Bose 301 modifications
I'm not laughing at all. Many years ago I also went down the Bose path believing that it was a well respected brand offering good performance before discovering what real hifi was. In retrospect, Bose was and still is, mediocre equipment at inflated prices. That said, I once owned a pair of Bose 301's. At that time they fulfilled my needs until I acquired a pair used 901's with the included Bose equalizer that is critical to their performance. These speakers were several years old. The sound was just OK. As an Internet junkie I researched on how to improve the performance of the speakers. With the age of the speakers it seemed that a common flaw was with the deterioration of the foam surrounds of the drivers. I bought a repair kit and spent several hours replacing the surrounds. The kit also included an adhesive to attach the new surrounds. The speakers sounded better after that. So, before trying things such as drilling holes and cutting things inspect to see if the foam surrounds are deteriorated. With speakers of that age it is very possible. You will know if they are shot because when you touch them they will just wilt like sand. I never disassembled the 301's but for the 901's it was as simple as removing the front grill and rear baffle. Then the drivers were all exposed. There are still available repair kits for the 301's. I would inspect the condition of the surrounds before doing anything else. |
The, "crossover" in 301s was a single, cheap, aluminum electrolytic capacitor(I’ve forgotten whether it was 4 or 6 uF). I used to stock/sell the drivers, purchased from Madisound(who carried the manufacturing over-runs from Bose’s supplier), for(literally) a couple Bucks each. You might call them, for suggestions on what woofers will fit the holes and perform well in the cabinet volume, properly matched tweeters(efficiency/dB), as well as an actual crossover. https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com Virtually anything would be an upgrade. |
If you want to have a fun little project, build whatever inexprnsive speaker kit you like either from madisound or parts express. There’s a cool little portable, self amplified bluetooth boombox for $250 that uses a 6” bass driver, 2 3” mids, 2 1” silk tweeters. She can help you paint it! Do you have a receiver in mind to use with the bose? Source? |
Best thing to do with 301’s without changing out drivers is to power them with a receiver with a loudness function (turned on) and a bit of bass and treble boost....they’re at least listenable . This is for 301-II’s I took mine apart because they sound like there’s little to no damping material inside the cabinet, but there is lots of it, box seems simply too small for that woofer. The Woofer is run wide open too, seems very little thought was put into that crossover, just something simple and generic to keep the low frequencies out of the tweeter. |
Hi: I am new to the group. I purchased many years ago a complete professional upgraded pair of bose 301. While they sound really good. The top angled grill has been missing for years. I made an ok grill but recently decided to find a better replacement. I looked on eBay. It looks like I might have series 1 bose 301 not series 2? Not sure how you can tell. The ones on eBay use a hardware system. Mine don't have this but industrial velcro. Any advise on these would be appreciated. Thanks |
