Bose 901 "micro" review

[KEW]

There is not much reason to belabor this.
I listened to some Bose 901 Series VI speakers today and was very dissappointed.
Back in the late 70's I remember Bose 901's as much better speakers.
The old ones had much better construction, did not have the plastic ports sticking out the back (maybe no ports?), and the EQ was not the cheesy plastic and sheet metal product currently being produced. I won't pretend to remember the sound, but I don't remember the glaring errors I hear in the new ones and think I would have.
Perhaps someone here knows a bit about the devolution of these speakers.

Some specific Cons.
There is no shine whatsoever. I was listening to a recording and heard dull hiss I had never noticed before, it took me a few seconds to remember that the sound was a sustained brush on a snare drum. So much for detail. I also listened to electric bass where a single note is being trilled (~55 seconds into Yes, "Yours is No Disgrace"). Instead of hearing the nice articulation I love, it sounded like some strange vibrato was being used. The notes were blurred and indistinct - I'd reckon it to a Humpback Whale attempting to hum the bass line (for a fun image).

Adequacies.
Pros is a misnomer, but there are some places where these speakers have something to offer. If you feed them midrange music they don't sound bad. Still inarticulate, but not to the extent they were for bass. Dave Brubeck's "Take 5" and a bit of Vivaldi's "Four seasons" (which had no content in the frequency extremes) were reasonably enjoyable.
There is absolutely no doubt that the "spaciousness" offered by the design gets your attention in a compelling manner. You are engulfed in sound unlike any other speaker I have heard. By being strikingly different in that measure, I'm sure they turn heads and continue to make sales for Bose.
Unfortunately, this is at the expense of image and detail.

Cheers,
Kurt

 

[dkane360]

Thanks for the mini review. My friend's step dad had a set of 901's and I remember listening to them a few years back. I thought they sounded amazing, and it was originally what got me into researching speakers. Now that I'm more familiar with speakers, I now know that the "amazing" sound was just Bose's signature sound of no highs with booming and muddy lows. They were perfect for his application though, rap music in a large wood floored entertainment room

 

[GranteedEV]

Ah, the adage is proven yet again, no highs no lows just Bose

 

[sholling]

I had back to back roommates back in the early 80s, the first had Bose 901s and the second Klipsch La Scalas. The 901s always made me think of the sound of speakers in behind a wall, like in another room. The sound was very muddy and muted. The La Scalas on the other hand were completely lifeless until you reached painful volume levels at which point they came to life.

 

[zieglj01]

The 901 could get loud - still no life like concert sound. The sound
was artificial.

 

[Alex2507]

Kurt,

I'm curious about the room you listened to the speakers in and the speaker placement. I listened to a pair in a Bose store very briefly. They were on this display wall around 8' apart. The display wall had like 2' wings on each end angled in ~22.5 degrees that the speakers were backed up to. I'm not sure if the wing walls were there for acoustical purposes or to help the wall be free standing (it didn't go to the ceiling).

The demonstration was short and uninvolved because they had a bunch of potential suckers ... I mean customers in an adjoining room watching Bose propaganda and drinking Kool-Aids ... but I bash ... I mean digress.

Enough of that ... sometimes I get sick of the hurled insults but I'm not always completely honest. Seriously the demo was short and primarily consisted of w/ EQ and w/out EQ but I thought they sounded pretty good for $400 but unfortunately they were $1,400 and placed on a $2,000 custom wall.

BTW, if anybody in New England needs one of those walls ... call me.
I'm having a special on walls until the economy turns around.

 

[KEW]

Kurt,

I'm curious about the room you listened to the speakers in and the speaker placement. I listened to a pair in a Bose store very briefly. They were on this display wall around 8' apart. The display wall had like 2' wings on each end angled in ~22.5 degrees that the speakers were backed up to. I'm not sure if the wing walls were there for acoustical purposes or to help the wall be free standing (it didn't go to the ceiling).

The demonstration was short and uninvolved because they had a bunch of potential suckers ... I mean customers in an adjoining room watching Bose propaganda and drinking Kool-Aids ... but I bash ... I mean digress.

Enough of that ... sometimes I get sick of the hurled insults but I'm not always completely honest. Seriously the demo was short and primarily consisted of w/ EQ and w/out EQ but I thought they sounded pretty good for $400 but unfortunately they were $1,400 and placed on a $2,000 custom wall.

BTW, if anybody in New England needs one of those walls ... call me.
I'm having a special on walls until the economy turns around.

They were about 5 feet apart with a bay window and venetian blinds about 4 feet behind them. I think it was similar to the contour of the wall at the standardized Bose store. Messing with placement might have improved them a bit - perhaps the bass would have been a little tighter if the reflected surfaces were closer, there was certainly plenty of room for improvement and it makes sense that would help.
The lack of any shine kept them from being worth further audition time.

I also forgot, but in the lower bass region when turned up, there was some sort of distortion - sounded like a kick drum being sent to a low quality ported speaker.
Oh yeah... maybe that is actually what it was

Why in the heck would they do a demo with and w/o EQ? Did they state a purpose or why you would care. They surely suck w/o EQ!

At one point, consumer reports was suggesting a tweak if you owned the 901's, they gave the model number of a specific pair of inexpensive mini speakers from RS (which had a decent tweeter) that you could add to improve them substantially.

 

[Alex2507]

Why in the heck would they do a demo with and w/o EQ?

A friend of mine got a pair given to him with blown out surrounds but no EQ. Turns out they won't sell just the EQ and I was curious what they sound like without the EQ.

I have the general impression that you know the ins and outs of speakers but for the casual reader the room and placement of 901's is critical to their sound quality which I really did think was pretty good but at the time my system was a mess as I didn't have bass management, placement and calibration at all figured out ... like I do know. Did I ever mention how smart I am?

 

[sholling]

My old roomie hung his 901s about 18" from a back wall. Distance is important because most of the energy is fired to the rear and reflects off the walls.

 

[shadyJ]

The La Scalas on the other hand were completely lifeless until you reached painful volume levels at which point they came to life.

I heard some La Scalas in a room compared against a slew of high end Paradigm speakers and some Klipsch RF-83 towers. The La Scalas sounded terrific, to my ears easily better than the rest, at any volume. I'd love to have some but I don't have the money or the room for them.

 

[sholling]

I heard some La Scalas in a room compared against a slew of high end Paradigm speakers and some Klipsch RF-83 towers. The La Scalas sounded terrific, to my ears easily better than the rest, at any volume. I'd love to have some but I don't have the money or the room for them.

I'm sure the new version is better. The original La Scala was designed for concerts and were big, pebble black like a band speaker and industrial looking. Our living room was maybe 14x18 and he didn't have a sub. It was 1983 he'd paid a few months pay for them and a really good amp. You just couldn't get them to produce any mids or mid-bass much below jet take off volumes. Maybe it was the room. I had junk at the time and it was nice to hear the good stuff.

 

[KEW]

The La Scalas on the other hand were completely lifeless until you reached painful volume levels at which point they came to life.

"It hurts so good..."

 

[Rob Babcock]

Somehow those guys are the Energizer Bunny of the audio world. They're mediocre at best and wildly overpriced yet they seem to keep selling. I'm in the wrong line of work!

 

[dkane360]

Somehow those guys are the Energizer Bunny of the audio world. They're mediocre at best and wildly overpriced yet they seem to keep selling. I'm in the wrong line of work!

Probably 9 times out of 10, if you ask someone what the best speaker company is, they will say Bose. Simply because A. they don't know any others, or B. because an advertisement told them so.

 

[walter duque]

This is a bad scan of one of my old systems. I ran (4) 901 Series V with VSP-Labs Gold Edition Streight Wire Pre-amp and 2 VSP Gold Edition Power amps (200 wattsx2) and they sounded damned good. But I also used a DBX Dynamic Range Expander and the Sonic Hologram Generator from the Carver CD Player. Maybe that's what made the difference. They do need a lot of power. My first 901's I had where the Series II (1974) I pushed them with the Marantz 4400 (120 watts) and that didn't do it. Other than that I did enjoy that system.

 

[KEW]

Ah, the adage is proven yet again, no highs no lows just Bose

Actually, I'd have to take exception to the "no lows" part of this statement in the case of the 901's. They probably don't plumb the depths, but the extension is pretty good, with a nice fullness. It is the articulation in the lows that was the real problem!

Of course, the 901's are hardly representative of Bose at this point.

 

[zieglj01]

Stereophile in their Nov. 1979 review - shined a light on
their basic faults. However, the 901's have some fans.

 

[KEW]

Stereophile in their Nov. 1979 review - shined a light on
their basic faults. However, the 901's have some fans.

Excellent read!
I don't know how I had missed that.
The specifications of the review say 4" drivers and they currently specify 4-1/2" drivers. I wonder if they actually increased the driver size or if they just started measuring them across the entire frame of the driver.

 

[zieglj01]

Excellent read!
I don't know how I had missed that.
The specifications of the review say 4" drivers and they currently specify 4-1/2" drivers. I wonder if they actually increased the driver size or if they just started measuring them across the entire frame of the driver.

The series 1 may have been 4" - Parts Express sells a replacement driver
for series 2-5 and is 4 1/2" - This is a 1 ohm speaker, 83 hz to 15000 khz

 

[JerryLove]

This is a 1 ohm speaker, 83 hz to 15 khz

Fixed that for you.