Gave them to a friend as a gift.

Friend wants to give them back

My folks always said "if I don't have nothing good to say don't say nothing at all"!

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AWIA Boombox

None.

That they are still made

Whatr the hell is Bose thinking? These are the bigest piece of sh-t speakers I've ever heard. No bass,no high's no nothing. Come on Bose these things cost less then $100.00 to make. How many chumps will you steal money from in the next 20 years on these speakers as you did in the past 20 years. "Better sound through research" Yea right. the kast research done on the speakers we were still fighting in Vietnam war! These speakers are junk! I really believe the only positive feedback left here for the 901's are left by Bose employees. How else do you accouny for the positive feedback left by so many. If you want to spend $1500 on a pair of speakers look at the Klipsch KLF 30 or Paradigm and mabey even Polk. Anything but Bose. They will leave you feeling cheated!

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None come to mind

I have owned Snell B's, Time Window 3's, and other decent speakers in the past. The 901's are clearly the best sounding of all of them. My first pair were series III's which I purchased in 1977. I wasn't completely satisfied with any of their replacements. I missed the sound of 901's. The series IV's are great. I would recommend them to anyone who likes great bass and excellent highs. I just don't understand anyone who tells me these speakers are anything but superb. It is really fun to play these speakers for 901 virgins, they are always blown away. Don't let the naysayers scare you off, they just wish they would have bought the 901's when they had the chance. Buy them if you can.

Because of the active eq, it is very difficult to run two sets of speakers from the same amp unless they are all 901's. The eq makes other speakers sound terrible.

Excellent speaker, excellent sound, excellent buy.

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There is nothing similar to Bose 901's, that is why they are so special.

wide sound stage, great for classical music, can fill a HUGE room with excellent sound. Incredible bass output.

Not good for critical listening to jazz or small groups.

the equalizer used with the series VI gives a lot of variation in both bass and treble, it takes a fare amount of time to set them up properly. Nothing comes close for full orchestra classical music.

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Overture 2s, AR 3, AR 2ax, NHT 1.3a

Great all around if you don't want to purchase many other components to achieve full all around filling sound

Need a true pre-amp main amp seperation for the EQ Don't even think of any other way.

Just plain facts:

Set them up correctly and don't settle on one position. a move of a few inches will make a difference.

USE THE EQ!!!!!!

Min power of 150 and make sure your amp is clean, this goes for the preamp too.

I do use a sub with mine and it adds the taste of that filling ultra low end. The key word is tasteful.

Patience and perserverance is key. We all have different rooms and decorating ideas. take theminto consideration.

Last: Remember Those who live in plain square boxes, usually like plain square boxes. Some of us can think outside the box. Just like a car some like only certain types of gas. Sometimes you have to find the right match.

No they are not the best but when set up right they will please the vast majority. Some of us like to wine, some of us would rather drink our wine and listen to toons.

Similar Products Used:

Bose am5's 101's 301's 201's JBL studio monitors, ALtech voice of theatre, Cerwin vega, Infinity, This is my 2nd pair 20 years later.

Small, I guess. Audio novices will stand in awe of you, educated audiophiles will laugh at you

They sound bad compared to the reference signal, no matter what hard-core BOSE zealots will try to tell you. Bad design concept that only work in Amar boses ideal universe, but not in ours. I will go into further detail soon enough.
Doesn't come with salad.

It is time. Time for the unsuspecting novice to become educated, and also time for the embarasing truth about these "speakers" to come to life. To date, the most accurate speaker I have encountered is a 4-way design, the bass being taken by 3 8" inverted cone aluminum woofers, lower mid-range 6.5" inverted cone aluminum woofer, upper-mid bass by a 4" inverted cone titanium woofer, and the highs are of course a 1" tweeter. The cabinet is made of a durable, inert plastic and wieghs 240 lbs. This is what it takes to make accurate sound, high quality parts and transducers implemented to handle their ideal frequency range. Another fast fact: Take for instance an 8" woofer resonating 60Hz at 100dB, in order for the same 8" woofer to produce 30Hz at 100dB the excursion increases by 4x. With what degree of fidelity can a 4.5" woofer produce 50Hz AND 12kHz concurrently? The answer is; it can't. Now obviously multiple woofers (of the same size) can work simultanaously to increase bass extension(for instance 16- 12" woofers in the Martin Logan "statement"), But treble suffers in the balance. For woofers, there are 3 factors that are important and you can have 1 for cheap, 2 for a little more, and all 3 for ALOT. They are extension, clarity, and output capabilities. Bose gives you output, and that is all. Contrary to popular belief there is 1 Bose speaker that gives the specifications, the Bose 802: 55Hz-16kHz, with peaks of 115dB. This is the closest you will come to seeing the 901s specs, keep in mind these 2 speakers are very similar. And just because they may get up to around 15~16kHz, this is extremely difficult for a 4.5" woofer to accomplish; kind of running the 1/4 mile with a tank, it'll get there eventually but how fast? And while I'm on this subject using 4.5" woofers for bass is comparable to using a geo metro to pull a car carrier, even if you use 9 of them, a peterbilt will still do it better.
These are the natural laws to which I am refering, they can't be bypassed, without horrible results that is. And a word about the EQ, an EQ can only boost frequency bands, it cannot make transducers produce freqs that they are incapable of, in other words, you can turn the 15kHz band way the hell up, but it will only mimic the sound of upper treble (16kHz-20kHz) by over emphasizing it. In the grand spectrum, nothing about the phycical properties of the drivers has changed. This is why High-end audio components do not use EQs, an EQ is a sorry excusefor a speakers incapabilities.

NOW, I have actually heard these things before, and what I heard adhered to the information listed above. The bass was not very deep, and the highs where very strained. The amp (top of the line kenwood receiver) was pretty clean, so I left the EQ at neutral. On classical strings(pachelbels cannon) the subtle nuances that come through with flying colors on my B&W 604s, I could here very faintly on the 901s and ONLY because I already knew they where there. Dynamic peaks (opening to xanadu-Rush) sounded OK but grainy and somewhat annoying. All in all, the tried and true "no highs no lows must be BOSE" saying cannot be any more correct.

An audiophile by nature seeks in music, revelation, to hear things jump out that they never knew where there. This has happened EVERY time have listened to the Revel Salons, they where so tranparant it was almost creepy. But in reality, a pair of B&W CDM-7NTs(and many other at similar price) isn't extremely far off from the clarity of a super expensive reference monitor, but in some cases you have to take the big guns out in order to get serious results. But when I heard the 901s there where no surprises, nothing stood out, in fact many of the underlying details that I look for where gone. And these are what some people rave about?!

Everybody has there own ears and opinions and preferences. I'm sure some people may listen to these and think they define sonic nirvana, but to this audiophile they did nothing of the sort. The whole Idea of thsi site is not necessarily how much people like/hate the product, it whether or not the product stands up to similarly priced competition, if its a value, and lastly "how you like it".
To me, they aren't worth the money, they didn't stand up to similarly or even less expensive competitors, and they didn't sound good. If you like them, go ahead, buy them. To tell you the truth I don't really care. But no amount of "double blind tests" or placement or voodoo will clean up the 901s response or make them magically transform into reference monitors. They are an extremely poor value and color sound tremendously. I suggest you listen to many speakers in this price range before buying these.

And it also appears that this site has been bombarded by bose employees and tone deaf audiophile wanna-bes as of late. I suggest that everyone do as I am right now and point a finger and laugh at their blind zombie-like murmerings at the wake of the false audio mesia. It is only due the the jack*ss below me that posted his review FOUR times that has caused me to repost mine.

Similar Products Used:

B&W Nautilus 800 Series; Revel Ultima Salon, Studio; Wilson Audio MAXX, WATT/puppy 6.1; Vienna Acoustics Mahler, Beethoven; Paradigm reference; Martin Logan Prodigy, SL-3.

Keep in mind that what I have listed here are similar to the product in question only because they are all catagorized as speakers, and it ends there. An applicable metaphor would be: Janet Reno is to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders as the bose 901 is to group of speakers above.

The garbage man hauls them away without laughing too much.

My dog won't pee on them.

These blow me morning, noon and night. Only a total boob would buy this trash. At the price or one-tenth of it, there are few greater rip offs in this world than this marketing-induced dreck. It has the sound of my dog with really bad cheese gas. Yet still, there are donkeys who keep buying this skee-ball prize. And then they delude themselves by saying how nice they sound, convincing the next moron to take the bait. Buying a Bose is like getting VD -- you just can't wait to infect someone else to make you feel better that you had to get it. At least you'll save on pest control, as they'll drive all the roaches from your home.

They can play loudly, 'nifty' imaging and soundstage.

see below.

One reviewer a while back recounted his experience with the illustrious and infamous Bose 901. He decided to take them for a test drive in his home, and hooked them up and fired up some of his favourite records.

He described what he heard as a, "Vile intruder...making foul hissing and scratching sounds..." etc.

I had heard my friend's pair of series fours a while ago, and I thought they were okay, but not strikingly bad or good, so I decided to go give them a real test at the store.

So I went to the Bose store in the Mall of America, pushed my through the ogling, wide-eyed, drooling lay people, entered the 901 room and sat down. I got comfortable, grabbed the remote and fired up one of the cd's in the system. The first cd was some innocuous classic rock, (male vocalist) and I sat there grooving for a while, not truly impressed, but not yet revolted.

Then I switched cd's. The next song was a lyric soprano singing mozart. I think.

It was there! The vile intruder, the howling, writhing, ear-splitting banshee, the invisible, soul-crushing, spirit-taking spectre, stealing the spotlight from the poor soprano who was singing her heart out, occupying what should have been her place in the awkward soundstage. It was also in the back left corner of the room, and in my ears, my head, my mind, deep inside, penetrating my poor, twitching, tormented soul, having its way with my spasming, twisted and agonized body, making me rue the day I toyed with the devil's wretched handywork, the Bose 901.

To sum it up, these fall somewhere between awful and mediocre, depending on what you listen to.

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Few speakers are similar to these, but if you care, I use Infinity

None

Ridiculoulsy Overpriced, $1500 for a speaker that has paper cones?

I have heard $300 speakers that sound better than this! You would have to be ignorant and a victim of a scam to buy these speakers for $1500. What's up with those cheap paper cones? Man, the FTC and the BBB should investigate BOSE for ripping people off...but then again if you're stupid enough to blow $1500 for a set of Bose speakers that uses cheap, $0.50 paper cones used in baby toys, you deserve to be ripped off.

Outstanding sound! With the proper placement, these speakers immulate some of the best concert halls!

If you have a poor quality receiver, you will lose alot of the fantastic sound. A upper crest receiver is a must!

I consider myself an above average audio enthusiast, with the idea of having a butt kicking system with an affortable price. I'm close to 40 now, and I wanted to really treat myself to a system that would both compliment my home, and my listening pleasure.

I set out with the mind set of spending no more that 4,000.00 on a home entertainment system. My first quest was to fine the "perfect front speakers for my "type" of home theater system. I listening to several models, spending countles hours in stores, frinds homes, and reading reviews from you people on this site. After about three (3) weeks of research, I decided on the Bose 901's.

I knew I had to get the correct receiever, so I purchased the Harman Kardon AVR-510. Finishing out my system was the Bose VCS 30 speaker set up. Like I said earlier, 4k was my limit. (I was happy to be WELL below my initial projection)

I placed the 901's in my family room, (15x24) and ordered the movie Gladiator from Direct TV. Let me say this...I had the best time! I thought I was actually in a movie theater! I could hear everything that was on the screen. From the rats running in the cells, to the people sharping their swords.

I then played a wide range of music (from classical to Jazz, to house music) and was blown away by the sound.

I'm not worried about certain pitches or correct ohms, I just want great sounding speakers. The Bose 901's are the perfect solution to my needs. I would recommend these speakers to anyone!

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Too may to list, but the competition was my Polk pair.