Bose 901 Review Well Done.

This peaked my interest because I noticed a pair of Bose 901s lurking behind Steve Martin, Marty Short and Selina Gomez on the set of SM’s supposed NY apartment in the latest series of “Only Murders in the Building”. I wondered if this was part of Steve Martin’s sense of humor for his nerdy character to be proudly displaying 50 year old speakers. Who knew they are still in production?

A friend’s dad had a pair when I was in high school, and I was never all that impressed. The dad was a doctor that was into nice things so he was probably driving them with a Tandberg receiver or something like that. It was probably related to set up, or at the time I just didn’t “get” the sound. On the other hand, the system I took to college consisted of an AR turntable, Kenwood KA3500 and Bose 301 speakers. It sounded good enough that when playing some acoustic guitar music with my dorm room door open once, someone came down the hall to see who was playing.

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Hey billpete,

Lucky you, being stationed in Germany.  I flew C-130's out of Langley and only got to "rotate" for 2 months out of Mildenhall, 3 times...mostly one nighters all over Europe.  Was lucky to get to the AV club.  Miss those days!   AR turntable, Revox dolby B, and Pentax Spotmatic from there too. 

Series one and two were interesting pieces. After that, not very good. I had series one for a good while but quicky progressed.  I tried series 5 for about 15 minutes, there was no hope for them. 

@billpete Thank you. You still have Julian Hirsch's review of the 901s from (I think it was) August of 1968? I admired his style as I read his reviews month after month. I was just a 15-year old kid, but I have wondered all these years about how to achieve some real high fidelity while also achieving the "no sweet spot required" sound of a concert hall or live rock concert because to me, that is one of the biggest problems of conventional systems. (there are preferential seats in a concert hall, but relatively, there is much larger area that's sweet.)

To me, loudspeakers should be sold with a warning label disclosure: "Caution. These speakers do not function well except in a very small spot within a room." Not the frequencies, not stereo sound. But audiophiles, who ordinarily would not accept such glaring deficiencies in a system, seem to accept this problem as a given. As I was thinking on this the other day something occurred to me and maybe I'll have to try it.

Anyway, I may not comment often, but I enjoy the dialogue here. 

Hey old ears

Yes, I was fortunate to spend a year in Germany. I enjoyed my time there even though I was homesick and missed my fiance. She did come over after a few months and we got married in Darmstadt. We are about to celebrate our 50th anniversary. 

Lots of the guys had stereo gear from the RM store. Those big PX's were amazing. A lot of RTR decks, one guy had a quad set up with 2 pair of Bose 501's. It was OK, I wasn't a huge fan of the 501's. He had the biggest quad receiver you could get, can't remember but seems like maybe a Sansui, again, no big deal but the system sounded OK and certainly better than some. I spent my free cash on the camera and lenses. When I got out in Oct 75, went to work and took out a loan to buy a stereo system. Pioneer PL12D turntable, Shure V15III cartridge, Crown IC150 preamp, Crown DC300A amp and a pair of series two Bose 901's. It was around $1600. I still have the original receipt. The banker thought I was nuts but he had no reason to say no to the loan. My son still has the old Crown gear (needs repairs) and my nephew is still using the old Pioneer TT. I recently bought another V15III and it cost twice as much today, used, as it did new in 1976. Lots of people still using them today.