for it's type it creates a unique performance and engineering that conventional dynamic driver designs of it's level that is superior in performance and realism.

The problem with bose and rightfully so by the critics is it's over priced propoganda of it's technology. It doesn't produce the realism and bass performance of a live event that bose and users claim, not compared to HIGHER END designs of much more expensive and engineering advancement. Cannot compare to higher end loudspeakers. If compared, it doesn't produce the same level of performance in the high, mids and lows of higher end loudspeakers of many engineering designs.

I am laughing at most of the reviews here claiming how great the 901's are. I am also laughing at those who are overly critical. As an audiophile for 27 yrs and a former high end installer. I am also a hobbyiest who likes to tweak systems and collect hifi to high end used, new or vintage loudspeakers. It bothers that the pro bose knock on high end manufacturers and claim they have used those products and owners etc. and find bose superior, and on the other hand, the overly critical audiophile who completely trash the bose as low fi or mid fi. Neither side is correct fully or wrong fully! I have been an owner of bose 901, 601's and have listened to most of the models. The 901 does have have similar competitors in it's sound reproduction and engineering design that all of these reviewers who are pro bose have never heard nor reviewed. I can name several, but I will just name a few here. OHM, dbx soundfield, ESS, ELAC, vintage BIC tippany, DAHLQUIST, ALLISON 3, definitive technology, vintage polk SDA series and a few more expensive japanese design when i was stationed in okinawa imitating bose concept but using larger drivers and using tweeters and midrange, but the concept is the same, direct and reflecting. It is absurd for some of the so called audiphile who owned martin logans, magnepan, quads, vandersteens or even van schweikert to say that BOSE 901'S are far superior. They need their brain and ear checked by a professional. At the same time, compared to mid fi and hifi general conventional designs and even some high end designs costing thousands more that are dynamic designs and not electrostats,push pulls, and planars,coherent line source,line transmission or bending wave etc... it is superior in creating a more realistic soundstage. COMPARED TO MOST HIGH END AND HIGHER END, the users who think that 18 4.5 inch paper cone drivers in the enclosure it is built on can outperform let say a GENESIS FLAGSHIP OR INFINITY RS series(vintage)MARTIN LOGAN STATEMENT, AHL TOLTEQ AND SOUNDLAB FLAGSHIPS, MCKINTOSH FLAGSHIP, ACOUSTAT FLAGSHIP in the 90's spectra series, MAGNEPAN 20.1, von shweikert flagship or vandersteen, and especially the 225k GERMAN PHYSIKS FLAGSHIPS OR ANY OF THE HORN LIKE AVA GRANDE FLAGSHIPS is utterly insane! just the genesis alone has at least 30 drivers on tweeters alone and another 30 on midrange for example. IT'S LIKE COMPARING A GOOD QUALIT MISUBISHI which is another level of a sportscar to a LAMBHORGINI! you cannot say that either are bad, they are both excellent sportscars for their LEVEL, I REPEAT THEIR LEVEL. You cannot compare the two...one is designed for that level of fidelity which is mid fi to hi fi in the case the bose 901, though overpriced, it's far superior in creating realism overall then any conventional design near it's price range except on the REAL BASS department. Bose creates bass but illusionary bass that doesn't attain the lower octaves but rather loudness on the midbass octaves. This may sound great to an average user or even self proclaimed audiophiles here, but for the discerning ear, it's hogwash who spend their hobby collecting and testing loudspeakers. BOSE IS CORRECT in saying HEARING IS BELIEVING everyone has their taste and you can't mock them for enjoying a product that satisfies their ear, at the same token, the same people have no CLUE as to what REAL HIGHER END SOUND to the true audiophile and not the self proclaimed audiophiles who writes false information on this site about themselves and reviews. I owned bose 901's they are good sounding loudspeakers for it's type and level and creates a realism for it's level, HIGHER END that creates realism at it's level is in another category of itself, you cannot compare the two levels anymore you can compare a street sportscar to a highly fine tuned RACE CAR that has a mechanic team of experts! The point is that bose 901s and other bose products are GREAT for the general lovers bose and trashy for those who are used to another level of audio. bose 901's is neither good or bad, it's either great sounding or horrible sounding if it's compared by an audiophile who is not fond of this design to higher end, anymore that you can compare a mitsubishi sports car of 30k to a 600k lambhorgini. In fighter planes, there are two great fighters in history. F-86 known as the MIG-15 killer and the F-14/F-16...DIFFERENT DESIGNS, DIFFERENT LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY. You cannot compare them, they are both great at their perspective time and engineering! One is cheaper the other are ultra expensive. As an owner of high end loudspeakers such as acoustat, eminent technology, ohm, srslabs, magnepan and hear countless loudspeakers, and owned bose 901's and 601's for over 20 yrs, i have loved bose and still would have it in my collection of fine loudspeakers but i cannot compare it to my acoustats or eminent technology. both are great sounding designs but have different levels and purpose!

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OHM WALSH series, SRS LABS, OPTIMUS LINAEUM, no similarity to eminent technology, acoustat, magnepans

Maybe too much bass for such a small speaker. Can handle some serious power. Could'nt be happier.

What weaknesses?. Oh yeah I forgot they look sort of muddy. NOT!

Well after reading all the bad, terrible, things that most reported in their reviews toward the Bose 901's, I decided I just had to have them. I figure if so many hate something there has to be a logical reason right?. Wrong! Just like the critic's about movies, if they hate the movies then buy them they will be the best movies you have seen, same here with the Bose 901's. I couldnt be happier with mine. They put out so much bass Im worried my neighbor is going to call the police. They are not good for Home Theater or at least in my situation. I bought the speakers first then the Onkyo second thinking that I would be able to use it with the Bose, but that wastnt the case, so back to ebay and found the Haffler. I also bought a Haffler Pre-Amp that worked about a month then something happened to the loop with the Bose equalizer because the speaker didnt sound as powerful as they first did. Well once again back to ebay and I bought the Carver PC 60. Well now Im back to more bass and power then my neighbor can handle. I actually have the Bass control on the equalizer set at the neutral setting (middle) and I use the Bass knob on the Carver. I read that some of you are audiophiles that you can hear differences in speakers and so forth. Well I for one would sure like to have that explained to me, I guess I must be some stupid back water hick. Or could it be your just trying to make yourselves feel important in your otherwise mundane lives. Inquiring minds want to know?. If you cant read the instructions Im sure that someone would be glad to help. It's all in how you place the speakers and the right connections, nothing more, nothing less. Muddy sounding, I guess if you accidently dropped the speakers in some mud they might sound muddy, or maybe it has something to do with reading the instrucions or the setup. Either way I love my speakers in fact right now Im listening to The last of the Mohicians at a very low volume and my floor is shaking, (must be the muddy bass). As I said I really enjoyed all the bad reviews and want to give my thanks, cause I have the best sounding speakers out there. I have a Veledyne HGS-18 series II but right now that is in Fl as well as all my other stereo equipment. I will be getting most of that soon I hope. Well have a nice day.

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Bose 601's Bose 301's

Retro styling. (They look just like Telefunken U47's). Bose packed extra imaging, dynamics and transparency in mine. If your's didn't come with any, drop me a line. Fit in my beloved, much maligned Yugo.

I heard women might like them more than me. Subwoofer-esque placement issues (easy one-time set up consideration..just like with a sub-woofer.) Generally not suitable for home theater AV receiver applications.

Contrary to myth, there is perfectly good reason to by these speakers. Listening and liking. I can say without fear of contradiction (even here) that they are unique in the world. Think different(ly). Experiment. Something will actually happen if you experiment with different placement options with these speakers. Try viewing the manual online (Google "Bose 901 manual) to see if you have the room to play, and then enjoy finding out what you think. We do this for fun. Remember?

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Nothing quite like them. Then again other speakers are all different from each other too. Aren't they?

Loud w/easy resale value. Ambient to a point. Suitable for women and those who aren't up to speed on audio quality.

High or low frequency sound. No imaging, no dynamics and no transparency. Horribly overpriced. Low-tech product, poor cross-over that looks as if it were high-tech in the 1970s Soviet Union.

When I bought my 901s it was an attempt to step up from the 301s I started with as a beginner. At first I was fine with them, they were certainly capable of loud output. I became disenchanted when I started to compare them to a pair of my friends old infinitys and a pair $500 Spica T60s. The Bose had absolutely none of the transparency or imaging they possessed. Although the were perhaps more ambient there was a distinctly muddy quality to them. When critics say "no highs no lows, it must be Bose" they aren't kidding. The inexpensive Spica's couldn't play as loud but they did one thing the 901s couldn't; they made the music more alive. Thankfully because of the name Bose I was able to sell them at what I'd paid for them and used the money to purchase a pair of used Infinity Reference Studio Monitors. The difference was incredible. While there's an argument that 301s are ok as entry level bookshelves there's really no excuse for anyone to buy these overpriced low-tech speakers. Compare them to anything at half-price and you'll be convinced. These are the Yugo's of audio speakers at BMW prices. Like Yugo owners too proud to admit they got scammed I think many decide to ignore the serious faults of the 901s.

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Bozak, Infinity, Wharfedale, ACI Sapphire. Currently own ACI Jaguar.

Although perfectly good stereo speakers, the reasons why 901s aren't suited to HT applications are much more interesting than incoherent ramblings about "mudding" (whatever that is) or three (or four?!) octaves too high bass (can we be serious?). The HT envrionment demands a relatively non-reflective front soundstage just for starters. The "wall of sound" effect that 901's are capable of, while not for everybody, requires some things that are the antithesis of good HT setup. Wide spacing and a reflective background. That's assuming that you have pre-out/Main-in's for your Front R/L channels to start with. If you don't you can only do stereo through your tape monitor loop. There's really no way around this limitation, unless of course - dare I say it - these things don't sound bad to you. Acknowledge the possibility haters. My properly set up 901's are just physically too far apart for HT. There's four feet from the edge of my TV screen to each of the 901's. Additionally, because the practical effect of reflecting the sound off the wall is more like having giant-sized speakers than anything else, localizing a sound mixed to the left or right can be problematic. These things are actually a plus for me personally, as long as we're talking about stereo listening. Cont'd

Timbre matching the center channel is the other main issue. Once again, not a problem with stereo listening but as a practical matter makes a reflecting design unlikely to satisfy a critical home theater user. Timber matching was the final thing that forced me into an unusual solution. I came into a set of five Sony K-series speakers and found them to be dandy HT speakers using the big bookshelf SSK30ED's as front channel(they fit directly beside the screen) and the smaller bookshelf SSK10ED's as rears, the SSCNK10ED as the center channel and an MTX SW2 subwoofer for good measure. The SSK30ED's just aren't the equal to the 901's and eventually I was able to - with a B-Tech 3-way signal switch (middle channel NOT used to avoid loud popping noise...trust me) and a 2-way speaker switch from B-Tech as well - get both integrated as switchable front R/L channel speakers. 901's for room-filling stereo or the five timbre matched Sony's for TV watching. This a good versatile setup. With the Harman Kardon AVR 520's so-called "5-channel stereo" mode and a speaker switch for the center channel/patio speaker I can have stereo front and back with properly EQ'ed 901's -or- Sony's, with a mono center channel that can be switched on or off, inside or outside , but I digress. This is a Bose 901 post after all. I've been around long enough to understand why and recognize when some people over-react negatively to something they don't understand. I also understand why some people pursue the notion that one should only "light" your room up with laser-like sound. With my 901's as part of my system I can have "room lighting" as well as "task lighting" The lighting analogy will only advance my argument so far but it should be food for thought. Perhaps we should debate (on a review site!) how stupid people are who buy cool white fluorescent lamps as opposed to warm white lamps, as well.

I've enjoyed the exchanges on this board for quite awhile now. Posting my views in this context is difficult but I'll hazard a shot. I bought a used pair of Bose 901's back in the late '80s and enjoyed them for a time but the surrounds eventually deteriorated and I took them down and moved on with my life as it were. Ten years or so later I discovered that Bose would replace the whole shootin' match for about $500.00 - including the active equalizer. So, to make a long story short, I found myself with a spanking new set of black 901 series VI's. Back in the halcyon, pre-home theater days of yore things were simple and using the tape monitor loop worked dandy for the outboard processing required for these speakers (we all love outboard signal processing...don't we?). Over the last several years - like many of us - I have been drawn to home theater as opposed to stereo-only listening and that has complicated things considerably. When I tried integrating my 901's back into my system, I realized there's a problem. It's not possible to do 5.1 surround sound while using the tape monitor for the front L/R channels. Always looking to get the most out of what I already have, I contacted Bose to get some recommendations about integrating the 901's into my HT. They advised against it for reasons I'll get into in a bit, but had some recommendations of how to get around the monitor loop problem. An increasingly rare feature in less-expensive receivers is the capability for multi-channel outboard signal processing, it seems. But with a list provided by Bose I managed to find a Harman Kardon AVR 520 which has 5-channel "Pre-out/Main in" RCA jacks on the back. Now most people would just leave the five jumpers plugged in or remove them all and do outboard processing on all five channels but my situation was different. I needed the front L/R signals to take the scenic route to the Bose active equalizer via the Pre-out/Main in's. So... instead of five jumpers in the back of the H/K there are now three jumpers and a L/R eq loop. Now I suppose it should go without saying but I wouldn't have gone through the trouble of doing this if I thought- as another reviewer did - the speakers were "pure crap" or "the low end [was] missing completely (think about that...) or certainly if they sounded like...no, "EXACTLY like a stock FM radio in an 83 Oldsmobile with a power booster wired in". Hmmm... I suppose if I had gotten an incredible "hiss" generating speaker (think about THAT) like he did I suppose I might not have went through all that trouble either. If the EQ had been generating "hiss" it would be relatively simple to hook another set of speakers up to output of the amp to test it. But I went through the trouble because the 901's actually sound pretty good to me...honest! The HT application of these speaker may be debatable on objective grounds but if what he was saying is all true, it CAN'T be his speakers causing the problem. Now subjectively I suppose any impression is valid. I mean, I like the color blue, but I wouldn't claim there's something wrong with red things or certainly that something was wrong with the people who like red things, as some others have stated on here - so to speak. Like any other piece of HT/audio equipment they're a combination of good and bad points. As stereo speakers it's very difficult for me, as a normal guy who's just diggin' his new DVD-audio/SACD player, to find major faults. The entire beginning of the previous post is apparently concerning attempts to hook these speakers up wrong and can be completely discounted. Believe me, I understand his frustration. If you've ever spent hours troubleshooting a switch out of position or some such thing, so will you (Try it with an "audience"). The rants simply defy logic. If they truly sounded abysmally bad - like a stock twelve year old car radio - it would be painfully obvious to the most causal listener, certainly in a side by side comparison. As any 901 user can tell you all you have to do its hook them up wrong and they will sound like crap. It wont matter how much power you drive them with. It's as simple as unintentionally bypassing the active EQ. If you play with the controls on the front of the active EQ and nothing happens,it's hooked up wrong. If it "hisses" (of all things) go ahead and hook them up wrong temporarily (that is with the EQ disconnected from the system and if you have "hiss" that isn't there with other speakers I'll eat my shorts. There's nothing inside these things that can hiss, just speakers and wires. It defies reason to claim otherwise. Enough said about incredible hissing speakers. As far as connecting them to a HT system do so at your own risk. It wont hurt anything but you will not be able to work around the need to route the front channels through the EQ (i.e. it will sound like crap). A previous reviewer seemed shocked that all A/V receivers do not support outboard processing. Sad but true. Cont'

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Comparing 901's to other speakers is a little like debating the origin of life on Earth. Nobody ever gets to the point where they say "Iguess I just don't know, but neither do you". My switchable Bose system arose not just from the fact that I can't make them sound like other speakers but that they can't make other speakers sound like them.

Reflective sound, Very natural sounding. And they look cool.

Can't think of any

The thing that I always noticed about people who are not used to the Bose sound is the first comment is not enough bass. If you were to hear a live performance, the bass should not be that over bearing. The Bose 901s don't have 12 inch woofers. So you won't get the same bass responce as you would any other speaker. The concept of the Bose is reflective sound. You're not getting direct audio hitting you in the face. It's bouncing off the walls.. Just like if you were to hear a live concert. Not counting the use of a PA which lives for direct sound. We're talking about acoustics. So I can say the 901s are the most natural sounding speakers I have ever used. You want low end to shake the room. Get a PA.....

No strengths. The sound quality would be okay for surround sound channels in an A/V system. But they cannot be used in an A/V system and are too expensive to be used for that purpose. My little Yahmaha 7.1 set from Best Buy for $169 blew these away.

weak sound, no punch or dynamic, no bass at all. sounds like playing a pair of decent sub $500 speakers with the 3 left bands of the EQ turned all the way down. These are not good and you will be disappointed. Better speakers are anything from Sears or Best Buy in the $200-$500 per pair range. There is just not anything here. These speakers do not do the job. They don't sound good at any volume. Make sure that you listen to them before considering them. Realize the power of perception. If they are played against a Wave radio or 301's they will sound better than those products, obviously. Make sure yo ulisten to a good set of $500 speakers as your reference. Beware.

I ordered the Bose 901 after talking to the sales people at Bose. I explained what type of music I listen to and what kind of sound I wanted. They said that these speakers would rock the house and break my windows with the power I was describing. So I went ahead and ordered a pair and decided to keep my existing Onkyo Integra TX-DS838 receiver. The speakers came and I installed them. I was so disappointed with the sound. I could not believe that crap that I was hearing. I tried different configurations using tape loop, pre-amp, running the pre-amp from my creative labs X-Fi card directly to the input, etc. They still sounded like an extremely load boom box. Lots of tiny top end and absolutely no bottom end at all. I have commercial floor tile in the basement, so I used it like a grid system to dial in the placement of the speakers. I had them positioned in every possible combinatoin per square inch within the Bose placement specs that came in the manual. Sounded the same no matter what I did. Muddy bass atleast 3 or 4 octaves above where it should be (no expert here, just my perception). So for the big surprise. I call technical support again and tell them that these things sound like crap but I still believe in the product. They told me that my $3000 receiver was not compatable. Okay, fine. I've had other A/v receivers. They all sound like crap if used to drive stereo recordings at high volumes. No problem. I order a QSC 2450 amplifier. That should solve the probelem. 2400 Watts of raw power. Pre-amp into the Bose active EQ, Active EQ to Amp, Amp to Speakers. Simple configuration. I was so excited to hear the speakers come to life. I waited by the window all morning waiting for the killer amp to come. Configure the amp in every possible way; LF filters on and off, clip limiters on and off, LF filters at 30hz, 50 hz, 5 hz. Configure my 24 bit sound card and pre-EQ everyway possible. The speakers now sound like a REDICULOUSLY loud, low quality boom box. These speakers are pure crap. They are going back. I read all of the reviews and thought that there were four types of reviewers. 1.) Wierdos who think that solid state electronics and wire need to be broken in. I diregarded their opinions. 2.) Bose advocates or emplyees writing rave reviews. 3.) People who are sincere but don't now the difference. 4.) People who know the difference and were burned like me. Well, I am hear to tell you that all of the negative reviews are warranted. I am going to do my best to send these back to Bose. I can't imagine what they could be used for. The low end is missing completely, the mid-bass is mudding, the mids and highs are tiny and hissy. Even with clip in check at the input and amp levels, the damn things hiss so bad you can't hear the highs. This is not a musical product at all. Even with accoustics corrected with pink noise and eq'd, there are no harmonics or punchy sound. They sound exactly like a stock FM radio in an 83'Oldsmobile with a power booster wired in. I am no audiophile. I am not picky. I like the club sound or garage band sound. If these speakers had low end they would be acceptable. The other bad thing is that I am running 450 watts per side with headroom over 1250 watts. These are not even load when you consider the power being supplied to them. Save your money. These are a rip off. Beleive the bad reviews like I should have done.

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Infinity RS3, small speakers taken from a Kenwood integrate stereo, various Radio Shack models. These are the worst of any speaker that I have owned, used, or heard. There is no way to describe them. Pretty loud, but the bass is like a child hitting the bottom of a pan with a wooden spoon or something. They are just crap. And by the way, there are not compatible with every amp. WTF?

Sound like nothing you'v heard before, or likley to hear in the forseable future. Solid build, can take knocks. Parts ready available (if ever you should need them) Great customer support (I have pestered them on many occasions with questions that they have been only too willing to help me with) Not as big a footprint as it may seem for such a big sounding speaker.

Set-up is so critical and you must spend time to set them up correctly, it may take you an hour or two, but dont be put off as the rewards will last for years. I can not express enough how rough these will sound without the Active Equalizer set up correctly, so it's very important to follow the intstructions supplied and phone Bose with any quiries for immiediate help, as customer support is second to non.

To give you my knowledge about the famed 901's let me quickly fill you in on how I came to be a Bose fan. I am 48 now and have been into the 901's ever since I heard them at the tender age of 19 in a famouse wine bar in Liverpool called Kirklands (still there today) At the time, I knew NOTHING about speakers, But then I heard Stevie Wonder's 'Songs in the Key of Life' played at the wine bar on the 901's. I had never heard anything like it and from there on, I just had to have a similar sounding set-up. (I wasn't even a Stevie fan before that) So my first task was to find out what kind of speakers they were using. Yes, 901's... My whole point being, I was not 'lured' into liking Bose because of any hype, (I had never even heard of them before) nor was it because of critics views, price, or because my audio 'elders' had told me "This is what you should/should not, listen to) It was purley on the music that I was hearing at the moment. I was allready into music in a small way, but that night transported me into another dimension of music all together, one that has affected me all my life for the better. Now, I dearly love music, YES MUSIC! Not the boxes that make the sound, or the name on that box, or how they do it, or why they do it or how much they cost. Since Bose 1st introduced the 901's, over one thousand improvements have been made to this speaker, so how so-called 'know-all's' can say there's no innovation in them, I don't know. To the doubters and knockers alike, let me put this to you: You'v all heard the saying, 'You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time' of corse you have. Well the 901's have been around now for a whopping 37 YEARS! Now you can try and come back with some smart reply as to why, but for me, your too late! I'v allready heard the 901's so you can't fool me! no matter how many letters you have after your name, I know what I like! End ov! To anyone considering the Bose 901's, the worst you could do is go along and just listen for yourself, and bring along you fav cd. (something I tell everyone they should do so they can hear their own taste) Music, and how the listner percieves it, it a very personal thing, and doesn't allways sound the same to another person as it will to you, (just as marzipan will (litrally) make me sick if i eat it even un-knowingly, yet my brother loves it)so my advice is go listen to a pair set up correctly (in the UK Bose have their own outlets which include studios so you can hear them as they should sound, and I promise, you will be blown away! I am not saying yours will sound as good as they do in the studio because of placemnet ext., but it will be enough for you to know that they are mind-blowing. If you don't have Bose outlets near you, see if you can find a friend who has the 901's and I guarantee you he will be so pleased with his, that you would have to shoot him to stop him letting you hear how good he knows they are, so it's worth asking around your friends. And finaly, look around you as you go about your life, you will find bose systems are used in many of the top venues all around the world. They can be found in countless cinema's and have also been used for the Olympics. Have all these people really been kidded out of their cash by Bose for all these years? I won't insult your intelligence by offering a reply.....

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Never heard anything that sounds similar in this price range.

The 901, intelligently placed, properly powered, is a monstrously capable transducer. Its ability to transport the listener at a (relatively) bargain price is nothing short of miraculous. The fact that the speaker does NOT use so-called exotic drivers or materials is, in my mind, marvelous. Talking of exotic materials in expensive speakers, what IS so wonderful about Mylar film (electrostatic speakers)? THE ultimate speaker for the cured audiophile!

Other reviewers' prejudices. The fact that the speaker is sold by dept. stores must be good for Bose, but bad for public image. Still, I don't care who sells them.That has nothing to do with my love of music.

Dear me; such invective! Why, oh why does this product arouse such extremes of feeling? I wish to state that I am in no way associated with the Bose Corp., and my review is entirely my own. Over the last 25 years I imagine I must have spent over $50,000 on various stereo systems. These have ranged from the fanatical to the uber-fanatical, such has been the quest for music in my home. I have (maybe to my shame, I'm not sure) seriously auditioned speakers for up to $30,000; I have seriously debated and considered speaker cable for over $100 per foot, and have read more reviews than any sensible person ever should. Still, my time is my own, and I have the right to spend it as I wish. For some years I have been a commited Acoustat owner. These speakers (various models) offer a degree of transparency, dynamics - with the right amplification, necessarily - and soundstaging that most listeners would be astonished by. As all products, however, they have deficiencies: they may behave as a perfect line source, producing holographic imagery, but they do demand the listener to remain in a small sweet spot. As well, the degree of required stable current delivery is more than most amps made can offer. They can also tend to the large side - 8 feet tall is certainly large! And once in a while, they can run out of steam, in terms of dynamics. This is what I have been used to for a long time - a simply exquisite audio experience that is sonically transparent, but in most other ways exceptionally demanding, wallet-wise, room-wise, etc. Enter the Bose 901, perhaps the most hated speaker of all time! How can I speak of it in the same context as the above? Simple. This small speaker disappears. And that's that. Being an audiophile is too often about equipment, and we forget (if we ever knew) that the whole purpose of the exercise is to be moved by music. Music is ugly, beautiful, scary, soothing and much more; it evokes emotion in the listener. This simple observation is fundamentally important. What is less important, but still relevant, is the list of qualities that a perfect audio system should possess. Dynamic range, frequency extremes, coherence, imaging - all these are relevant, but never more important than the ability to transport the listener. To my astonishment, the Bose 901 succeeds, and dfinitively well at this task. Let me be specific. In terms of dynamics - an essential quality - the Bose is exemplary. I don't bother any more with SPL meters: the hairs on the back of my neck are a good indicator. Listening to a fine recording of one of the enormous orchestral war-horses, The Rite of Spring say, or one of Respighi's large works is enough to reduce the listener to speechlessness - as it darned well should. The dynamics of such pieces are gigantic, and to listen to them properly should require permission from the neighbors! The Bose 901 serves perfectly (unlike my beloved Acoustats), and the music leaves me drained. Well it should. This is exactly as the composer intended. There is nothing delicate about huge orchestral dynamics, but there is about the brush of wire on cymbal - an effective speaker should reproduce both. The Bose does, and well! Imaging. A much debated point. With intelligent setting-up, the 901's produce a perfectly acceptable soundstage, with height, depth and width. It is a large stage, no doubt, but I've never found the speaker guilty of producing 8 foot vocalists. Instrument placement is perhaps not as holographic as my 'stats, but I care not. Timbre. I have never heard, or heard of, a speaker that is absolutely neutral. I have owned many "monitors" (BBC LS35A's, Quads, Martin-Logans etc), and they are ALL guilty of a "sound". They all have a sonic footprint. Listen to live music; you'll have to agree. Speakers do a marvelous job, quite magical, but they all sound different. By definition they all add or subtract something. The Boses are no different, but they do seem to get out of the way like any good speaker should. End of story. Transparency is a much maligned term, but I'll say with complete conviction that the 901's remove themselves very well from my awareness. For me, this is high praise. Frequency extremes - again crucial for an emotionally satisfying experience. The 901's are astonishing. I've no interest in how those extremes are arrived at. Little black electronic boxes are fine - if they work. This one does, and how! Size - not important, but in an interesting way, when I'm not continuously reminded of my equipment's existence I'm happier. A perfect 10 in this regard. I'm an ex-musician, a classically trained pianist, and ex-studio musician. My ears have made me a lot of money in the past. I need music, and I love music. The Bose 901's are the means to satisfy that love and need. How they work, what they use, is of profound indifference to me. Also, the profit to the Bose Corp. If Bose makes a healthy profit from such devices as the 901, much power to them!

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I know of nothing similar.

Everything about this speaker system is strength.

Effort to proper place plus use of the supplied equaliser are not weaknesses; they are rather sources of more strength to the system. Don't be lazy, set up your system to enjoy the world's best-sounding speakers. Doesn't take all day.

Ever wonder why this speaker gets bashed all the time? It's essential to do so. As great as it sounds, any further rave reviews by recognised, trusted subject experts would get into big trouble all other speaker manufacturers. Their products might never be bought again and rot in so-called high end audio stores. My pair has been with me for 3 yrs. The sound is 98-99% live, nothing else can come closer than this. So they're simply the best of the best of the best! Come on Bose-haters, admit that you've never had or even listened to a 901 system. I recommend that you forget all that's been indoctrinated into your minds and give one listen to this legend of a speaker. You'll be instantly converted into a Bose lover. Sorry but only the truth will set you free.

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No need to compare, it just kills the competition and humiliates all other speakers, including those ridiculously over-priced (wonder why?) brands.