Recreates space of concert hall or church and the like. Don't have to sit in the "sweet spot" to hear stereo sound. Size of the speakers don't overpower room.

Cannot easily combine the use of other type of speakers in audio system due to mandatory bose equalizer.

Having owned both the series IV and then the series VI for close to two decades and perhaps more importantly having continued to audition many fine speakers most which cost more than the $1400 list price of the bose 901. Bose also stands behind their product. The bose more than most do an outstanding job of recreating the music with a sense of the live venue. Many fine sounding speakers flaw is that they sound like the music is coming from the box. Yes, you must use the bose eq. it is a system, not just speakers. To all the bose bashers, some years ago when the best hifi stores sold the 901's exclusively, they adored them. After, the big chain stores like Best Buy etc, began to carry them at a much discounted price all the sudden the guys at the audio salons began to down the speakers and have been doing so to this day. To everyone let your ears be the judge, and compare any speaker system to real music, as it sounds to you where live music is played.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 901 series IV, B&W 201. NHT 2.9

it is possible to get very good sound in right situation this is the reason for some of the positive reveiws, the room must have had the ideal acoustics and size..note no amount of correct placement can make up for the poor room, they will sound horrible no matter where or how you place them in room with thin walls,the room is 90% of the sound of 901's

in most cases and rooms good sound is not possible causing many owners to be in denial about the sound quality

Summary: TO ALL 901 OWNERS AND 901 HATERS first of all let me state I am a 901 owner and have 3 friends who own 901s one who owns 2 sets (double bose) I have heard every direct/reflecting speaker bose ever made from the original 901 to 901V,801,701,601,501,301,201,10.2 series THE BAD NEWS: contrary to what all the bose owners have posted here the speakers do sound like crap 90% of the time you hear them in most rooms most 901 owners don't have a clue as to what good sound is or how to achieve it with their speakers (good sound is possible as you see later on) I can tell by their post that they have no idea what effects the sound quality of 901 more than anything else and its not just distance from wall what makes 901 owners seem so deaf when it comes to good sound and why does anyone buy this speaker in the first place? is what most sane people want to know well deny this if you want to but it's the hype "compare these speakers to any other speaker regardless of size or price" they think hey I only wanted good speakers but for only $1299 I could have the best so in other words I could buy a speaker the size of a refrigerator or costing $30,000 and these would still sound better because of the technology? yep you can buy these mid-fi speakers or supersize to the 901 and have the best but where can they compare these to the larger or exotic speakers? certainly not any store that sells 901 thats for sure well they have the 701 I'll compare with them no they are a step down and I want the best (note:dealers don't carry 901s cause the sound good they carry them cause they sell good,even if they can't figure out why people buy them,hey as long as they sell we don't need to carry speakers that sound better) NOW ALL YOU 901 OWNERS WHO SAY THEY SOUND GOOD did you really ever compare them to any thing but the junk they sell at stores that sold you the 901 Hell no you didn't if you had you wouldn't be the proud owner of 901s and post all that dumb stuff about your great sound that you really don't have if you only knew how stupid you sound to others who have heard them and gagged (over the years I have taken my 901's to compare them to other high end speakers one dealer was nice enough to let me bring them to a high end store and compare them to his best speakers,this is what bose says to do, I guess they never really expected anyone to actually do it. the experience was an embarassing one to say the least as this was a golden ear dealer. well I also compared my 901s to a guy I met there speakers, klipsch cornwalls, he worked at the high end store i took my 901s over to his house and even though his were not the greatest speakers I could tell mine had problems with over all tonal balance, imaging, detail and they didn't sound rich and musical but more like comparing a loud fm radio source to a cd source in his extremely small room DAMN 901s DUSTED BY SOME KLIPSCH er...CORNBALLS rather than concede they were junk I began an obsession into trying to get my 901s to sound like the best, new electronics,new cd player, weeks then months of trying every possible placement in various rooms moving inches closer to the rear wall listening further from wall listening closer to side walls further then closer together whew!!! I even called bose and talked to techs as to why I could not get my 901s to sound like the best speakers one tech who must must have got a kick out of bewildered bose callers with the same problem. he just sort of chuckled and said he never ever thought they were the best. he though they were good but...then I knew I had been screwed YEARS LATER after moving to a house with brick exterior walls the strangest thing happen I hooked my 901s and they sounded good no great what!!! these junk speakers that I had tried in every position in other houses what happened? What happened is the only way to get great sound from 901s is the rooms you use them in has to not let any sound pass through I'm not talking about a reflective surface since 901s don't have a speaker box your room is like a speaker box it has the rear drivers facing the wall and if that wall is just drywall it allows to much of the sound to pass through and reflects the wrong portions back into the room resulting in the washed out sound the 901 is famous for with the walls outside the dry wall being brick you have a tighter seal and all sound and frequencies are directed back into the room in equal portions something that was never achieved in all my other setups the resulting sound was very smooth highs ,rich midrange,extended non boomy bass,good imaging gone was all the harsh sound usually associated with 901s you 901 owners if you don't have yours in a home with brick walls or in a basement with

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all bose 901 series I thru V bose 501 current speakers dbx soundfields 1a,infinity,carver,

If you are lucky to find one!

It boggles the mind! The last reviewer mentioned it Floats. Well do not try to burn it either!

The Last Reviewer is being to kind! If they went for $14.95 they still would not be worth it!

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AudiVox,Emerson and all discontinued junk you find in the dump!

No way! These things belong in their original packaging...forever!

It probably floats so don't bother throwing it into the river

Yeech! These things sound like the sound is tyring to break out of them but the Bose 901 speakers won't let the sound out. Bose must have invented the disk compresion programs because they do a magnificent job at it with sound. No bass, no treble, confused midrange. This thing has two holes on the front of it - probably for an optional flamethrower or some kind of invisible gas to anesthetize the listener so he con't remember how yeechy these things sound.

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Similar to this?! What! No way man.

i love them and want to get the pair i had sold ten years ago for 1000 i told my friend i would but he won't.

think if i buy another pair my girlfriend will kill me lol

its me mc back again. Where to start lets begin in 87 when i first got the 901's they sounded good to me the first time i set them up.Its hard to belive its 2003 and i still have them and would not sell them,they have lasted better than any speaker i have ever owned.And other may say this and that but i will tell you what i learned they can take anythingi could put at them with my pioneer vsx 9300 the first dby sur 125watts per high cur i still have it to and it still delivers. I have the bose center and energy vcss pi di sur mirage psb150i piano fin dull 8's nice sub.I have b&w dm 610i nice speakes 1000 dol but the person i got them for blew them up so i gave him 50 dol. i had got another set of energy sur ef and found out after i had hooked them up a woofer was gone so i took to of the tweeters and put them in b&w and they sound good and i got pyle ht and i like them but i b a tweet and put a a en tweet in that to.tialso have infinity sm65 bookshelf sound good with the psb i almost blew them too.So there is better than 901's but i like them because they can handle the power others cant i had to send the sub to get fixed smoke came out of the back playing rushes solo drums live.

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infinity sm65 pyle phs88 600i b&w cen dm 610i mir psb150i energy vcss d p bose cen vcs10 901 vi pioneer vsx 9300 cdl laser disc pdf 904 100 disc gr 777 eq sony mini disc technics cass energ

Nice clean sound, that can be enjoyed for hours. Placement is key.

Binding Posts are lacking, and placement makes them really difficult to use.

I must say, people amaze me. Now I’m no true audiophile, but I love music to no end and enjoy recording in my small studio. People need to realize the difference between speakers for everyday music listening, and speakers for studio use. Sure the 901’s wont give me exact sound reproduction, but if I wanted to hear how lame my $100 cables are, I would listen to my Genelecs, and continue to cry at how bad my recordings are. But who wants that for everyday? The 901’s are a nice, true speaker that give nice, dynamic sound and smoothes out the bumps. Sure the “sonic characteristics” aren’t as good as the apogee diva’s, or any insanely expensive speaker but it’s a nice reasonably priced speaker. The highs are clean and soft, and the sound is full and rich. In no way have I found these to be harsh on the ear, in fact I can go for hours on them, unlike my monitors. The lows might be lacking some, but who doesn’t have a sub? Bose is all about natural sound, and for massive techno beats, or anything synthesized it’s probably not what you need. It’s a mellow speaker, and must have a mellow amp. I’m using an Anthem PVA-20, which is a mild amp at only 125wpc, but it gives a nice sound. And if there was one major issue with them its placement. They need their space, and if they are not given the proper home, they sound quite bad. When set up right they are worth their money, if not a little bit more. But if installed improperly, they aren’t nearly as good as one would hope. And connections are vital, the posts suck, but if you flip the cap upside down, and get a spade in there, it’ll help to make them sing. Keep in mind I got them at cost, so you can take this for what its worth, but I think all of this bashing by non-owners, that need studio monitors for perfect, imperfection filled noise is humorous. So please don’t try them once, in some guys house, when not setup properly, and rip them.

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excellent for law enforcement & military. suppose a guy robs a bank and has hostages. simply put one 901 at each side of the building and tell the guy he has 10 seconds to come out or you are going to play his favourite music thru the bose 901's. he'll think you would not do such a cruel thing. 11 seconds later he'll come out with hands up saying "i give up, please turn off that noise, it's unbearable, what with the 9 midrange drivers, direct/reflecting arrangement, and equaliser". president bush does not need a space based defence system. just have 10 bose speakers along each border and each coast and have them pointing down and run music thru them 24/7. then if someone launches a missile, when the missile is within hearing range of the 901's it will stop and say "oh man, that's awfull. i'm outta here. i'm going back home". voila, problem solved! it is not crush-proof, fire-proof, or grind-proof.

yes i did audition them once, way back in 1977 or 1978. it was a horrible experience and i try to keep it repressed in the deeepest abyss of my mind. a really really bad speaker, propagated by questionable advertising.

if you want to know why this cannot be a musical speaker i would invite you to read my detailed reviews at epinions.com. anyway, i will give a brief overview, in no particular order, of why the 901 is a sonic disaster. first of all, real music is much more that a 1 khz sine wave. it's the timbre from a clarinet, the harmonics from a 12 string guitar, the attack of a trumpet, and the chords from a piano. a midrange speaker has a tough enough job to do reproducing the low e string from a bass guitar (42 hz), and a really tough job reproducing harmonics from a guitar. now try using a 4.5" midrange speaker to reproduce all those sounds at the same time. the low e on a bass guitar is a really low note and probably the only way to really appreciate how low it is, is to actually get a bass guitar and play it through bass guitar speakers. then, replace the bass guitar speakers, which i 'm guessing would be 15" or larger, and try playing bass guitar through a 4.5" midrange speaker. at the other end of the spectrum, try reproducing through a 4.5" midrange speaker, cymbals and any note or chord from a piano. i really wish for bose to stop claiming it's 4.5" midrange speaker to be a full range speaker, namely, because it cannot reproduce all frequencies. moreover, bose's 4.5" midrange speaker has such trouble outside of it's expected range, that the only way to correct it's response is to use equalisation. distortion is when a wave comeing out of something is different than the wave going into something. very basically, an equaliser is a distorion device, simply because it changes a wave by "attenuating" it or by "boosting" it. yes, there may possibly be some need in very rare circumstances for music to have some minor equalisation during the recording process. however, for accurate musical reproduction, any type of equalisation is definitely unacceptable. one very bad effect of equalisation, such as boses equaliser for the 901's, is that changing an audio signal causes smearing. the more you hear such equalised music the more you will know that it does not sound real and soon you will tire of your bose system. another big mistake is to use 9 identical drivers to do the same thing at the same time. this is knows as chorus, just like when 2 or more people sing the same song at the same time in the same way. chorus is good to get a thicker and fuller sound, but why use chorus during playback, especially for solo performances. another real bad mistake is the direct/reflecting arrangement. the whole purpose of a stereo recording is to use 2 (stereo) microphones a certain distance from the musicians. high-qualiy microphones will pick up all of the sound waves, and timbre, and echo, and reverb, and whatever else the sound is doing, and transform it into an electric wave. then, during playback, the speakers have to behave as if they were the two microphones but turning electric waves into sound waves. then all of the sound qualities in the original recording would be reproduced. thus all of the spatial information, decay, frequencies, wave form, echo, standing waves, and anything else imaginable would be reproduced and sound as if the musicians are playing live. obviously, very very obviously, 18 midrange speakers firing away in all directions, doing the same thing at the same time, with an equaliser, trying to add a sense of depth, is a pure musical nightmare. case closed. no ifs, ands or buts about it. bose direct/reflecting speakers are not for music reproduction. now for the good news! first of all, don't do drugs. drugs make you do and say silly things. here is a quote from a bose 901 advertisement from page 19 of the november edition of stereo review: "....the bose 901 system make it the most advanced, lifelike sounding speaker you can buy-regardless of size or price". i know what you're thinking. so like i said, don't do drugs. don't use bose, don't do drugs. that's all.

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90% of the people who call themselves Audiophiles on this site know very little, please post your qualifications correctly as this site is a great reference for those who need help. I have heard a lot of hype and trashing of these speakers so I thought it was time to hear them. I know many true audiophiles and they are passionate in there hatred of any Bose speaker. But they have opinions about everything so I take their comments with a grain of salt but I keep it in mind. I work with a few Bose owners and they love their speakers. One of these admits that he bought what was recommended by the salesman the other said he liked them. I borrowed the speakers from the latter. When I picked them up I was informed that room placement was important so I kept this in mind through this test and was constantly changing it. I was not impressed in any way by these speakers. They require a property equalizer. They are made up of multiple midrange speakers. The bass and highs are unnaturally forced out by the equalizer. In a reflecting system there is no way to produce a natural soundstage. The highs are very harsh. The lows are somewhat muddy and not defined at all. The dynamics are very tight and somewhat reminiscent of FM Radio. After discovering these facts I stopped the testing. These speakers are not what the Bose advocates claim but they are not the antichrist that many people think. They are a very poor choice at almost any price and if you listen without bias you will make the right choice. If you are going to respond to me please state facts and not opinions. I understand posting something like this causes much flame mail please don’t if you don’t know what you are talking about. Current System Pioneer SD-643HD5 16x9 HDTV Monitor RCA DRD485RG DirecTV Tuner B&K Reference 50 Preamp/Processor B&K AV2250 Power Amplifier Sony SCD-555ES SACD Changer MSB Link DAC 3 w/HDCD upgraded & Powerbase Panasonic DVD-RP91K DVD Player DVDO iScan Pro Progressive Scan Display Interface Monster HTS-3500 Power Conditioner Paradigm Reference Studio 100 (Rosenut) Paradigm Reference Studio CC Center Channel Speaker (Black) Paradigm Reference Studio ADP Surround Speakers (Black) Sunfire TrueSub MK2 Subwoofer Marantz RC9000 Color LCD Remote Control Sennheiser HD 590 Prestige Headphones

Target practice

Everything

This is Bose top of the line? I have listened to many speaker lines and bose is by far the most overrated speaker line. I think they should be sold at Dollar General

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Bose is in a line of their own B&W, Paradigm, PSB, JBL,Canton

Marketing, the loudness ooh and ahh

Poor frequency response, completely inaccurate, poor imaging and soundstaging due to 18 drivers flooding the room.

Let me first go on to say that I used to sell Bose speakers for one of those superstore chain stores. I'd get people in all the time looking to blow their profit sharing or tax return and the Bose 901s fit the bill niceley. Out of 100's of cutomers I had listen to these speakers, the comments I would get are "Wow, those are LOUD" or "They fill the room with sound". People associate loudness with having lows or highs. Have you ever wondered why the fabled Bose 901's require an "active equalizer" when virtually no other speaker on the market does? The EQ is used to artificially bloat the Lower midrange and the upper midrange on these speakers to make those frequencies LOUDER. This is turn makes people think the speakers are pumping out loads of bass and trebles but this couldnt be further from the truth. There is alot of physics behind audio reproduction. A speaker system consisting of nine 4.5" drivers has the same frequency response as a bookshelf speaker utilizing the same 4.5" driver. More of them does not mean deep bass. The lowest a 4.5" driver should be able to go is around 80hz-90hz maybe a little lower using advanced cabin designs such as a transmission line enclosure. The bose trick here is to use the active EQ to boost the volume from the 80Hz - 120Hz range to give the illusion your getting bass, but in all reality your completely missing a good chunk of musical data from 20hz-80hz. An EQ wont help you there, this information is just gone. The EQ does the same thing at the upper end of the spectrum. Its artifically inflating the volume of the highest frequencies that the 4.5" driver can reproduce. Ever wonder why Bose doesnt provide frequency response specs for any of its products? Obviously there is more to music listening enjoyment than a bunch of specs and techno-babble but what it comes down to is this. When you listen to music on your Bose 901's your not listening to the music as it was recorded on the CD and as the artist intended it to be. Any musical information in the low frequencies (20hz-60hz) and the high frequencies (13,500Hz- 20,000Hz) is completely omitted from being reproduced. Some speakers I would suggest in the Bose 901 price range. All are full frequency floorstanding soeakers that i have personally auditioned and I own the Vandersteens. Vandersteen 2ce Signature Paradigm Studio Reference 80's or 100's Magnepan 1.6 NHT ST-4 Klipsch rf-5, rf-7 Polk LSi 15