Great Highs. Incredibly loud for size.

Bass gets distorted easily at high levels due to limiting

I received these as a gift almost 5 years ago. I was excited because my father already owned a pair of 301 series III and they sounded great. I hooked them up to my Sony STR-DE325 receiver and Sony CDP-CE335 cd-player paired with some Monster Cable Interlink 400kII A/V cable and Monster Cable HP/XP speaker cable. Obviously, I was detirmened to get the most out of my system . So, I put in some extremely loud music, turn my reciever up to about 7500 d. and let her rip. I tell you what, my ears were screaming for mercy. Curious as to how well my neighbors could hear my music, I walked 6 houses down the street and could still here the sound coming from my room and with no distortion.

Not are these speakers loud, but they let you hear jazz or heavy acoustic guitar music the way it was supposed to be heard. Great highs and nice lows make these speakers an overall great buy.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 301 series III

Great mid range at low volume.

The best speaker Bose ever made, if that could be a weakness

I am using these in a 3 way set up. The have found a home in my garage for right now, as the reflecting tweeter does help to open the sound up quite a bit. I have built a crossover and send everything from 100Hz down to a set of Modified Radio shack 3 way floor standers. I ripped out the 4" mid in the radio shack floor stander and the tweeter and covered the holes with 1/25" thick MDF. The floor standers are mounted on the walls about 5 feet off of the floor on the back wall. The 201s are mounted about 6 feet off the ground and slightly angeled inward. I am using a Realistic amp that I got at a garage sale and an old dead JVC receiver as the preamp/tuner. With about 150 watts RMS @ 8 ohms the set up has more than enough power in your standard 2.5 car garage. For an investment of 200 dollars so far and a 12 pack, you can't beat it...

Similar Products Used:

I have used worse

None at all

No high end, no low end, seems to lack any kind of good sound quality

I have only heard Bose through those Acoustimass things until today when I went to a B&W dealership. i go there every once and a while and just listen to good music. the store owner had just recently been GIVEN these Bose speakers by a customer who switched to B&W, so i got a chance to compare them
sad....very sad is the only way to describe these speakers. first comparing them against the DM-302's, then the 603's. ill never listen to the Bose ones again. they annoyed me. they annoyed me a lot the just sounded TERRIBLE. it was UNBELIEVEABLE. it really was. we tested them with some pretty bad testing music (Limp Bizkit...i know i know), but could tell right away that they were missing a LOT of information. couldnt hear half of the instruments the band was playing, couldnt hit ANY high notes, or any low. the rest of the sound was, well....flat i guess. cant really descrive it. it was just missing all the sounds that ive grown used to hearing, and it made me mad to listen to them. i REALLY hate giving products on this site the lowest rating because i always figure theres something worse, but not this time. i really believe these are among the worst speakers ive ever heard. a note to bose lovers, try, just TRY and listen to a different speaker, like B&W (if youre a die hard bose lover dont because youll be mad at yourself for liking such crap)
ill put my reviews for the Bose 301's and 901's up soon hopefully, this time testing against the B&W CDM series speakers... gotta bring my Bose loving friend with. "they are good enough" my ass
1 star. stay away from bose. test them for yourself and youll know why
and one more thing- to the people who bash bose without comparing them to other speakers, do that before you talk crap, because youll have more proof and examples to back what you say up

Similar Products Used:

$5 JVC shelf system speakers

Clear highs. Not so bad looks. Small size.

Sorry bass. Sounds horrible when the volume is turned way up.

These speakers are o.k. but they aren't the best you can get in that size. The so called "Direct-Reflecting" sound is all in the advertising. For a smaller budget these speakers are an o.k. choice.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm, Klipsch, Infinity, Polk Audio.

good vocals

a little muddy at times

For their size they produce decent bass with very little power.
These speakers are used in the bar room of a fraternity house they are mounted farily high at least 10' off the floor with about 8'between them. It is a fair size room that opens into two other rooms that also open into two other rooms, but the bass still is good. One of the rooms that it opens into is a long wood room that has a Bose AM5.(review posted)The sound from one room to another is almost seemless, and the bass is consistent. This dose not say much for the Am5, but they seem to work very well toghter.
They get 7 drunken guys dancing on a bar.(The bar can hold 15)with 6 girls watching, because we can still make out the words and sing along at high volumes.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Klh

Commonly available

highly colored sound

I think I can settle the controversy over lower-priced Bose speakers once and for all! (Just kidding, but read on.) In a nutshell, the Bose 201s are pretty bad, but the 301s sound pretty good, with qualifications.

About 3 years ago I was putting a small system in my office, mostly for background music (not critical listening). All of the components were extra ones I had, except I needed to buy speakers. My budget for speakers was very limited. I listened to the Bose 201 series IV and 301 series IV in A/B tests. The 301s actually sound pretty good. The 201s sound pretty bad, but I couldn't spend much so I bought the 201s. The sound of the 201 is highly colored, so I had to do a lot of adjustment with tone controls to get the 201s anything close to listenable.

If you are set on buying low-priced Bose speakers, you will be much better off paying $320 for the 301s instead of $200 for the 201s. But there are better choices. If you are stuck with a $200 limit, the Dana model 1 is probably a better choice, although I haven't heard them. If your price range includes the $320 for the 301s, there are better choices in the $250-$300 price range. Check out speakers like the Sound Dynamics RTS3, PSB alpha and Image 1B (replaces the Century 300), Paradigm Titan and Atom, B&W 302, and Mission 731i. For use without a subwoofer, I recomend the Sound Dynamics RTS3.

Anyhow, within the last week I sold the 201s and replaced them with Sound Dynamics RTS3 ($280) and I'm much happier.

Clean speakers

Idiots who hate Bose

I hate people who hate Bose. I am not a lover of the brand but i do like them. I also own Vifa's which are probly better then most speakers. And the Bose do a very good job on reproduction of high and mid's. If you add a sub then you will really enjoy these speakers. I listen to what would have to be one of the most demanding bits of music and that is Chemical Brothers. My mother also listens to classical which these speakers reall y excell (what Bose where all ways designed to play and best at). We have also owned a pair of Bose studiocraft speakers for 17 years and we only hade to replace the rubber suroundings. They still sound as good as they did 17 years ago. So people who keep going on about how junky the are get a life. They may look cheap but if proply looked after they will probly out last you.

Similar Products Used:

Vifa

Bose name.

Everything..

Okay the last reviewer must be 10 years old. With the money you pay for these you can get much better. Paradigm, Klipsch, and many other high quality speaker manufactors, use poly or treated paper woofers and dome tweeters. These have very cheap paper, not treated, cones that cost Bose about 50 cents. Even on the cheapest Paradigm speakers the use binding post on the connections. These Bose, costing about 100 dollars more, do not. Cheap 10 cent push spring connectors.

The bass coming out of these speakers is coming from the big hump in the 80hz region. It seems like deep bass, but isn't. Just bloated and pitch inaccurate. Bose used in the studio? Nope..Bose used in movies mix downs? Nope. Bose used by NASA, yep for sound cancellation. Not for reproduction, I think NASA uses B&W's. Not sure however. Any musican use them in the home, nope. Maybe out there some where. God did make some of us tone deaf.

For the 200 dollars spent on these you could get Paradigm Titans, a waaay better speaker..

Loud isn't everything. My Paradigm Mini Monitors can go loud, yet not sound harsh and inaccurate and bloated.

Cheers.. DX guy.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm, Klipsch

I own a pair of Bose 201 series speakers and they have a very good, realistic, life like sound. Ihave know idea why all of these people are hammering Bose so badly, Bose is a very good audio company.

none

everything else

Wow do these (and all Bose SUCK) speakers suck. There were so many of you that hit the nail on the head that I won't go in to particulars. My wife had a bachlorette party at my house 2yrs ago. She and her friends blew every one of my Cambridge Sound Works speakers. She said that she would buy me new speakers. I went to Best Buy and bought a laptop computer for school. The computer had modem problems so I took it back. I made up my mind that I was not going to get another laptop by that maker due to various problems. I ended up using the store credit to replace my speakers. I wanted to buy Eosone's but Best Buy was in the process of liquidating them due to Eosone going out of business. They did not have a full set. I ended up getting Bose. I bought 501's for the front, 201's for the rear and later I replaced those with 141's cause the 201's looked asinine hanging off my wall. I also bought there center channel.

Well the sound from all of them is just utterly terrible. Direct reflecting is a stupid idea period. There is a theory that paper cones produce a deeper bass, while polypropylene produces a more punchy bass. The paper used on Bose speakers sucks. I blew a tweeter on my 201's and Bose won't send me a replacement. They want me to take the speaker to a local dealer for repair. They all had a month wait. I will never wait a month to have a stupid tweeter replaced. I am just going to get a tweeter from Radio Shack and stuff it in there. I don't think it will hurt the sound any. After that I will just sell them to some moron on Ebay. By the way to anyone else who thinks these speakers suck, drop a line off to Richard Card at support@bose.com. Let them know what you think of there awesome products.