Read the review below. This guys sums it up fairly
well without trying to hurt anyones feelings. Now if
you are 16 years old and are upset by this .....well
you'll get over it one day and laugh at how silly and
naive you were when you were young.

So, you got fooled and bought some. Well you can
continue to be a fool and try and defend these abortions
or just laugh and go buy something better. Just read
a bit of this sight and you'll find many better ideas.
You will be a fool no longer and have a much better life.

High quality sound, Revolutionary design, shaped like a cheese wedge.

Not available in the color yellow

I had an interesting experience with this BOSE system that I'd like to share with fellow audio enthusiasts. It all started on April 21st when I first heard a BOSE stereo at my friend Herbert M. Cheese's house. To say I was blown away is a true understatement. I consider it right up there with discovering the fact that you can warm up bagels by placing them on top of your computer monitor. This was a system that made everything else sound like your answering machine. And the features: wow. You could actually turn up the volume just by using the remote control. A significant breakthrough! Also, it had an on/off switch that was comfortable: don't you hate it when you get blisters from turning your receiver on and off? Not with BOSE, no sir! Given the greatness that I witnessed, I went on a mission. The first was to figure out how BOSE speakers were made. The second was to buy my very own BOSE system.

So I went down to the local consumer electronics uber-store to find out some information. The friendly salesman named Tut was there to serve my needs. I just had to know how BOSE came up with this revolutionary design. Tut was not about to let me in on this secret, mind you, but I found that if you give Tut a $20 bill, he's very accomadating. He took me off the side and let me in on the secrets. Tut began his monologue by going over the history of the Egyptian pyramids, and since I'm Egyptian this was of great interest to me. Apparently there is this theory that aliens from outer space came down to Earth in 5,000 B.C. and, seeing that the Egyptians were having difficulty building their pyramids, offered a helping hand in return for a hot lunch and use of the bathroom. The aliens lent their enormous technological knowledge to the Egyptians in architechtural design. But there is also something else the aliens did, namely, they created BOSE speakers, and for a very good reason: they were insane. (That's the only reason I can come up with.) Now BOSE denies this, but how else can you explain such awesome revolutionary speakers like the ones BOSE has? Clearly, mankind is not smart enough to invent such a product. This explains why BOSE won't release the specifications for their speakers: the aliens never bothered to write them down. And no one is smart enough to comprehend such incredible speakers, so even if the specs were released, mankind would just look them and be utterly dumb-founded.

Now, after a few more $20 bills, Tut was gracious enough to allow me to make a purchase. Tut recommended the 901 series VI, and I was not one to disagree with an audio mastermind such as himself. He gave me a great bargain, and after coming back from a talk with the store manager, gave the speakers to me for the amazingly low price of $3,000. It was such a great deal I gave Tut another $20 tip for being such a kind man. I was on my way to listening heaven.

I went home and ripped open the boxes; I couldn't wait to try these things out. After the easy-to-connect speakers were ready to go (and it only took me 12 hours, which is pretty fast considering how advanced these speakers are and how I'm a non-alien and all), I got out my reference DVD, which is Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (1976). For some reason it didn't sound very good. The dialogue was much clearer on my 1955 television set. But then I realized my mistake: I had the speakers in the wrong places. So what I did was put the rear speakers in the front and the front speakers in my attic. I actually get much better sound this way. It also helps to aim your subwoofer diagonally toward your nearest tree outside for a big improvement. For the center channel, I find it works better when you put a slice of swissed cheese on top of it to absorb any excessive vibrations. I popped Silent Movie back on and was nearly blown out of the room. Therefore I installed a waist strap on my chair to prevent that from happening in the future.

I love this system and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Moral of the story: BOSE BLOWS THOSE other SCHMOES with a HOSE.

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.

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.

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.

Craig is right on, guys! Don't try and kid yourselves into thinking otherwise. Only the most adamant of the Bose-aholics would say anything else. These Bosers think that every high-end company uses paper drivers, when the reality is they don't! Don't try and make everyone else look bad just because Bose is.

And if the reviewer below, John Lowry, isn't a Bose employee, then I am the King of England.

My puppy loves to chew on them

I only have one puppy

Bose shmose, Gimme a break - $1500 for what? An equalizer?
Do your self a $BIG favor and audition other speakers. You will be able to get the same noise, I mean sound out of other brands for about $350.

Similar Products Used:

2 tin cans with string interconnect

Paper drivers and the defense thereof.

Upon seeing the phsyco-babble of the 2 preceding idiots I had to make a point... Yes there may be some super high-end companies that use a ludicrous # of drivers, and yes some companies may very well use paper drivers. BUT, as it always is with any "pro-bose-schmoe" there is an inherent lack of any meaningful details. The Genesis 1's? yup, lots of tweeters ribbons, and huge self amplified woofers. Wilson audio? Nope, sorry not made of paper, and no preponderance of drivers either (not even on the wamm, which uses electrostatic tweeters). the Martin Logan statement? yes 16 7" mid-range drivers (not facing the damn wall) and 16 12" subwoofers; all are not untreated paper with flimsy surrounds that will rot in a few years(like the 901s) Dynaudio Evidence? Hardly! 4 8" woofers, 6.5" mids and2 1.1" tweeters. No matter what the people before me want others to believe there is NO speaker as stupidly designed as the bose 901. So, ignore the lies of the 2 bose employees before me, these speakers are hopeless crap and always will be.

I see posts about paper cones that look like some old jenson speakers from the 70's. Low technology etc... From a scientific standpoint, paper is not necessarily a poor substance to produce sound with. If used properly it has some characteristics which are far superior to the various forms of plastic being used today in your infinity's in particular. On the topic of drivers, the fact that you see paper cones does not mean that the drivers are poorly made either. As a matter of fact they are very well made.
The overall design of the speaker, which produces a very large soundstage, is not unlike many high end speakers. First of all, let's look at the obvious. You've got 11 drivers all together on each speaker. 11 being used to produce the same sound as what is normally done with 3 on your most "garden variety" tower. Take a trip to a true hifi store. There you will find McIntosh amps, adcom equipment, etc... In the speaker section you will run into a variety of speakers ranging in price from around 4000 to $70,000.00. One thing to be noticed is that in this price range the buyer is expecting something above and beyond the norm. You will see all different kinds of speaker designs, some of which designed with similar principals in mind to the 901s. Speakers with 10 and 20 drivers each. Some of them attempting to create some supernatural soundstage with speakers facing all different directions.

I personally consider the 901s to be the lowest part of the heighest end equipment. A bargain at under $1500.

Different approach to sound reproduction.

Need Eq to sound decent.

After dropping out from the whole audio world for a few years, I thought I would buy a new set up. I had an old Yamaha receiver and a set of Bose 10.2's a sony cd player, and regular joe wiring in this old set up. Well I figured since the 10.2's sounded good, I would try the 901. I went out and bought an Alpha 9p and Alpha 9c with a brand spanking new Sony cd player. I made the mistake of buying a set of 901's to go with all this new stuff. Everyone I have spoken to online told me that an Eq is an attempt to cover up poor sound. I figured that I would let my ears be the judge. My ears had confirmed what I was told about eqs. The Sound from the 901's was bla. I had a friend lug over his speakers, a set of Paradigm Monitor 9's and we did a side by side comparision of the two speakers. Sufice to say the 901's lost. I took them back and bought a set Studio 80's from Paradigm. I was much happier with the outcome.

Similar Products Used:

None this strange looking.

To the Steve who wrote the review below,

If you cannot hear the difference between a speaker that goes to 20khz and above and one that goes to 13.5khz, you are practically deaf.

Makes a great decoy for burglers or replacement speaker for an alarm clock or Ford Escort

Quite an expensive one at that

The only value of these overpriced and overrated speakers would be for non-musical use. Cheap paper cones reminiscent of car speakers found in most economy cars do not suffice in producing a sound worthy enough of music. It is best suited for a replacement speaker for that cheesy am/fm clock radio or a foot stand for high shelves.

Similar Products Used:

iMac speakers, tin cans, my son's Fisher-price toy, alarm clock, walkie talkie, etc.