Bose 901


Hi folks, what is your opinion about the Bose 901? Can it competes with the high end speakers which are frequently mentioned here, like Wilson, Thiel, Revel, B&W, etc.? Please try to be objective and try not to be driven by some prejudice towards the marque.
dazzdax
I have four of the MKVI. Wanna buy? Like stated already, they are good for the $$$. Only if conditions are favorable. They need room as 87% of sound hitting you is reflected. Not for the bookshelf. Hanging them from the ceiling reduces the bass response. The highs seem distored and the lows were out of control at high volumes. I listen to Lamb Of God, Godsmack, Metallica, etc, mostly and like to get it loud without it sounding like something is being stressed beyond...I just got some Klipsch R7s. Seem much better so far...Like I said the Bose can sound wonderful for certain applications, but not for mine. BTW...mine are in excellent shape. Two are just broken in and the other two with only 1 hour use.
Got to agree with the early-901 nostalgia. Bought a pair late in my Navy days, around '76 I think it was, with some sort of receiver and a used AR "on/off-switch-only" turntable. Was married to a professional violinist for seven years after that, and we were just in heaven (listening-wise, not marital-wise!) listening to Rabin, Heifitz, Oistrakh, Guarneri and Julliard Quartets, etc. The 901s sure sounded mighty fine to us back then, and to our professional musician friends as well! Sometimes wish, in the immortal words of Bob Seger, that I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
I was a student at MIT when Amar Bose (a professor there) introduced the 901. My audiophile friends and I agreed then (and still do) that the direct/reflecting idea is basically flawed, because both the direct and reflected sound of the instruments/vocalist at the original venue have already been recorded on the source medium (CD, tape, record) so the introduction of additional reflections just serves to add another layer of "acoustics" that were not on the source material, and can only "muddy" the reproduced performance.

Nice marketing ploy, but lousy audio!

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I have a pair of used 901V's hanging from the ceiling of my garage. Powered by a $1.00 (+ $11 S&H) eBay 35 watt JVC JR-S201 receiver, driven through leftover 10-guage solid-core electrical wiring as speaker cable.

Best garage system I've ever heard. Cheap 'n' easy, out of the way, zero hassles, just 990 sq. ft of tunes. Good bass, adequate treble anywhere in the garage.

Yeah, I suppose I'll lose 'em to the dreaded foam rot. They look good so far, though. We'll see how they take repeated -20F temperatures.

The best-sounding roller skating rinks I've been in have used 901's, too, but they had about twenty times the peak wattage driving 'em. If I put two watts average into 'em, I'd be surprised.

As a primary sound source in the living room? You can do better. They might be good as surround speakers, though.