Bose 901 series VI & Yamaha A-S2000

I see this is an 10 month old post, but for someone that may be looking for this same combination, you can not use the Bose 901s with this integrated amp because there is no tape loop, and the "preamp out" on the Yamaha A-S2000 can not be used with the "main amp" in at the same time. You can only use the "preamp out" with an external amp, and you can only use the "main amp" in with an external preamp. This is what I hate about the so called "high-end"; instead of answering a question, they impose there biased views, thinking they know so much that they have to enlighten those that are not in "the know".

I know this is an old thread, but I'm posting my 2 cents. BOSE 901 series is actually a decent pair of speakers. I currently own a pair of 901 Series VI. They hang in my dining room/kitchen area and reproduce music very musically with their unique ability to create a massive soundstage. I've also owned a pair of Series V's previously.

I also own a complete Klipsch KSP series for my living room home theater with a pair of KSP 400's for mains (with two 400W 15" built-in subs), dual KSP C6's for the centers and quad KSP S6's for the rears, as well as S3's for sides and 4 x RSX4's and 2 x SS .5's for ambiance channels and a rear channel sub as well. That makes for 3 subwoofers in my Klipsch Home Theater system. I love Klipsch's rendering of gut-wrenching rumbling and head smacking thunderclaps in movies.

I also own a pair of 6 Foot Carver Ribbons - The ALS III+ which are in my large master bedroom. I listen to those to please my ears with jazzy and instrumental music.

And I have a system in my garage with a pair of JBL CF120's to please my ears with garage jammin' music when I'm involved in my hobbies.

I purchased each type of speakers for the sound I wanted - not to appease the lame critics, most of which I don't care to please.

The 901's were not designed to be exceptionally accurate to the discerning listener, rather they were designed to be musical. And musical they are... exceptionally.

The 901's MUST be used with the matching and accompanied active equalizer, as the speakers do not have any internal crossover circuitry, which can limit its power-handling capacity. The voice coil circuitry can handle in excess of 35,000 watts, but of course the speaker cones themselves would be blown to smithereens with that kind of wattage.

The 9 drivers in each 901 are series-wired to handle enormous amounts of current. The crossover/active equalization circuit was placed out of the speaker box in an active equalizer format to affect and modulate the electronic signal BEFORE the signal entered the speakers. Very ingenious design, if you ask me.

Dr. Amar G. Bose made the 901's to fit within a specific dollar budget and at the same time to sound musical in its overall presentation, not necessarily tonally accurate as in a lab-environment.

Dr. Bose was a professor at MIT and he was also an avid musician when he embarked on his quest to manufacture a pair of speakers that reproduced music that sounded better than what their specifications would indicate. This was a direct result of him purchasing a pair of speakers based on lab-perfect specifications and finding they sounded terrible and not-at-all musical in the real-world environment.

After receiving a grant for the research of disparity in how speakers sound in a real-world environment as opposed to a lab-perfect environment, he learned that approximately 89% of all the music that reaches a listener's ears at a live performance were REFLECTED sound and only approximately 11% were comprised of direct-radiated sound. Hence, the 901's primary design parameters of 89% to 11% ratio of reflected to direct radiated audio from the enclosures.

As for the sound... let me just say that I have listened to MANY, MANY different types of set ups and I have found NONE yet, that quite match the 901's in the sheer SOUNDSTAGE they are capable of creating when set up properly.

The ENTIRE WALL behind the 901's become the soundstage, which I have yet to hear another pair of speakers in its price range (even up to 3X) to duplicate. And my friends, that is why I own a pair of 901's.

Guess what, about a year and half ago, I had some Bose 901 seris 6, Believe it or not!, I put a Krell Kav 300I intergrated amp on these, mated with Tara Labs-The one speaker cables and interconnects, spent hours finding the best speaker setup in the room that was being used, stood back, Wow!, these speakers sounded very good with some decent electronics and very,very good cables!, unfortunally, I had to sell the Bose and Krell to finance buying a Tara Labs Zero Gold balanced 1-meter interconnect with HFX grounding station, No regrets on the interconnect, but that sound of Bose 901's on a good setup will live in my memory as a huge upgrade for 901's!, I might just get another pair for the hell of it for a second system, and do that all over again, believe me, the 901's was quite a different animal, they seemed like they were not Bose anymore, a profound revalation with that setup, cheers.

Audiolabyrinth,

I think many people would be surprised how good things can sound when optimized/dialed in, even Bose.

I am not a fan of many Bose home audio products, but I suspect few have ever heard newer 901s mated with really good gear well and might be surprised with the results possible.

I have heard 901s and other Bose gear sound pretty good in some commercial installations I have heard, so I have to believe it is possible.

I have a Bose 901 Lifestyle system (15 years old and still going strong) in a room with a Yamaha piano, a set of Gretsch drums and a plethora of percussion instruments, from bells to chimes, to guiros, and claves, and so forth. As a musician, and speaking to other musicians, the 901s are really great speakers. Their tonal balance is spot on. They reproduce the voicing of my piano with uncanny accuracy. Bells and chimes and cymbals the same. The overtones from cymbals are amazing. I have two different pairs of finger cymbals for example that have quite distinct tonality. Bose 901s reproduce their individual character amazingly well. I love these speakers and always have. They are not for everybody and they are not audiophile speakers, but they work well for a lot of people and have done so for many, many years. I am sure the Yamaha electronics would work very well with them.

Mapman, The second half of the story is that I had two pair of Bose 901 series six, I put both pairs on the main system, The Krell 700cx before I got the amp modded. man, talking about the loudest system I have heard in my life,The 700cx has bi-amp post, I took advantage of that, the bass was kicking my guts thru my back!, like a fricken concert!, people rushed to my house, they said they heard it inside their house with their doors closed, Ha, He,he,Ha, Awsome!, I will not ever forget that either, cheers to you mapman.

Tone Audio reviewed the 901 Series VI recently. The verdict? A lot going for 'em, especially at the $1400/pr retail.

Review here.

After improving my Yamaha a-s2000 with my QuickSilver GOLD TWEAK I now love my 901's even more so when you match these 901's with GOOD gear they really SING!

What did I do to my Yamaha amp?

Inside my amp I found out by closing those very small gaps between all those connectors inside my amp with QuickSilver GOLD contact enhancer improved the sound of my amp a lot!!!..

I first started by turning on the amp and then unplugging the power cable going to my amp and then waited 24 hours BEFORE starting this tweak !!!........

Next I took off all the connectors wires going to the transformer, amps and preamp and using a toothpick I coated all the connector pins on the circuit boards...I unhooked and coated each connector one at a time... you only want to put a little bit on the tips of the connector pins!..

Some of the connectors had already been soldered to the circuit boards...in my amp it was the darker color connectors...all the white colored connectors are NOT soldered to the circuit boards and do come off.

You do have to be VERY CAREFUL when removing these connectors because you can bind these medal connector pins very very easy!!! I bent two pins on the back preamp circuit board myself so you have to be very careful when removing these connectors!!........

The improvements I'm now hearing from my amp is got me wondering...Did I just found the "Holy Grail" of all tweaks here???!!!...

Before this tweak I was going to upgrade to the Yamaha a-s3000 but now I think I will just keep my a-s2000 until it dies or I die!.....and I will keep my BOSE 901's as my main music and Home Theater speakers too until they die OR I die!...

I had no idea what a AMAZING AMP was just hiding inside my a-s2000 amp!...

The new Bose series 6 speakers have a new and improved EQ, called the series six version two EQ, I have not heard this EQ, but I have been told it sounds better than the original, you will know by looking at one, the new one is made of less metal, the cosmetics look different, the new EQ does come with a brand new pair of Bose 901 series 6 speakers, I can imagine, as many hi-end out board cross-overs that are out there, you likly can get a cross-over that is alot better than the one that comes with Bose, sure like to hear some feedback from anyone that may have done this?,,cheers.

Bose is a marketing company, their speakers are crap.

@ vernneal, I have seen $20,000.00 to $100,000.00 speakers that were crap!, whats your point?, for the retail cost of Bose 901 series two with version two EQ mated with good wires and electronics, It would be very hard to find better speakers at the asking price!

+1 Audiolabyrinth !..

Jeff Dorgay of Tone Audio kept the reviewed pair of 901's because he seen just how GOOD they sounded with GOOD REFERENCE gear like he has...

Now I'm not SHOCKED that in his review he did not tell everyone just how GOOD these 901's REALLY ARE! with Reference gear like his.. because he would never hear the end of it!...THE PHONE WOULD STILL BE RINGING OFF THE HOOK !!...

Hi guys, I've sat in front of 901's in a variety of settings... In the right room... (boundaries are important) with good equipment on them, they can be satisfying. My real complaint no matter what, I've never heard great imaging... they will produce a soundstage, but proper image placement is non existent... I'm not trying to argue with anyone that might have gotten good results with imaging, I'm saying that I haven't heard it... I've built and repaired speakers for 35 years, including a bunch of Bose, they are well though out, some well designed, some ok, but all made with crap parts. For the parts inside, they sound pretty good.

Timlub - Would you be able to speculate about the parts cost in the 901s? And for now disregard the 60% bulk discount that Bose surely sees?
After I see your guess, I'll offer mine.

Timlub, Have you done any critical parts up-grades to the Bose 901's to great effect before?

"My real complaint no matter what, I've never heard great imaging... they will produce a soundstage, but proper image placement is non existent."

Timlub is right of course. If you turn any speaker toward the wall, no matter what else happens the imaging is pretty much gone. That fact is why, in my opinion, 901s are so controversial. What they do quite well, though, is accurately reproduce tonal balance. My frame of reference is that in my music room there is a piano and a set of drums. In addition there is a wide array of hand percussion instruments. The voicing of the piano are clearly delineated on the 901s. Many times it is necessary to look to determine if the sound is coming from the speakers or the piano. Another example is a triangle which has an amazingly complex progression of overtones. Listen to the real triangle, then listen to the playback and there is no appreciable differnce. Cymbals are very difficult to capture and reproduce. 901s get this right too. Another observation, most performing musicians don't worry about soundstage, rather we worry about tonality, particularly being in tune with and in synch with our fellow performers. When the conductor wants to hear the balance of the entire ensemble, which happens before every performance during rehearsal, he or she invariably walks back from the stage to the center of the hall, or even further back. Again, the priority is on tonal balance. Imaging is just not much of a concern for the majority of musicians. In my experience this is true irrespective of the genre of the music. Mind you there is nothing wrong with wanting good imaging from our speakers, any more than it is wrong to want to sit up front at Symphony Hall. It gets down to individual priorities. 901s do a lot of things right for me, but they are not for everybody. I just wish people would quite bashing them for contrived and incorrect reasons.

"My real complaint no matter what, I've never heard great imaging... they will produce a soundstage, but proper image placement is non existent."

Timlub is right of course. If you turn any speaker toward the wall, no matter what else happens the imaging is pretty much gone. That fact is why, in my opinion, 901s are so controversial. What they do quite well, though, is accurately reproduce tonal balance. My frame of reference is that in my music room there is a piano and a set of drums. In addition there is a wide array of hand percussion instruments. The voicing of the piano is clearly delineated on the 901s. Many times it is necessary to look to determine if the sound is coming from the speakers or the piano. Another example is a triangle which has an amazingly complex progression of overtones. Listen to the real triangle, then listen to the playback and there is no appreciable difference. Cymbals are very difficult to capture and reproduce. 901s get this right too. Another observation, most performing musicians don't worry about sound stage, rather we worry about tonality, particularly being in tune with and in synch with our fellow performers. When the conductor wants to hear the balance of the entire ensemble, which happens before every performance during rehearsal, he or she invariably walks back from the stage to the center of the hall, or even further back. Again, the priority is on tonal balance. Imaging is just not much of a concern for the majority of musicians. In my experience, this is true irrespective of the genre of the music. Mind you there is nothing wrong with wanting good imaging from our speakers at home, any more than it is wrong to want to sit up front at Symphony Hall. It gets down to individual preferences. 901s do a lot of things right for me, but clearly they are not for everybody. I just wish people would quite bashing them for contrived and incorrect reasons.

The Parts Express 901 replacement driver is $18.75 ea. in quantity, less than 1/3 of what Bose charges for an OEM driver. So the drivers are probably worth around $10-11 each wholesale. The Parts Express drivers appear to have about the same build quaiity.

I'd like to see what you could get with 10 higher quality full range drivers in a different configuration such as a tower with 8 drivers facing forward and 2 facing rearward for ambience. The larger cabinet should provide better bass performance with less EQ, and the 80/20 ratio would provide better imaging with more direct and less reflected sound. You'd retain the advantages of the 901 with fewer of the drawbacks--crossoverless sound, large radiating surface, but with more optimized cabinet and more realistic dispersion pattern.

Many of the newer full range drivers have phase plugs, which should improve high frequency dispersion, though you'd probably want to angle the drivers somewhat to improve it.

We used to pay a bit under 8 bucks for a pretty good replacement part. There is also a molded cabinet inside, the real magic of 901's is in the eq... and no, we never did any hard core mods... latex coating drivers, but thats all that I recall. I would suspect that Johnny's esimater is pretty close for dealer cost today.

Guys , I did two tweaks to a pair of these newer series 6 mk2 901's, these speaker drivers are a little different than the older series 901's. With these new speaker drivers they now use different lighter paper speaker cones and they now have plastic dust caps for better highs and they went back to using cloth surrounds again.

I started by taking some very fine sandpaper and going around all the paper speaker cones so the Elmer's carpenter wood glue would stick to the paper cones better. I used a very small art brush and put a very thin coat around the paper cones. I did not put any glue on the plastic dust caps and you have to be very careful not to get any glue on the cloth surrounds. I let the glue dry for 48 hours before playing any music. I waited 3 months before doing my wood stain tweak. I used Minwax wood stain and with this tweak I coated the paper cones and I also coated the plastic dust caps and on the back side of the speaker paper cones I coated that too and also coated the voice coils with wood stain too. I again waited 48 hours before playing any music. Now this part took over a year TO break-in so the voice coil wires would loosen up and then the speakers sounded much better. I next fine tuned the speakers to suit my taste better. It took three more coats of wood stain on the front side only of the paper cones and plastic dust caps before I really loved these speakers. Now these speakers sound amazing with the speakers turned around backwards, BEFORE these tweaks, I did not like them turned around backwards at all. Now these speakers have very nice highs and a very rich mid-range and a very good bottom end too. If Tone Audio only knew what was hiding inside these speakers. I have no idea what these tweaks would do to these older series 901's because they are so different than these latest series 6 mk2's. My QuickSilver GOLD tweak inside my Yamaha a-s2000 amp, has made it sound like REFERENCE GEAR now and that has made these modified 901's really SING like never before.

I stick by my comment that Bose is a MARKETING COMPANY and has no serious speakers for critical listeners. In the 80s I had a pair of 901s which sounded like speakers in a tin can. I sold them and replaced them for JBL112s at the time. Currently I use B& W 802Ds for fronts and B & W CM10GBs for the rears. Crap would be complimenting Bose

@Vernneal: That would rather be an insult to crap. But then; everyone has their own own tastes.

I'm late to this thread and the decision has been made by the OP a while ago I'm sure. First time I heard the 901 speakers was way back before I was an audiophile probably 1969 or 1970. In any case they were the first speaker I "fell in love" with. You don't have to be an audiophile sitting in the sweet spot to love music, the 901's aren't at all about that. Great party speakers that play loud and work well in larger commercial venues where I often came across them rather that big PA speakers like Peavey.

Ok, Ok Bose is a marketing company and a clever one at that. I'd be the first to admit that the value to dollar isn't the best but to ME the 901 speakers, none of the other Bose stuff that I've heard/owned (the 501's which was the most regrettable audio purchase I ever made) were special but those 901's captivated me at a time and place long gone and you never forget your loves. I doubt it was marketing initially that had the public buying into the design. If like me, they liked what they heard and had the 450.00 or so to purchase them, they did. Unfortunately I didn't at the time or would have purchased them on the spot. Hearing them many years later in an audiophile type setting I asked myself, what was I thinking? It really depends on how you listen with the 901's. They get undeservedly poor marks along with the pompous vitriol spewed in their direction from what I would guess folks that never listened to them as intended, or never heard them at all. They are what they are but one thing they're not is audiophile speakers. But as someone mentioned above, they can be a lot of fun. Can't music be about that too?