BOSE

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

quote:

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Originally posted by Franz K:

Could somebody please comment. Are they worth the money?

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Depends what you're looking for. The ones I've heard are tiny and put out a reasonable sound for their size. For "lifestyle systems" (whatever that means) in posey apartments I suppose they have some point but I'd rather have decent small standmounters (Neat, B&W CDM2 etc) myself.

Regards
Steve

Judd

These things had a equalizer and from memory they were about 16 dB bass boost.

That translates:- 2 watts average midrange, about 80 watts at the bottom.

To get this much power it was desirable to buy the BOSE 1801 - 250 watt per channel amplifier, sound typical of amps of the era with heaps of negative feedback with the typical sound to boot with one exception, almost 100% failure rate.

Anyway back the speakers if one looks at the theory behing the 901, I think Amar Bose did his 11 years research at MIT.
What they were on about was this direct reflecting stuff.
It goes something like this, in a concert hall 90% of the sound is reflected of the rear on the hall.
So the really clever bit about all this, and remember this was eleven years reseach in a place of learning like MIT why not put 8 x 4" C&N brand (Cheap and Nasty) speakers in the back and 1 in the front to recreate the concert hall.
It's a shame that Amar didn't get about a bit more and maybe he would have noticed most recording are made in front of the performers not behind so the 90% ?? from the back wall is already being collected from the front microphones.

My belief is he spent ten years investigating what sort of speaker sells quickly and believe me they do, and one year building a speaker to satisfy the market.

Just to clarify my road to Damascas, DC300a (150 wpc), SAE 2500 (300wpc), NAP160, NAP250, NAP135.

Happy listening....

These are wonderful-if you wish to have conversations about the cute size, 'how do they do that' etc but make a noise completely unrelated to any of the usual indices of HiFi excellence. I really cannot find the words to express how awful these things are, they totally fail to make music.

Bruce

There are some nice features, so here's my take: -

1. If you want them for music forget it. The dem included some careful choices that didn't show it's limitations, but musically it sucks!

2. If you want a fabulously neat surround system for movies or a PC I think it's great. It's totally unobtrusive, and is capable of adding considerable impact and effect to this sort of material. You can fit it into any room.

3. All of the special processing effects suck - mono - surround etc.

The most interesting thing was the dem was a superb and cleverly crafted show of the importance of sound and psycho acoustics. It started with a sentence on screen, faded out so just jeywords were left (essentially there was a fire in a building, fireworks stored on an upper floor, emergency services all around, people screaming etc.). Then some still images, then the screen and room goes dark and the sounds of the situation are played.

Without the sound the iamges are nothing, and one is plunged into a very realistic experience.

There's some clever engineering and ideas in BOSE to produce some superbly unobtrusive equipment, but I wouldn't want to listen to music through it, except as background.

Andy.

Well anyway, their 'premium' line of speakers was of course Bose. All in the shop felt that the 901 was the ultimate loudspeaker ever devised for human consumption and spoke in hushed reverant voices when speaking of them and the good Dr. Bose. I was the only disenter of the bunch, having previously endured living in a student rental flat with a fellow that had a pair hanging from his bedroom ceiling.

I often took great pleasure demonstrating to all and sundry how my cheap Pioneer Project 100B speakers blew the 901s into the dust. The Pioneers were a large and heavy US built bookshelf design with a 10" bass driver and a 1.5" domed mid/tweeter. On the end of my Bose owning housemates giant Marantz receiver, my grotty Pioneers grooved like their lives depended upon it. The 901s by comparison sounding like the back end of a PA system with its bass drivers off line.

Getting back to the mullet crew at the shop, I was branded a heretic for my negative views toward the almighty 901 and was put on cashier duty for the remainder of my term there.

In hindsight they were very much like sheep with mullets.

Craig

Phil