Old Bose 901 speakers help

[Jean-Paul]

Do you live n the States? I suspect not. I see in your pictures you have a Philips unit with a SCART plug on the back. We do not have SCART in the US. Thankfully we never have and never will.

It seems from your last photograph your speakers have amplifiers.

Identify the line in on the speaker connections, by injecting signals into the input pins. You will need an input plug for the connector.

Then connect the left and right pre outs of your receiver to the line ins on the Bose input connector.

I can not find a pin wiring diagram for your speakers.

If the Bose head unit contains the Eq, you will be out of luck and not be able to use those speakers in a home theater set up.

It would be helpful if you could take a plug apart and let us know how many pins are connected. If it is more that three you will be totally out of luck.

Bose are renowned for producing gear that is non standard and can only be used with their equipment.

What would be helpful is if you could test the cable from the Bose head unit to the speaker that contains the power amplifiers, and see how many of those nine pins are connected.

since i am newbie, all the things you write above seem to be chinese for me ((

 

[jamie2112]

is it possible ??? the good thing is that i have not paid for those speakers. the bad thing is that is too bad i cannot use them, because I will need to take them away, and it will be a shame to be staying somewhere and not doing anything. in other words they are useless. do what with them ? hear cd's ??? ia m so sad !

Ok since this is the case,do you have a budget for a new system?

 

[JerryLove]

Ignore what I said earlier. I was imagining the "normal" 901s with an external EQ (to correct for the non-flat performance of array speakers).

Looking at the diagrams posted up, there's nothing you can do to run without the Bose receiver unless you are lucky and there surgery you are willing to do (the signals to the speakers from the receiver are likely analog and may be similar strength to a standard RCA connector, with just a need to break-out the wire on the "attach to receiver" end and use a pre-out).

 

[TLS Guy]

since i am newbie, all the things you write above seem to be chinese for me ((

I have read through the pdf of that speaker system thoroughly. Since you can't seem to understand what I'm saying this may be difficult for you to accomplish.

The Eq is in the head unit of that Lifestyle system.

So that makes it difficult but you could use them those speakers

You will need to get via eBay, a used active equalizer for that vintage of 901 speakers. You will need a receiver with pre outs.

You will need soldering skills.

Take the left main pre out and right main pre out from the receiver and connect them to the from tape out inputs of the active Bose equalizer you will try and find.

Connect the left tape output from the equalizer (the input that would go to tape in of an old style receiver) and connect the hot to pin 3 on the connector on the Bose speaker that contains the amps. Connect the right tape output of the equalizer to pin 4 of the connector on the active speaker.
Both shields go to pin 5.

The easiest way to do this is to cut the wire to the "funny) Bose connector and about six inches from the plug. With a multimeter identify the shields to pin 5. With the meter then identify the left and right hots to pins 3 and 4.

Now solder female RCA sockets to the wires to pins 3, and four and soldering both shields to the grounds of the sockets.

You can then use regular RCA leads to connect from the active equalizer to to the female RCA sockets you soldered on the Bose lead.

If you don't understand this it is game over for you and you can not use those speakers except with the head unit it came with.

 

[Jean-Paul]

thank you so much for your help !

are we sure that this way they are going to work ?

 

[TLS Guy]

thank you so much for your help !

are we sure that this way they are going to work ?

If you do it correctly it will work. However your big problem will be finding the correct equalizer. We had another member looking for one and he stopped bidding at $150 as he did not think the project worth more.

Really that is the issue, as those speakers really are not worth a lot of money and effort. For instance as usual with Bose, for your unit they post no specs, except power requirement, dimensions and weight. I do note however that the weight of the speaker with the amps is quoted to be the same weight has the passive speaker. So probably not much for amps and low powered. The fact is that if Bose published specs like other manufacturers do, we would all die of laughter! You might not like to hear that, but its the truth. I think just about all of us here would regard it as good money after bad.

 

[walter duque]

IMO if you insist on having 901's as your front mains I would sell your life style system and get some real 901's. Your's look like the original 901's but they're not. Just another sales pitch from Bose.

 

[Jean-Paul]

what do you mean they are not original ? they were bought from the original onme and only Greek dealer.

if i get rid of these speakers, what package would you recomend for a 5.1 system ? what speakers and what receiver ?

 

[markw]

Not many of us are familiar with the Greek audio market.

 

[TLS Guy]

what do you mean they are not original ? they were bought from the original onme and only Greek dealer.

if i get rid of these speakers, what package would you recomend for a 5.1 system ? what speakers and what receiver ?

I was pretty certain you were not US based, and that has been part of the problem. So your chance of finding an equalizer for European house voltage is slim to none.

What speakers are available to you in Greece? Since you are part of the EEC you should have good access to fine British speaker brands and the Danish Dynaudio.

In fact you should have access to far better speakers than US residents.

Since you are part of the EEC you don't need to be salivating over US speaker dross.

 

[walter duque]

These http://www.bose.com/controller?event=DTC_LINKS_TARGET_EVENT&DTCLinkID=7679&perfsourceid=k9788&src=k9788 are 901's. Yours look like them, but they're not.

 

[Jean-Paul]

i see. what kind of brands should i be looking for in the ecc ??

 

[TLS Guy]

i see. what kind of brands should i be looking for in the ecc ??

If it is a speaker package you want, I would look at: -

PMC

B & W

Mordaunt Short.

Dynaudio.

ATC

Those are where I would start.