Bose 901 series VI & Yamaha A-S2000

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.

"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.

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.