BOSE 901 Floor Standing Direct/Reflecting Speaker System

mukesh soni

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BOSE 901 Floor Standing Direct/Reflecting Speaker System

IS IT BEST IN 1 LAC BUDGET ?

ACTUAL BUDGET GO TO
116K (1 LAC 16 THOUSAND WITH STAND)

IS IT BEST STEREO SPEAKER ?

FOR MUSIC IS IT TRUE ?

MOST DURABLE FOR LONG TIME

IS IT WORTH BUYING ?
ANY MEMBER HAS 901 IN MUMBAI
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These speakers deliver a punchy engaging sound. Though they are fairly efficient, they require an amplifier with high Output power, because of the active equaliser ( Box sitting on one of the speakers, in the picture).

The Bose 901 uses 9 speakers drivers per channel. All 9 drivers are EXACTLY the same. these are 3.5 inch ( Dont remember the exact size) drivers. Hence they are not particularly good at delivering High Freq ( which requires a tweeter of approx 1 inch dia) or Low Freq ( which requires a Woofer of 8 inches diameter or larger).

Hence the External equaliser which boosts the HF and LF by approx 12 dB. That means your Power Amp needs to be able to deliver that extra LF power !

The drivers are specially designed for high cone excursions, to handle the extra LF power without distortion.

Since these speakers radiate sound in multiple directions, their Imaging is not particularly precise. As a result, One HiFi reviewer had written" This is the 1st time I have heard Ella Fitzgerald with a 9 foot wide mouth."

Bose Sued him.

As a direct consequence, from that day onwards, the Hi Fi press boycotted all Bose products & reviews.

Still Bose today ( Selling LIFESTYLE Not Hi Fi Products) has annual revenue of approx US $ 2 Billion I think (...these figures are from memory and could be way off today)... which is more that that of All HiFi Company sales worldwide !

Regarding the 901s, the Drivers all had Foam surrounds. These completely crumble ( Turn to dust) in approx 3 years, in Mumbai's hot & humid environment. Hence take off the front Grills and have a look. I am not sure if Bose has shifted to Bextrene surrounds now ....

You can get the cones redone with bextrene surrounds, locally in India, using Indian surrounds, but they will sound different...

Also the lovely stands typically pit & corrode in an coastal environment. That will be plainly visible.

If you have these speakers with Bextrene ( rubber) surrounds, they are practically indestructible, and will last forever.

Incidentally, I serviced Bose (free of cost) in the early 1980s when Bose had no direct presence in India. I then worked for a Tata Company and Mr Ratan Tata was a Good friend of Dr Amar Bose....
 
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Mukesh, you should get in touch with FM Indian ears about your query since he has wealth of experience with the speaker your wanting more info on. Maybe he owns a pair or two as well so you can request him to have you over for a listening session

:)
 
I have Bose 901 Series VI, the basic design is 50 years old, it was

pretty good for its time, modern recording technique is quite different

to what was being done in the 50-60-70

The Speaker can play very loud, it can do so for 12 Hours at a time

the drivers are 1 Ohm Impedance each, you can hear the music
everywhere

in the house and on the road, needs 250 W RMS dedicated Power

amp minimum, needs to be kept 19-20 inch from Back wall, 2.5 feet from

side wall, low frequency tone is not good, the Equaliser components of

series VI spoil the sound before it gets to the speakers, can sound very

good if matched to the right room, if it is not matched to the room can

sound unsatisfactory, needs a big room, with every thing right, it still

lacks transparency and detail but sounds quite OK if not compared to

other better and cheaper products, but there are lots of current speaker

designs that sounds worse than 901 also, these were the speakers

that made Bose famous, the early version uses 8 Ohm Philips Drivers and

is the best, the present version VI does not have foam rot problem

of Version 3 and 4, mine are 20 plus years and are from Chennai

best to get a pair, place it in the room you intend to use it in and

see if the room and speaker interaction happen for the best

the room speaker interaction is very critical in 901, if they match it can be

very nice, best place to fix is hanging from the ceiling, two feet down

two feet from rear wall, 3 feet from side wall

All the best with your adventure, I had my adventure but my room is

ultimately not meant for 901

Robert Bose
 
Robert, that is a nice balanced post, and I could not agree more with your views. :clapping:

Waghe Saheb, I don't thnk we have met, but looking forward to it .....:)
 
Sorry, Denom. I dont own any Bose Speakers....

(Doctors don't necessarily marry their patients ! :lol: )

:lol: no harm in asking, no??? Since your post was very informative, I thought you might be having atleast a pair because sometimes doctors do happen to marry their 'patient' :p


Super! Made my day!!

Do we know each other??:ohyeah::ohyeah::ohyeah::clapping::clapping:

Robert, that is a nice balanced post, and I could not agree more with your views. :clapping:

Waghe Saheb, I don't thnk we have met, but looking forward to it .....:)

:lol: Mumbai Meet 2013 - you both 'met' each other but do not recollect ;)

Hemant, we shall be visiting the good doctor one of these days for a 'check-up' of his 'patients' :ohyeah:

Doc saheb, I hope the invitation still stands :)
 
I have Bose 901 Series 2 with Bose Power Amp 1801 and the Equalizer. The Power Amp is rated at 400 wpc in 8 ohms. So the company expects the speakers to be driven by powerful amps for getting the best results
 
Bose speakers are some of the most hated and belittled ones in audiophile world and you can read so many criticisms and jokes on these (eg: a reviewer of the first 901 speakers once wrote that he never thought that the particular singer he listened to in the speakers had a 7 ft wide mouth, and Bose sued him for that). However, the 901 series are considered their best and gain at least some respect in several discussions you will come across. Its performance, of course, depends heavily on its placement (usually within a foot or two of the wall) as long as you don't have to rebuild your house.

For the money you are willing to spend, you have much better options unless you are looking for those lifestyle systems.

Good luck.
murali
 
Sorry, apologies to Indianears who had already cracked that joke about Bose speakers. You can fill a whole book with the hate-trash heaped on Bose speakers.

It is almost like our falling on vintage gear like turntables. The sad part is that science, engineering and technology have moved forward and not backwards. Can one treat a piece of electronics like wine getting better by ageing? I do not. I had once listened to a Wadia CD player (861 SE) and considered it as the best in our planet I had ever heard. But later, when I listened to modern players from Ayre, Accuphase, Cary etc, I felt that they were in a much better league, unless we are still willing to chide ourselves that Ambassador from HM is still the best car for Indian roads and requirements. Bose introduced a novel idea of reflective sound supported by his MIT background but it never sustained.

No disrespect meant to the great inventor but facts are facts. I, for one, do not subscribe to the idea of racial supremacy or patriotism when spending my hard-earned money on things I wish to enjoy in this global economy. I may be a bloody fool for not dipping into the analog world but I can live with that in this modern digital world.

Apologies once again.
murali
 
Guys, I wonder if we are talking amongst ourselves .... ? :o

No a Word from tthe originator of this thread ????
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
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