Rich sound

Too blended

These speakers aren't everyone's cup of tea.
Any "name brand" popular product you purchase is a very high profit item, and all dominant successful companies are aggressive and sometimes ruthless. The police state necessary to completely control them is a far worse alternative, but we do have rules to contain most of their dangerous excesses.
The best social control over these entities is exchange of honest information to affect their markets.
"Bose Bashing" clearly has no effect. Crude hysterical name calling renders whatever point you're trying to make moot, invalid, a failure.
Like Bose? State your reasons.
Don't like Bose? Same standard.
HATE Bose? You're just advertising your impotence.
And endlessly ruining these forums.
You're having no effect on Bose. You are destroying this thread. And making an annonymous horse's arse of yourself.

I do not own Bose speakers. I did audition some at BB but did not consider them as they were over my budget. I have always wondered though why Bose provokes the kind of antagonism I see on so many message boards. All the anti Bose tirades seem to be written by people who seem to have an agenda. Most are not honest reviews by people who have actually owned them.

Then it finally struck me , the reason why, when I read the post (two below) where the reviewer describes Bose as "an Indian fellow" . Yes Bose IS from India as I am. All those angry posts are from rascists who are unable to swallow the fact that an "Indian fellow" could ever be as sucessful as Bose has been.

Perhaps his speakers are not the best. Perhaps they are overpriced. So what ? There are a lot of products which are inferior and you never hear anyone ranting about them so why single out Bose?

I'm sure the KKK will be happy to know that rascism is alive and kicking in the US of A!!!

compact size,high power handling, great sound

price

I am glad that I didn't find this website until after my 901's were set up and playing in my home. There seem to be a lot of Bose-bashers and hostile-opinioned people out there.

These are few of my experiences with them, you may find them helpful if you're considering a set of your own.

Placement wasn't as big an issue as everyone claims, but it was a small concern during set up of the speakers. They were not as sensitive to placement as the Bose-bashers made them out to be.

Many reviewers claimed they had no low or high frequencies through the 901's. My wife gets upset with me when I go on a music bender and crank it up, things have fallen off of the wall in the other room! Friends can't believe that my home theater subwoofer is not on when they hear the thump they are capable of.

High frequencies have never been an issue either, the treble slide on the EQ is down toward minimum, and the highs are clean, crisp and not at all harsh.

Do other users attempt to use them without the required EQ?
This may explain the lack and distortion of the low and high ends that they experienced.

A good hard search for another set of speakers may lead you to another brand for a little more or less money, but I wouldn't trade mine for any of them.

I hope this has helped some of the more open minded people that are looking for great sounding speakers.

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paradigm, jbl

light years ahead of their time. Still crazy sound (in a good way) after all these years.

me, I do appreciate the ultra low bass (29hz) out of speakers that I can still lift (35 lbs). Do miss those 5 way binding posts. Not Bose's fault, but you need a seperate preamp/amp to drive the equalizers when in HT mode, eg, tape monitoring wiring doesn't work with surround sound.

As indicated below, if you pack up and move every coupla years, you can't beat the performance to weight ratio of the 901's. I bought a six pack (3 pairs) in 1993, along with a Dolby ProLogic preamp and 6 channel THX amp.

The DSP electrics obsolete every coupla years, but the Bose 901's, their equalizers, and the six channel amp just keep going on forever.

And now, with seven channel stereo, Bose 901's have reached their pinnacle of performance. Not to mention
dts ES and THX EX seven channel surround. Finally full power to all speakers, what a soundfield!

For the center channel of this seven channel soundsystem I am using a Klipsch sp-1, I have its mate as a center channel in a different HT system.

The Bose sound is non-fatiguing. You can listen to them all day without tiring.

The Bose dynamic range and frequency response can reproduce anything a movie soundtrack throws at it. The "single driver" philosophy means that you do not hear freaky cross over peaks and dips right where the human voice is most present, with resulting differences in sound between male speakers coming through a woofer that is trying to go too high in it's range, and female voices coming through a tweeter that is being tasked to go too low. I've heard these differences most markedly when I switched to the Klipsch for center channel duties. At $1100/pr. msrp, the Klipsch is not an inexpensive speaker, but I am very pleased that I have the Bose doing the main speaker duties, as well as all the surrounds.

Every speaker made on this planet is a compromise, whether you are buying Bose 901's at $1500/pair, or Wilson watt puppy's at $20K/pair. And everything each speaker reproduces is simply an approximation of the sound that was originally created.

So your job is to let your ears make your speaker decision. Let your ears, your wallet, and not just a good review be your guide to selecting your speakers.

As you read the reviews below and on other message boards, note that the Bose 901's are very emotional speakers, you either love the sound, or you hate it.

This love/hate relationship you'll experience with Bose 901 message posters is a blessing, the real tragedy would be to own speakers so bland and unnoticed that there are no opinions available for them.

Bose 901's, still cranking out good tune after all these years.

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one HT system of polk/jbl/sony, one HT system of Jamo/Klipsch

Legions of ultra-loyal, and tone-deaf, fans.

Some of those exposed to these speakers have, at some time in the past, heard good quality equipment.

This review is simply here to balance out "TheDog's" review.

Moron, the fact that some people take offense at certain companies that use marketing muscle to take advantage of those who they ought to be educating, has nothing to do with racism; its just bad form be they white, black, Asian, American Indian, or even Indian INDIAN. Until I read TheDog’s post, I had no idea that Dr. Amar Bose was, in fact, Indian. This has not stopped me from having found Bose products to be shoddily made, poor sounding, and obscenely over-priced for years.

No, indeed I have never owned a Bose product. However, I did work in a store that sold Bose gear for over a year and I expect that I have had more experience with this product than have many of the self-proclaimed Bose faithful out there (I am convinced that the only way they could ever really love their Bose speakers is if they never got them out of their boxes). In fact, even the Bose reps (privately) would admit that they new that their speakers were garbage (“but, hey, people love ‘em anyway… right?”).

Bose does have many detractors, but I don’t think you need go further than the products they put on the market to see why—you certainly need not worry about Amar’s nationality to dislike his speakers.

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Nails over a chalk board, banging trash can lids together, any Barbara Streisand movie.

The "Bose Reputation" for all those who believe it.

Where can one ever begin? Price, paper cones, foam surrounds, etc.

These speakers would be decent........if they sold for $200, not $1300. Compare these speakers to others in the $300+ price range and you'll hear they aren't worth the overinflated price. I did a blind comparison of these speakers to some $400 Polks, Klipschs, and others at the local Hi-Fi store and the inferior sound quality was apparent. The $1300 buys you a name brand and all the hype and phony claims that goes along with it. Do yourself a favor and buy some REAL speakers.

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Celestion, B&W, Polk, Magnepan, and other REAL speakers.

How can anyone disrespect these speakers? These speakers have been around for 33 years. If they did not sound good I don't think they would be able to survive for this long. With that said we'll now talk about sound. They are the best speakers available for a resonable price. The 901s produce outstanding bass, brillaint highs, and smooth midrange, all of which fill the entire room with awesome sound. They are also the most uniquely styled speakers. If you want the King of speakers then the 901s are the way to go. A true legend.

great price

made me feel like tango-jessup

On the plus side, my sub whoosher modulates with a great tonality.

However, the supra tweeters fizz a bit.

Most natural sounding speakers available at any price.

Space required.

As someone who once intended to make music a career, I never was happy with any speaker until I heard the Bose 901s. No direct radiating speaker at any price can compare to the sound of the Boses - unless all you listen to is badly mixed electronic guitar.

The only disadvantage of the Boses is that you need an excellently engineered source - something from Chesky records for example.

The only people who don't like the 901s either haven't heard them, or have so much invested in a pair of "status symbols" that they won't admit to the difference.

Stereo shops are similarly biased. They'd much rather sell you something a lot more expensive.

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Ambient soundfield due to reflections...

Weeeellll, there are a couple...

In all honesty guys, this is not an "emotive" speaker. It lacks authorative, tight bass (it does, however, have an upper mid-bass hump), localization of instruments is next to impossible, this speaker is simply not refined. Is it the worst speaker I have ever heard? No. But for $1200, possibly. There is a supplied EQ (no wonder) but it is ultimately a degredation due to increased signal path. the same money can buy you a refined mini-monitor or a decent pair of floor-standers. Ever wonder why audio mags don't review them? Why good stereo shops don't sell 'em? Let me count the ways...

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