Midrange/MidBass Response

Tweeter/Treble Response (or lack of clarity and crispness)

First, I''d like to start off saying that I am not a Bose Basher. I had recently auditioned these at Best Buy, they had very similar set ups for Bose, Yamaha, Sony, KLH, and JBL speakers. Same Reciever and Same CD Player. The bass and treble controls on the recievers were set flat, with Bass Boost On. I listened to the Bose, the Yamaha, and JBL Speakers, and also the Sonys, for the heck of it. I didn''t even bother with the KLHs. I must say, comparing these to the other speakers, epecially the JBL N38s, I was dissapointed with the sound quality/driver quality. I took the grilles off each of the speakers to find the drivers in the Bose Speakers to be made of paper. Paper Cones?? For Speakers that cost about $600 for the pair? Even the Yamahas (at $100 a pair)had poly cones, the JBLs (at $300 a pair) had the same as well as Titanium Laminate Dome Tweeters. The 2.5" Paper Tweeters were terrible, not as crisp and sharp as the 3/4" Titanium Laminate Dome on the JBLs. They sounded almost comparible to the 3/4" Dome Tweeters on the Yamahas, but not as sharp...on top of that the Yamahas are 1/6 of the price!! The Bose Speakers also do not have a seperate mid range driver, leaving the woofers to handle the bass and midrange frequencies. The Bass produced from these speakers, however sounded fine, mostly mid bass, not really deep sub bass, but then again, that''s what a seperate sub is used for. The Bass was stronger on these than the JBL N38s or the Yamaha NS-6390s, which actually have almost no bass. It seems as if Bose Engineers designed their speakers for better bass/mid-bass response and completely forgets about the the upper midrange and treble. I personally don''t think they are worth the money, but my advice is to go and listen to the speakers and choose what is your liking. These are not to my personal liking, but everyone has different tastes. My personal taste would give the nod to the JBL N38s.

Similar Products Used:

JBL, Infinity, Yamaha.

sound great, well balanced

they belong to my step father, and i dont have my own yet

to avoid any confusion, i first must clarify that the 601''s that i have are series II. i have read the different reviews on this product and i find it very funny that people are arguing about the existance of spring clips. let me say that you are all right. the early series 601''s had spring clips , the series IV''s however have the binding posts. that aside, i think the 601''s are amazing. we have ours behind our entertainment center, which completely hides them, my girlfriend who knew we had them asked where they went, and where was the sound coming from on the stereo...enough said, the sweet spot is everywhere. typacally, bass is non directional and treble is easily pinpointed, not with these. the sound fills the room.

Similar Products Used:

none worth talking about

Enjoy the 5-way bindings post. Every product should have this!!!

Very low bass not present but could be enhanced in a smaller room.

Sweet sound and flat response even in my large and glassy livingroom (19 x 15 x 30 feet). Good bass but must be placed at least 18 inches from the rearwall to achieve the desired effect.

natural sound and clear bass. good mids and a good built.

the color is old fashion.

i went to the garage and so 2 boxes i opened them and i saw 2 speakers from 1977 and they called bose 601. i ran to my father and ask about them and he said that he bought them and never used them. i enter them into my house and.....suprisingly they began to sing. it was a side at music that i never saw in my life. i had a mission and jbl new speakers and this bose 601 from 1977 push them away easily......it have a natural bass and the music sounds so live. i dont understand the bad coments...i think we speak about other speaker. because this speaker is kick ass!!!

Similar Products Used:

miision 76, jbl nd301. bose 301

Bass is stong and very nice Mids.

Bose stopped making them and the highs are lacking a bit.

Being onlt 14 and not having lots of money to buy a nice HI FI system, I was thrilled when my father gave me his Bose 601 (Series I) C. 1978. These speakers are great! Nice deep bass, and crystal clear mids. I do admit the highs are lacking a bit. My friends are inpressed with there preformance as well. Being 23 years old and not suffring from foam rot is an achivment. Most teenagers don't know anything about thier systems or there specifications. There only downfall is my Amp is too weak for them. Only 10 X 2, so the fear of underpowering them is present. I love them even though my neighbors don't...... Does anyone know why Bose stopped making them?

Longevity. Excellent craftsmanship. Great sound.

none.

As another reviewer here, I purchased my 601s while in the Army. I've upgraded TVs, receivers, VCRs and LD/DVD players over the years, but have kept my 601s. Why? There's a saying that if it isn't broke...

It's nice to invest a modest amount of money and really get your money's worth. Speakers are not like more complicated devices (e.g. receivers) where having a 11-year old piece of equipment makes it so obsolete.

I use the 601s as the main L&R speakers in my DD/DTS setup. I match them with 301s for my L&R surround channels.

I only wish I had purchased the black (with grey grills) ones. Would match a bit better to all the Urishi Pioneer stuff I have.

Similar Products Used:

none.

you have got to be kidding me

Everything that could be wrong with a speaker

I thought Bose might be onto something here, so I went a head and ordered a set of these new 601's. I could not believe how little they weighed, it was like a bookshelf speaker from Best buy in terms of weight. The cabinet seems to be made from the cheapest MDF they could find. To top that all off, they wrapped it in chessey looking Vinyl. Once again Bose went with the cheap spring clips, so I had to make a set of speaker wires with pins to test them. I hooked them up to a Yamaha receiver and sony cd player and listened to some music. I was shocked at the muffeled midrange, worse then the 301's which sell for a lot less. The highs were well, painful and poorly defined. The bass managed to be boxy, muddy and bloated all at the same time. I fooled around with an old Electronic crossover I had lying around and set the point to 100, this helped out the bass a great deal when I used a old Carver 300 watt amp with a set of JL audio 10's in a sealed box. I think I will send them back and try the 701's instead.

Similar Products Used:

Bose 701 Bose 301

excellent build quality

3' paper tweeters, not sure how good the quality of drivers are

I wrote the very first review for these speakers back in June. At that point in time I thought these speakers were as good as many on the market under $1000.00 Although I still think their build quality is excellent (except for foam rot of the original woofers)I have now heard a much better sounding speaker which have replaced the Bose 601. I am not writing this to bash Bose, but to let people know the shortcomings of this speaker.

The new speakers I have purchased are BIC V736 which house two 6.5" woofers and one 3/4" dome tweeter. I can now hear the sound of a drumstick touching the cymbal, voices are much clearer, acoutic instrument sound so much more natural. I can't believe what I was missing. The Bose 601s were good in the midrange department but I can now see that they were overly warm. Although the Bose had two 8" woofers they still cannot go as low without distortion as the BIC's with their two 6.5" woofers. Again, I am hearing things that I never heard before with the BIC's.

For those who own Bose speakers and enjoy them, that's great. I have owned the 601's for over 20 years and thought they sounded great, but you MUST AUDITION A PAIR OF SPEAKERS IN YOUR OWN HOME before deciding which is best. I had heard many speakers in retail stores and didn't think they sounded as good as the Bose, but once I had the opportunity to audition speakers in my own home I quickly realized the Bose sound is inferior in my opinion.

The value rating I am going to give the Bose 601 speakers will definitely be a 5. The build quality of these speakers are excellent, and you will not find many speakers these days with real wood veneer for under $1000.00. For sound quality I will give them a 3. It is true that a 3" tweeter cannot faithfully reproduce the high frequencies, but back in the early 80's there may not have been many speaker systems using today's tweeter technology. But high freqs aside, the Bose 601's are not accurately reproducing mids and lows that well either.

Very clear highs without being bright,good bass and midrange.

Proper placement is very important

I recently purchased a pair of these speakers circa 1981. I shop at pawnshops a lot and look for deals, and I have found some really good bargains. I stumbled on these, and as they were only $99.00 I had to hear what they sounded like. I hooked them up to a very Inexspensive little unit they had playing at the time and was really impressed with them. So I said what the hell and bought them. I brought them home and have been playing them through my little elcheapo Yahmaha Rxv493.
I will admit I do'nt know all the jargon all real audiophiles would use such as Antibose, but in my humble opinion I think these speakers sound great, even compared to my Klipsh I think they are cleaner on the highs and not as harsh, they are very clear without being bright. What Initially Impressed me though was how good the bass sounded. They have great imaging and soundstage, they are very musical sounding, very pleasent to listen to.
Also these speakers are very eficient and have ample power even with my little Yami. I am putting together a retro system and will be using a Pioneer Sx980 I recently purchased ( anyone have information on this unit plese email me).
Now then in response to antibose's comments.
I think its a shame some people are so prejudiced and close minded, they lable something bad without probably ever listening to them. I am not an advocate to any particular Brand or model, which is I think a blessing, because at least I can be somewhat objective. being objective and open minded means not forming opinions on something without at least hearing it, even then if one particular model is bad that does'nt mean every model by that manufacturer is. It seems like Bose is everyones favorite brand to hate as evidenced by other reviews on other Bose speakers, and I do agree with a lot of what was said in some of the other reviews, But this review is for these speakers and not based on anything else I've heard or read about Bose in general. alas Objectivity!
I can tell I will be injoying these speakers for a long time. Also I got lucky as the speakers are all in good shape.
One more thing about these, What I like most is how the sound reflects from the top and how it fills the room, thats why placement is critical.

Similar Products Used:

Klipsh 10.5,8.5

Full range sound with suprising sound field.

Location and room positioning.

I recently purchased a pair of Bose 601 series II speakers. The price was right and I wanted to try them out. I have Carver AL III speakers that have been bridged with 2 M-500t Carver amps. I tried hooking up the Bose 601 speakers and done some direct comparisons with the Carver AL III speakers and another great sounding speaker that I have, a pair of electro-voice interface II series II speakers. I found that experimentation with position on the 601 series II speakers finally gave me what I would consider pretty impressive sounding speaker. The overall sound field was impressive. They did not compare with the huge sound field delivered from the Carver ribbons however I was impressed with the Bose performance. The Bose speakers seemed to be somewhat flat sounding on the high frequency range however placement made improvements here. I have heard some pretty negative things about Bose speakers, "ya love or hate them". Well I like to decide for myself. I think that anyone who owns these type speakers has to ensure proper placement. I think that is real important. But overall I am pleased with my purchase and intend on enjoying them for some time to come. These speakers were in excellent condition, well maintained with no signs of foam damage.