Please read my review below.

Please read my review below.

It seems that I have upset a bunch of people who own and love Bose speakers (and I use the word speakers loosely). If you had compared them to other quality speakers you would not own them. If you did compare and still bought them then your hearing is not good enough to spend that much money on them. Read all the criticisms carefully and understand that ALL PEOPLE WHO TRULY KNOW SPEAKERS HATE BOSE. You would think that would count for something. By the way this was of the more intelligent e-mail’s I received from my review “Dude,you must be brain dead. You are definitely not an audiophile type a person as you might think you are. Don't quit your day job”. And as with all the flame mail I have received, No facts to back up anything.

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Please read my review below.

Good crisp clean sound

The only weakness I can tell is it does need lots of power to get it's intended design to work.

These speaker might be a bit expensive but if you set them up correctly they sound wonderful.I can't believe all the want to be audiophile type people who put them down.The only thing I have to say to them is don't quit your day jobs and try to become some kind sound reviewer,you would surely starve.These speaker have been world class speakers for many many year and they have earned there reputation.If you like listening to music as close to live as possible then the bose 901s are the way to go.For those of you that don't like them then maybe you should learn how to hook them up the right way.

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JBL,CERWIN VEGA

None, This is possibly the worst speaker ever made. Although Bose has a great marketing department, It seems that can convince people that they do sound best. Even if they are comparing them to very good speakers. Guess that’s why there salesman get so much commission on them.

Turning them on, Looking at them, Having to admit that I had a pair in my house.

OK I am not in the habit of trashing bad equipment. BUT! I always heard Bose speakers in stores and the sound was very bad. I have heard people turn them past the point of clipping the amp and then talk about how good they sound. Bose people are insane when it comes to these things. I had a chance to pick up a pair of these for $100. I thought I would grab them and see what they are all about. Hooked them up to a B&K 120 watt amp with a California Audio Labs CD. I must say after a few songs I had enough. The highs had no sibilance or crispness; the mids were flat and the bass was all mud. No dynamics at all. I moved them quit a few times and found as with all speakers, placement made a big difference. They only got worse. They are now in the home of my ex-wife, she can’t tell the difference in the sound of anything, or so I thought. She will give them away when she can afford to go buy a pair of speakers. Bottom line here is Why do people buy them when much better sound is available for so much less money? Why do people think the sound is so good when it is so bad?

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Kenwood, Superscope. You know, the stuff you had in High School

The 901 is a very nicely made speaker and the ability to replace the actual dirvers is a very nice touch. They have very clear mids and highs with very little distortion.

These things are somewhat power hungry. In order to get any low end out of them you need to crank them right up to ear bursting level.

I would not reccomend these speakers to anyone who does not like it loud as this is the best way to get any real sound out of them. I replaced my reciever twice to get them to sound right but thenI just figured I would replace the speakers. I replaced them with a pair of Pioneer S-HF-10s and boy isn't it a shame that a fairly new model priced at 400pr can beat out a product with more than 15yrs of developement. Oh, well I still own the Bose 401's 201's and the CVS 10 center channel and I have no complaints with them.

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Bose 401's, Definitive Technology BP 20's, Cerwin Vegas, Pioneer S-HF-10

Everything

They need a powerful amp to get them going.

Anybody who has listened to these speakers (when properly hooked up), has loved them. Although tastes in speakers arte somewhat subjective, anybody who states that these speakers don't sound good or don't have bass know very little about music. These speakers sound much better than any speaker costing as much, and as good as some costing twice as much. Don't listen to the know nothings who put these speakers down. Most of them probably don't have the smarts to connect the system up properly.

Tolerable sound *if* you take the time to place them.

Very hard to place properly.

These speakers are good *if* you take the time to place
them properly. I tried everything: up against the back
wall, one foot, two feet, even three feet from the wall.
Then I gave them space on the sides. Finally, I found
the perfect place for them: in the trash. Now they
do sound tolerable.

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Bose AM3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,101,201,301,401,501,
601,701,801,901,1001

Good ambient sound

No soundstage to speak of

Come on guys give these speakers a break. They're excellent background music speakers. They might even be good surround speakers. If you're the type who likes that all enveloping, band is playing somewhere out there, middle of the night club or listening out of a saloon backroom sound, these are made for you. Some people don't care about any dimension or locality in what they listen to. Different strokes for different folks. 901's fill that audio niche of a wishy washy, generalized articulation of sound reproduction Whitebread America needs to tap their toes, play air guitar, or hum and move their heads to. And 901's do the job rather well; they do put out a decent tone with moderate resolution. Play some Yanni, Barry Manilow, or Slim Whitman and you'll know what I mean. A cough, burp or grunt too, coming from 901's can be revelatory to get that bile going.

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spew works blowdsprechers
nocturnal emissions panaceas formeas
Jism lens rear end spigital dalliances
Smegma subpoofers

They get worse every time I hear them compared to REAL speakers.

It should stand as obvious that a poorly built product would be riddled with flaws, these are no different. Buying these is the equivilant of spending $45000 on a Geo Metro.

All the 5 star reviewers here are merely average joes trying to be something they're not: audiophiles. It'd be like me writing a review on a 4 star resturaunt when I really know nothing at all about fine-cuisine. The 901s are not great speakers by any means, they are terribly inaccurate and color music with that vile "bose sound". If they where half as good as some of the nin-come-poops here are claiming, they'd be used in recording studios world wide. But for some unusual reason, they're not. 1.5 large is better spent in a # of ways, not on these.

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toobie.

I'll bet all the Bose zombies are getting tired of me, all except perhaps the guy 2 spaces below me because I'm not sure exactly what language he's speaking. They are by far the bese speakers on earth, IF, over-night every other speaker disappears that is.....

Even if you had 900 (crappy, cheap) 4" drivers, they will not do treble any better at producing highs or lows for that matter. I guess boses highest level speaker proves their little motto pretty well (much to their dismay).
No highs no lows, must be bose.

A word on "direct reflected sound" This is almost like your program material arriving to you ears in rumor form. Whats the most accurate rendition of a story? Straight from the source, or after it goes through the mouths of 23 people? Ironicaly, the same goes for sound, just because there IS reflected sound doesn't mean that your better off listening to nothing BUT reflected sound. The wilson MAXX and Revel Salon ($17000 and $37000 resectively) use rear firing ambience tweeters, but these are merely in ADDITION to the higher-quality front firing array incorporated into these reference monitors. Actually, this funny I should mention those other speakers, because on their propaganda EHR UH....sorry... web sight, Bose makes this ludicous claim "Bose confidently asks you to compare the 901 Direct/Reflecting® speaker system to any other speaker, no matter the size or price." SO... then that means I should compare them to B&W nautilus 801s, or Dunlavy SC-Vs ($11000 230 lbs, and $14500, 330 lbs resectively) and they should put up a fight? right...... In all reality, these are "poor mans reference monitors". you could get SO much better for $1500. Like for instance, a pair of B&W DM 604S2s.
The only "copy n' Paste item of my review follows:

I will close with this; any one know the difference between a true audiophile and the common Bose-o-phile? One of them is constantly striving to get the best they can for their money, and painstakingly auditions new equip to taylor their system to their respective needs. While the other is constantly denying themselves what their money COULD obtain for them, and rather than taking the time to audition anything else; just sits idle making excuses about how dumb EVERYONE ELSE is, while never bothering to learn anything about the science of sound and speaker construction. Can you guess which one is which? To all the main streamers or those just starting the hobby, I will give you the following advice: find a REAL dedicated audio store. Not Best Buy or Circuit city, a store without trash compactors and freezers, tell the salesman exactly what you want and tell him what your budget is. If after all that you still want bose, fine, have fun with a sub-standard system that gets outperformed buy dozens of similarly priced competitors. Your loss, not mine.

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I listen to good speakers, so theoretically, I have nothing to write here.

My reference has finally been found!!!! By far the greatest speaker in existance!!!

None at all. They are so good, they make neerby speakers sound better.

I had spent many an hour in search of a system with what it would take to be my "reference". It finally came to fruition about a year ago (or so I had thought). I auditioned the Dunlavy SC-IV with boulder amplification and other associated Levinson electronics. No matter how hard I tried, I could find nothing to compare to these. Bass response was off the scale, the most seemlessly integrated speaker I had encountered. To spite the $26000 price tag of the speakers and the more than $70000 in associated electronics(boulder 2060 amp, levison No. 30 pre-amp, No 31.5 transport, No 380s DA, and straight-wire& Kimber select), this degree of sonic perfection was worth ANY price. So I decided to commit the very next day. I had a room in my house that measured 20x26x10 which would be transformed into my listening room. And then the day came, the equipment was installed and the break-in period commenced. I was in heaven; what more could anyone want? Over the past 8 months this system has served me well, and met up to ANY demand. They have the dynamics of a wall of servo subwoofers coupled with the transparent highs of an electrostat. But then one glorious day I was strolling through the mall and I decided to stop in the Bose outlet to shame the commoners wallowing in there own low-fi pity. The salesman was actually quite cordial(I WAS gonna punch him in the face just for fun, when your as rich as me you can get away with stuff like that), And He invited me to audition the new 901 series 7. The track was stevie ray vaughns "little wing", which is one of my reference songs, so I figured I was in for quite a laugh. Boy was I wrong!!!!!!!!!! The 901 sounded better than my SC-VIs!!! Whats that you say, I'm an idiot?! Well sir, I welcome you to think whatever you want, But I did a "DOUBLE BLIND TEST" just to confirm my suspicions. The 901s looked taught and sturdy where they where, so I decided to haul my 550 lb dunlavys down to the Bose outlet, along with all of my equipment. The test was set. He (that clever salesman) played the 1812 overture first through the 901s, I thought it was the Dunlavys!!!!!!! The base on the 901s FAR exceeds what the SC-VIs are capable of, the hell with those 2 15" woofers, If you want good base, you need 9-4.5" woofers. And treble? forget about it!!! The 901s went all the way up to 90kHz!!! And the time/phase alignment(a dunlavy marketing ploy) appears to be a bunch of crap as well, who needs time alignment when you can just aim the woofers at the wall??? All in all the 901s are just better speakers, so the next day I sold the SC-VIs and bought the 901s with the money that was in my shoe. Talk about a humbling experience. Somehow the poeple at bose have figured out a way to circumvent the laws of physics and make the best sound in the world through 9-4.5" woofers... And the reason I kept the electronics? Come on!!! a 600 watt class A amp is just the begining what the 901 need to perform to their greatest potential.

The moral of the story? Bose makes the best speakers in the entire world. Even though the materials and design philosophy would dictate that they'd be pathetic pieces of crap, they have uprooted natural laws and come out on top once again!!!

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Dunlavy SC-VI, Boulder 2060 amp, Mark Levinson transport. Wilson Audio X-1