicality of the sensory experience.
My two-cents worth, IMHO anyway.
