Bose 901 Series V Review 

Full written review can be found here: www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/bose_901_series_v/

I bought these 901's in the Army while in Germany second hand in 1985 for $600. 00. I month's pay back in the day. I had a pair of 901's before any components. They won many speaker wars in the barracks. They were the ultimate party speakers in my college years. I still got them, and they still jam after all these years.

The 901's debuted in 1968 and were discontinued in 2016, had they just lasted 2 more years Bose could have released the 50th anniversary editions. I think outside of Klipsch, they had the longest run of any American made speaker system

Had a pair of the 901 IV back in the 80s. Hung'em from the ceiling and blasted the heck out of them. Absolute party speaker.

If you are going to demo or review these in any sort of stick-build home with drywall walls, forget about it. The Bose 901 is a highly reactive speaker - majority of the sound they radiate is bounced of walls, which means: your walls effectively become transducers. While the 901 will never be the worlds most accurate speaker, 90% of the "tonal disaster" most people experience w/ 901's boils down to the fact that THIS IS COLORATION THAT HAPPENS BY YOUR WALLS. This was (IMO) one of the greatest weaknesses of these speakers. Want to hear an entirely different speaker from a tonal perspective? TURN THE SPEAKER AROUND and face the 8 "rear" drivers FORWARD. Your welcome. Of coarse, you then loose the magic that they are known for. I live south of the border (Mexico) where virtually ALL homes are 100% solid concrete inside and out. You would be surprised the difference (especially in tonal reproduction) that placing these speakers against a concrete wall makes. I own TWO pairs of em (series IV and VI). I also own Martin Logan, Vandersteen, Advent, Boston Acoustics, Energy, Infinity, Dahlquist, Focal, and many others. No, these are not for critical listening in any setting. But they are FUN and nowhere near as bad when they are NOT in a wooden cracker jack matchbox (also known as a "home" in the US). They are particularly fun to listen to live stuff (MTV unplugged is my favorite stuff on these). -Dean

They sound amazing when driven and set up properly. You don’t make a junk speaker for almost 50 years. People wise up quickly. Vocals sound amazing. They are far less fatiguing than many high end audiophile speakers where the treble peaks take your head off. The biggest problem with the 901 is placement. They need open space, so forget about furniture p,ace best to them.

At the risk of getting verbally abused by other audio folks, I do wish Bose continued to make speakers like this and just spent the time, money for R&D to further develop and improve on this extremely unique approach to loudspeaker design. I think there would be a market for speakers like this that do things no other speakers can do, if they can manage to improve accuracy, reduce distortion and increase headroom. All they care about now is soundbars and bluetooth speakers.

I love my series 4 901's! I believe they were banned in some small American town at one stage. A store owner played them and it attracted so many people (the sound) that other store owners claimed he/she had ''unfair advantage''! Bose 901's rock!

i bought 901s in 1990 from the shop that did my car audio work. the sales pitch was fairly simple. they had an extension cord with one end bare wires, and they had them hooked up to the speaker terminals. the other end had a two pronged plug. the salesman plugged the speaker into the wall and played the 60 hertz 120 volt current. he said they were basically indestructable. i was drooling at the thought of hooking up 2 x 500 watt amps to them and seriously rocking the party, which i did :) these speakers got better the louder you played them and that was their strong point. they were absolute beasts at high watts

Thanks Erin, you are providing a great service with the work you do. The numbers don't lie and it is very useful to know an old set of 901s can't be counted on to provide top notch sound. Although I can't prove it with numbers since I can't go back in time and test a brand new set of 901s, it is my opinion that the 901s you tested are showing signs of aging. I was an engineer at Bose and personally knew all the engineers there and it is very unlikely that group of people with their brainpower, fanatical (over)work ethic, theoretical knowledge, and expertise in the lab doing tests & measurements and getting their hands dirty on the factory floor would have put out a poorly performing speaker as the flagship top-of-the-line product it was. Some possible effects of aging that may account for at least some of your measurements of poor performance may be: air seals between drivers and cabinet cracked with age creating air leaks, the cabinet including the plastic inner cabinet cracked, foreign matter built up on the voice coil, spider and surrounds got stiff/nonlinear, cones lost stiffness, strength of driver magnets weakened over time, internal wiring connections corroded(I know from personal experience with original [so-called series 1] 901s this happens and makes the speakers sound like they should be thrown out at the dump but after cleaning contacts that are inside the cabinets with sandpaper, problem completely gone). Since it is known that series V (and from what I know and/or have read also some series 3, and 4 and maybe later units of series 2 and/or early units of series VI) foam would often rot, it is quite possible that the surrounds lost linearity with age even if the surrounds may have looked ok visually. I also know from personal experience that the plastic frames of the drivers would crack starting where one or more of the mounting screws were, but I no longer remember if this problem continued into the series V that you tested(if I remember right, at some point Bose did away with the mounting screws and the drivers were twist-locked into place, probably to avoid the cracking problem). Series 2-6 used plastic driver frames and some of them may have been used in later production units of the series 2(not sure). It would be very interesting to see a 901 measured that was restored including the use of new drivers with parameters as close as could be gotten to the parameters of the original drivers and then tweak the equalizer maybe a bit to match or use Dirac. Testing speakers before restoration and again after restoration would be very useful for the 901s and all other old speakers. Since that would cost considerable money & time, maybe you could do this for just a limited number of speakers (and for just a single speaker out of a stereo pair) just to see the before and after restoration differences, assuming there are any(again, I have assumed there will be significant differences, but I do not claim to know for certain there will be). The biggest problems in my opinion with the 901 design are: cabinet is small so lots of power needed to output bass & therefore distortion quickly becomes a problem. Drivers are small and xmax(how much the driver cone can travel away from its center rest position before voice coil moves outside the main magnetic field & thus huge distortion) tends to scale with size of driver so xmax of drivers is much smaller than that of, say a typical 15" or 18" woofer, and therefore speaker not capable of moving enough air without objectionable distortion to put out what I consider high enough spl (in my listening experience, this only shows up in the bass region. In mids & highs(per Bose, highs need only go up to somewhere between 12KHz and 14KHz), 901s play extremely loud).

I’ve been using my pioneer sx1250 to push my 901s. Recently retired the sx1250 and replace it with a emotiva pre amp and amp setup with 300 watts per channel. The 901s sound great. Placement is important. I play all kinds of music so I enjoy them.

Curves and computer measurements dont mean crap. When BOSE design those speakers they were using phychoacoustics its how the human brain perceives sound waves. This are not regular direct speakers you can measure. Bose uses direct and reflected waves that uses the rooms acoustics to enhance the sound so it can be perceive as a concert hall or live enviroment so if you place this speakers in front of a concrete wall you going to get a nasty reflection. You need to know how to set up and use this speaker they are not for the average joe. BOSE knew this its why they dont reveal the specification of any of their speakers. Cause its not about specs. Its about what sounds good to one person or another and how they perceive sound. but what can i say, I got to tell it how it is, i own my own business and i have been installing Home Theater and car audio for 35 years and counting im 50 years old and belive me when i tell you all those measurements your coming up with will change completely everytime you place a speaker in a different acoustic enviroment. Erin its easy, All you need to do is learn ACOUSTICS 101.

I have gotten bored with people who nonstop attack Bose speakers. Don't buy them then. I grew up with a Sanyo or Panasonic all inclusive tuner turntable cassette deck, so the first time I heard 901's it blew me away. I've had many much better speakers over the years as I got older, but I could still listen to a set of these with music I like and enjoy it because life is short. My old neighbor passed recently and his brother gave me his 901 Series II's. I'm refoaming 18 drivers lol and going to hook them up and listen to them. And I'm probably going to find something about them I enjoy, because it's a decision that I've already made.

Nice and very impressive your review especially the graphic... Bud for me when i listening those speaker make me happy the sound is like no other and I think this is the point for someone who doesn't have the expertise of engineering of sound just have the have the ability to listen music or good music with good track on dts or sacd that enough

These paired excellently with a high end Sony STR-GX 909ES receiver. It also has the patching for the Bose EQ.

People always need something to hate on to make them feel better about their own possessions. For cars, everyone's favourite to hate is Ford. For hockey teams, it's the Montreal Canadiens. For audio, it's Bose. That's really all it boils down to. Bose 901 speakers are pretty good overall and you could do a lot worse. For example, I once made one of the worst impulse buys ever and bought a pair of "Grafdale" speakers at a flea market without listening to them first. They were in great shape cosmetically and looked impressive enough with its large woofers. I got them home and hooked them up with my trusty Carver M1.0t. I was surprised, and not in a good way. The Grafdales sounded like a sleeping bag was draped over each speaker. There was no mid range to speak of, the highs were shrill, and the bass was flabby and almost non-existent. I did some research on them and found out they were one of those "white van" speakers. I promptly returned them the next day and got my $300 back. Needless to say, the Bose 901 sounds 100 times better than a speaker like this. I'm assuming half the people that claim the 901 is garbage didn't hear them used with their supplied equalizer. It really is a night and day difference.

If Bose Speakers are bad, why is the company still making speakers and still making profits while other speaker company already shut down or sold their company to another company? The only answer I know is Bose still making good stuff.

I bought the original version in 1970. This variant used 9 4" CTS 30 watt acoustic suspension drivers per channel for a rated capacity of 270 watts per channel. These are probably better drivers than Bose manufactured himself starting with series three. I enjoyed them very much for a few years boxed them up and then took them out probably around 1990. Then I didn't like them anymore. I'm also an engineer so when things like that happen I want to know why. I liked them once, why don't I like them now? So the first thing was to determine that they worked properly. Unlike the putty that seals the speaker frames to the enclosure in AR2ax where it turned to glue in this one the putty hardened and cracked. I called Bose (remember this is decades later) and they said they were unrepairable but offered me a 50% discount on a trade in for their newest speakers. I decline. I do not like or buy ported or other types of speakers, only acoustic suspension. Since you are an engineer I suggest you use Newton's second law of motion applied to forced oscillation and the ideal gas laws to understand the mechanical behavior off all woofer/enclosure behavior. The AS easily wins when properly executed. My first half hearted attempt to improve them failed. I admit it was not a serious attempt. The second try took 4 years from 2004 to 2008. That got remarkable results. The frequency response has three major faults. You can see them in the version V you tested but the FR of the original is not a choppy. The bass resonant frequency was deliberately pushed up above 180 hz because as Bose claimed above that frequency the phase shift at resonance becomes inaudible (in his white paper.) I don't know if it is true or not but the system is underdamped with about a broad 7 to 8 db peak at around 250 hz. Below that frequency response falls off at a predicted 12 db per octave crossing the 1 khz output at around 95 hz and continues falling at 12 db per octave. But the equalizer only provides a 6 db per octave boost. This is why to hear deep bass from that speaker it has to be played at ear shattering level. So equalization fixed the bass eliminating the rise and filling in for the lost bass resulting in a nominal 30 db boost at 30 hz. The system can actually produce down to 26 hz with 10% THD. By comparison early AR 12" woofer were 5% at 30 hz and later variants were only 1% at 30 hz. All of them are acceptable. So to get the same output at 30 hz as you'd get from 1 watt at 1 khz you'd need 1000 watts (eq varies with each recording.) So you'd need 4 pairs wired in parallel with a Crown Drive Core 2505 to equal the performance of my Teledyne Acoustic Research AR9s. That was the easy part. The hard part was the treble. The inertial mass of the drivers is so great that it really can't reproduce the top octave to octave and a half of audible sound. The solution was a carefully designed of directed array 3/8" poly tweeters one forward just above the 4" driver, 3 on the back and 2 upfiring. This took 4 years. The systems I create incorporate the room as an essential part of the system and is indispensable. I've learned how to engineer reflections rather skillfully. Finally each recording has its own spectral balance based on many factors in the recording and mastering methodology. Each one has to be equalized individually so that FR is flat from the original microphones to the sound field that reaches your ears. Bose 901 wasn't the first system I re-engineered so this was not my first attempt at this kind of effort. As a result Bose 901 became a two way bi amplified tonally accurate system (there are 4 equalization circuits per channel) that is extremely enjoyable without sacrificing any of the desirable attributes of the original concept.

I saw and heard these speakers for the first time at a friend's apartment in NYC in the late 70s. I remember he had them hanging from the ceiling and right away I liked how they looked and sounded. I was particularly impressed with the really wide sound stage. In the late 80s I started buying Bose and went from the 601s (series I, II and III) to the 901s and their various series. I still own 901 and they are my go-to speakers when I want to have fun: Pink Floyd's The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, Prince, Soda Stereo, The Alan Parsons Project, etc. etc. I lost contact with my Puerto Rican friend whom I worked with over 40 years ago at the Armenian Cathedral in NYC. Thank you for introducing me to Bose speakers, wherever you may be.

I still have my 901s series I. When I was using them in the 70s, I powered them with a phase linear 700 amp. They used every bit of that 350 rms per channel. They sounded the best when driven hard. They weren't t reproductively accurate but a blast to listen to.

Nice review. I own 3 pairs. At "normal" listening levels, it is not a good speaker; at higher pressure (jpower) listening levels, it is one of the better sounding speakers.

Great review. It also raises an interesting question: If home audio is not about having "fun", then what is it about? If it is just about finding accuracy, then measurements alone can pretty nearly tell you what to buy. But most audiophiles don't believe that. Again, great job, thanks.

This is what I can say about the BOSE 901s speakers: This is my first loudspeakers I purchased in the 80s and I' still using it here in my home theater room as my main front speaker. This speakers are meant to be loud and need lots of power. But I do not listen to loud music anymore unless I am watching movies. They are pretty good on classical music and for my rock and soul and jazz oldies too. I really enjoyed this speakers until now. You just need to install this the right way. I hang mine from my ceiling and follow the measurement instructions. I powered this speaker to my Carver Power Amp 200 watts per channel 400 watts total. Not listening loud and the sound is so amazing to my ears. Maybe not for some people but to my listening ears, I am very happy until now. I recone all the drivers to a shop here in my area and now it looks brand new again. You will need a descent power amplifier with lots of wattage to run this speakers or else you will never enjoy the sound coming out from the drivers. I lower the volume of my preamp and still sound great to my ears. Different people have different hearing of sound on their ears. I loved my BOSE 901s and I will keep this as long as I'm still alive. Thank you for reading my comments on BOSE 901s

The 901s were created to recreate a live performance. Thats when they shine.

Listening to music should be fun, not accurate.

Your comments about them not being accurate but being fun reminds me of my Carver Sonic Holography unit which sound amazing .....on SOME recordings :) I checked out your other videos and your have a lot of great content! Lik'd and Sub'd.

Wow thank you so much for this review! I’m a Bose fan and I own a couple of different Bose models in my speaker collection. I have never listened to 901s, just drooled at first sight as a teenager leafing through stereo magazines and continued dreaming about them in my twenties! That iconic look on the tulip stands ! I have to admit that since your reviews are so accurate and well informed and with your “knack” for honesty you were going to cream them, honestly I almost made popcorn for this one...LOL ! But I should have known better, you stuck with the facts and gave us a fair review ! I will find a decent pair one of these days .... just for that imaging you described and that iconic look , the same reason I hunted and bought a pair of JBL Aquarius lV S109.. not the best speaker JBL made but a mid century looking cabinet that I could have sworn Frank Lloyd Wright designed! Just like the 901s they can be fun if placed correctly! So on the hunt for 901s now!!! Thanks again!

I just snagged some Series VI version 2 built-in 2015 looking at the date stamped on one of the drivers (a year before BOSE ceased production) in Ash Black. They are MINT, what many would call a "Barn Find". They are like NEW. I owned 901s going back to 1980 when I was stationed in Italy. I sold them when we downsized and tried living with a high-end soundbar and sub-woofer from Sonos and missed the 901s. So the soundbar was sold and I am loving the 901s again.

I have the Bose 901 Series vi speakers from the late 90s. I bought them then new. Even today they look new! I'm so fortunate to have so many other speakers too: Klipsch, Quad, Wharfedale, Buchardt & many more.. Every speaker has its strength & unique sound signature. Audio is a fun hobby. I listen to different speakers for different moods. I love my 901s too, but they require careful placement. They are unique and spellbinding! The best way to measure any speaker is through your heart and ears! Try to buy at least two different sets as no one set of speakers would ever satisfy you all the time. Anyways have great fun and enjoy this hobby guys!

I have 4 901s faceing me in front on stands 450 carver watts per 1. 2 bose 301s 250 watts per 1 behind them 1 sub and sounds better then most live bands breathtaking sound and hart pounding if you want.

Have a set and love them. Need at least 200 watts per channel. Pair them up with an Adcom 555II but you must have square walls for them to work.

Thank you for your knowledge, thoroughness and objectivity! I am not a sound professional or even an audiophile. I'm just a guy who loves music. I really appreciate you pointing out both the pros and the cons! I have a pair of Series IV 901's and I run them paired with a pair of JBL 4311 Control Monitors thru a Luxman R-1120 and a BSR EQ-3000 Graphic Equaliezr with a pink noise generator. I use the eqalizers's pink noise generator to tune the sound to the room. Absoulutely love it! I find the JBL's have better lows and highs and an overall more balanced sound, but they also have a "flatter" less interesting more one dimensional almost "hollow" sound and the vocals are lacking in "feeling (?)". When I add the 901's the vocals literally come to life and the whole soundscape takes on depth and presence. Your analysis has technically explained to me what is actually going on in my ears perception.Over the years a number of people have somtimes vehemently told me to throw the 901's in the trash, but I've stubbornly held onto them because I know what I heard and what it felt like to experience. Now I know why. Thank you! I subscribed and look forward to learning more about sound reproduction.

Ok BOSE is for the consumer who isn’t technical and gets into measurements but want good sound. Not for the audiophile who is into all the details. Both consumers are fine. It’s all a matter of preference. Apples and oranges as far as audiophiles are concerned.

Interesting speaker design 🕩🔉 🎶👍

Many many recordings are not mixed and mastered all that well. We think all engineers are sound geniuses and they mixed a record to sound a certain way and that's they way its supposed to be... Its just not true. There are so many factors that happen while recording and mixing a record and many times its just pure luck that some sound great while others sound awful. Music for the most part is a mass produced product that is shit out as fast as possible. This I think is why we get the LP vs CD argument. I have doubles of LPs and CDs and in a lot of cases the LP sounds better than the CD. But if I change the EQ a little then the CDs sound just as good, what I find is my record player actually boosts the high-end a little due to my stylist I am using compared to a CD that is just an exact copy of the master take that was send from the studio. POINT IS, the master tape isn't always "the best sound" we like to think it is. There are so many factors that come into play, speakers, EQ, room and so on. Then there is what you want from music. I like a bright sound where you can hear all the background reverb and cymbals ringing out clearly. Some people like a direct sound stage and some people like music to fill the room. I have never heard these speakers and what I would worry is how would they reproduce cymbals in music but I think they would give you a room filling experience much like live music. I must try a set some day.

This is very cool to see thanks for making this channel and posting this! I believe the Series I and II are sealed enclosures and the later models are ported. The drivers also changed between the series with the originals using a CTS driver and then later units using a Bose branded driver that were matched. I believe the series I and II have rubber surrounds and starting with the series III they switched to a foam surround driver and many of the speakers had rot issues with age. I have a set of the series II and am curious what difference a sealed enclosure would make if anything.

No matter what you do to frequencies or eq , those speakers are going to sound different when played in different rooms with different acoustical signatures.

The key to the 901's is separate amp with good clean power, I run close to 175w ea. Also, what helps is additional SW and proper matching with x-over frequencies, between speakers (901's) and SW and that's it.

Remember curves and specs dont mean a thing, what determines how any speaker is going to respond in a room its the room acoustics. You can place the most espensive speaker with the best curve and specs in the wrong room and it will sound horrible. BOSE knew this and its why and how they design and engineer their speakers. Its why you find yourselve saying alot of "but". You know the specs and curves are not right but your ears tell you a different thing. Bose engineer work with phychoacoustics how peoples brain react to sound waves. Just remember sound its subjective and there is not a perfect speaker outhere, every speaker has a sound signature to it. If there was such a thing as "the perfect speaker" companys wouldn't keep making their speakers better.😁

A friend of mine at work sold me these and some smaller Bose speakers for $100. He was buying something newer. Best deal ever!!

Other speakers from the 80’s that had an interesting reflected sound take were Ohm Walsh and DCM Time Window. It’s been forever since I’ve heard either one. I wonder how they would measure.

I have series vi using the pre out from an Outlaw RR2150 receiver through the line out connections in an SVS subwoofer (crossover 80hz) then through the Bose equalizer. The original equalizer was replaced with the mini dsp from Deercreek Audio (highly recommended). The speakers sound much more detailed and clear with a more extended high end. I love them with this set up. I also have some Polk LSIM 703’s and a Yamaha Aventage AV receiver. The Polks are amazing with movies and better than the 901’s with modern pop but surprisingly sound awful with some of the classic 70’s rock. The 901’s are better at live and orchestral music and sound good with any music. I think about trading them in for something new every now and then but am afraid I’d just end up buying them back. I love the big, rich soundstage. I prefer to be my own sound engineer and build and adjust my systems so that they are pleasing to me.

There is something wrong with the Bose 901 units you’ve tested. I’ve got a Bose 901 VI and the DB I get is distortion free up to 105. They play very loud. Also, worth mentioning that Stereo Review and Tone Publications - both respected “audiophile magazines” - have said the 901s are tonally close to the Maggies. And so to call them “inaccurate” is a bit of a stretch.

I Stumbled across a pair of these in an awesome deal a about 10 years ago. They had hardly been played. I also discovered that Bose had a repair facility that so you could send them in for a low price and they would go completely through them and bring them up to their original standards. I sent mine in so they were like new when they came back. I love the speakers for my party room. They still sound great today. Unfortunately I don’t believe they offer that service any more.

Very nice report I did have a pair of 901 V..now have Carver Silver edt..on sound stage Carver at rating A for Bose C+ I don't recall you saying about Bose EQ..it is active EQ..I still like 901 great for apt..or great sound without being serious .on Frez. Reps..at 80db pink noises flat setting at 1kz 102db Eq at 96db 5kz 88db Eq 93db 100hz 95db Eq 90db 50hz 84db

Play The Fabulous Thunderbirds Live album with as much power as you can muster, and you will be at the concert. For live rock/party stuff they just give that feeling, pretty much everything one could/ might want. Add a couple subs and a slope for the little 4's and it is special.

The way to set IT UP IS TO HAVE AN EQUALISER WITH WHITE NOISE AND DO THE ADJUSTMENTS USING BOSE EQUALISER - YOU THEN HAVE THE BEST SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT COLOUR THE MUSIC - mY 901'S SOUND BETTER THANT MOST AFTER AS THE WAY I SET THEM UP. i ALSO HAVE 501 & 401 SPEAKERS PLIS . i ALSO HAVE ACCOUSTIMASS SURROUND SYSTEM - I WIRKED FOR IES IN LONDON ON THE LARGE OUTDOOR CONCERT SYSTEMS

Excellent review. I've got two pair of 901's Series V and I've found that when you drive them with a separate amp it really helps push out the sound. (I discovered you need a separate amp to use the equalizer) I've got a Carver AV505 connected to with a Pioneer SC 82 7.1 in a large room and the point made about the position and size of the room makes all the difference as well. Also the Genre also makes a big difference. The point someone made about if it sounds good then that's all that counts is a good one too. In another house I have a set up of Klipsch driven by similar equipment so I do have a comparison.

I have four 901's, each with its own Emotiva 600W monoblock. Also a pair of 200W Sub Sonic subs, on a low setting. It's the only system I've ever had that produces concert like volumes and sound. Listening to Zappa at high volume is an amazing experience. I blend the sound with a pair of B&W 901's via an av receiver, so get the best of hi-fi & concert hall reproduction. Bang for buck the 901's kill the B&W's.

Bose...What I remember. ☮ Being blown away when hearing them for the first time, stoned in Mr. Goodbar. One pair set up in the back of a huge room would rock the entire place. Got a Series 3. Five yers later the speakers had disintegrated and after much wrangling 'Bose' agreed to replace them with Series 6, for 'shipping' & 300 bucks. I finally 'graduated' to Sonus 10 years ago and don't regret the move at all. YMMV

I haven’t read all the comments yet, so I’m not sure if this has been mentioned already. IMHO, if you’re listening to these setup in a normal room, they should be raised up higher than the “tulip stands” that they come with. Side note: I love that I have the chromed ones but, who wants reflected sound at their stomach/crotch when you’re seated? Or standing for that matter. Raise them up about 6-9” or so and see if it’s not a little better. Seems to fill the room better too given the reflections combined with furniture and such

Hello anyone can tell me; Did Bose sell a Bose amp for the speakers??? and what was it called.

The trouble with this (which is otherwise very informative) is that there are effectively NO recordings which produce the balance between diffuse and direct sound that occurs in live music, That is what Bose had observed and why he made the speaker. Incidentally the speaker appeared in 1968 (first version) -- it was some time after the most of the dates speculated on in the video, not even close to the 1950s. Another point to observe is that the concept of a speaker that reproduces what is recorded is not defined precisely. Look at in room response curves-of even supposedly "accurate" speakers- they are almost never the same within the thresholds of response variations detection. . The idea of which one is right is not discussed. The whole idea of accuracy is a moving target except for anechoic direct arrival-- but almost no recordings sound even plausible if they are reproduced anechoically flat first arrival and nothing else You can find out a lot about what to expect from Erin's information-- for which I am grateful. Thanks Erin! ,But Toole and the rest made up some idea of what accuracy ought to mean-- but making it up is what they did, based on what people liked to hear from recordings as they are The question of replicating concert reality was not discussed and still is not That replication was what Bose was aiming at. The distortion is regrettable but the Dirac live version is reasonably flat. If you do not like how it sounds, so be it. But saying it is not "accurate" is a bit off target, It is trying to do something different from ordinary speakers -- and it does. It is not something that the people who made the recordings expected but whether it sounds more like concert reality in the end-- your decision. Hardly any recordings actually do as conventionally reproduced so if you are interested in this issue, something different might make sense for you

Erin, what you were describing as the "soundstage" of this speaker should actually be :soundfield" because soundstage suggests that instruments could be located. that is what prevents this from ever becoming an audiophile speaker. i HAVE heard them set up as prescribed and the soundfield hanging in space is, at first, impressive. as a party speaker, it works very well but it is not for serious listening. the trade up program would be best utilized by taking their noise cancelling headphones in exchange as they are actually VERY good at what they doo and on't sound bad either.

Review the 701s , its was a better approach to this stereo everywhere technology from BOSE.

Attended a party in an apartment on the 8th floor, the music system used a pair of BOSE 901's, the party came to an abrupt end due to people on the 5th floor complaining about the noise. Totally agree these are a really impressive "party speaker".......

Many years ago I was in retail in the UK. At that time it was almost impossible to sell any speakers except British made. One day a rep from Bose came into the shop expecting us to take on the agency. He was abit surprised when I asked him to leave a pair and we would listen to them. After a few days of moving them about we came to the conclusion they were simply dreadful, wrong in almost every way. To cut a long story short, after six months I had not sold a single pair. To this day I cannot stand the sound of anything Bose. I cannot understand the thought behind putting a number of really crap drive units in a box, then add huge amounts of EQ to try and get a flatter response out of it. True you can sort of make something like a flattish response but you cannot get rid of the added colour and distortion. Todays kind of equivalent are the equally dreadful Edifier cheaper range of speakers with the extensive bass lift, sucked out mid and tizzy HF. As for the Bose, sound bars...probably better if I say nothing!!

I had series five and felt the treble was too rolled off. Yes, it will tame a very bright recording. But, various rock bands seemed a bit dull in the guitar area. The speakers are very pricey. Later, add the cost of refoaming woofers, and forget about it! There's no reason Bose couldn't have gone the route of Polk audio and others.

Bose speakers division of audiophiles is simply between those that love LISTENING to music, and those that let the specs and mesurements tell them what they should and should not like. Engineering wise, Bose has been way ahead of the curve since forever.

Why don't people pair these things with a set of typical speakers and a subwoofer on separate power amps? I would consider these as doing the job of augmenting 'surround', although Bose is notorious for charging too much for everything they build.

The voice is a little small. Volume / Normalized 100% / 100% (content loudness -7.1dB)

Your review was outstanding. I am annoyed by purists in the music and photography world. I'm a musician and a photographer among other things and I always shake my head and take a couple of deep breaths when I hear the purists denigrating a system (photographic or audio) because of it's departure from 'accurate.' Accurate isn't the point. Accurate isn't necessary. Fun...enjoyable...pleasing...happy...exciting...stimulating, are the points. If you live for accuracy in these areas, get yourself an oscilloscope to carry with you to measure.

fun is a great description. I've set up a bunch of 901 systems, a couple we set up facing backwards and got a more predictable sound system. lol

Please try a review on the BOSE 601 series 2. Thanks for your reply .

this is how ive always seen bose, Its designed to sound fun not 'good' its entertaining and interesting. its not supposed to be hifi it was never supposed to be hifi and i don't think it ever will be. big room filling bass is fun not hifi. if i want hifi ill get out my pair of klispch speakers or sennheiser headphones. but if i want something fun ill bring out a bose system. So the community is right, Bose is not hifi, its fun. 'Fun' should be a classification in the audio world imo.

The graphs are all fine and dandy, but a true aficionado does not listen to his/ her music on a graph. It’s done in the easy chair. The 901s still perform.

Bose warranty is like none other. They replaced my old set that dry rotted even after my warranty expired for $200. Unbelievable 👍

I prefer my Thiel SCS when I can stay at a sweet-spot. I prefer my 901 when I'm doing something with music though.

ERIN the scientists is forgetting the most important science. "Room Acoustics"

Even today its impressive how they sound. Obsolete to discuss about acurateness. They are fun to listen and give you a feeling of live music.

Bose better that issue with newer tower speakers they made over the years that actually sounded better and didn't need an eq. They had built in sub and tweeters facing foward and rear. They sounded much true to the intended recording. You should review those🤗

What I am wondering is if you inspected the drivers behind the grills, these are old, and the start of the series 5 had the foam surrounds that deteriorate. This is what i recently learned.With that said, if you measured / listened to a set that had time to have degrading surrounds I'd say i would expect them to perform to a lesser degree. They swapped to different surrounds later in the series and all of series 6 had no degrading issues at least yet. Been looking into these as a relative has a set and they have evolved over the years.

Imagine listening to a Phil Spector wall of sound recording on a speaker that depends on a wall to disperse its sound!

BOSE 901 Vrs Goldenear trition2s floorstanding speakers for music ?

I was around when Bose was happening. I never accepted the idea of a full range speaker. Full stop.

These speakers grate on my nerves while listening. They put me in a foul mood. I stored them away and use my jbl 100’s.

Hey Erin, interesting although the positioning did not appear optimum. Have the series VI and the staging is certainly the appeal. The better the quality the crisper they tend to sound. Thanks for sharing you your thoughts. What recording engineers intend to represent is certainly not a perfect science compared to a live performance. Cheers!

I could not disagree with his analysis more. I have two sets of 901's. The series 6 are hooked up to my McIntosh Mac 1900. The series 2's are being driven by my Carver AVR 100( 150wpc). I have a direct comparison to so called conventional speakers as I have a set of Wharfedale's. that have also run through the Carver amp. To my ears, the front firing Wharfedale's, present a very clear pronounced center image. While the 901 series 2's will fill the room, but does not present a good center image. I believe the direct/reflecting principle is designed to give the impression of a live performance more so than front firing speakers. That was the aim of Dr. Bose and he nailed it. When audiophile's want to fill the room with sound, they crank up the volume. While the 901's will shake the house, they will fill the room with sound at much lower volume settings. They were built from the ground up to fill the room with sound, not an after thought.

My oersibak exoeruebce regarding the Bose 901 was in 1973 as a 13-yr. old budding audio kid at Lawrence Hi-Fi in Birmingham Alabama. The cool long-haired floor person took me into their main sound room and played Vas Dis by Wishbone Ash. Being a young impressionable kid I was blown away. They were a McIntosh dealer and had a big Mac power amp driving them. FFW to 1977 I was ready to spend accumulated savings and buy a pair. I called Lawrence to get the latest price and availability and was told they no longer sold the Bose speakers. In the interim they had fell out of favor no doubt to the shortcomings you address so well here. They said the other brands they were carrying far exceeded the quality and the Bose had proven far too idiosyncratic to achieve the overall fidelity of more conventional designs. I was stunned being told to come in and they could demonstrate how for less money I could achieve superior audio listening quality. I ended up buying another speaker that had captured my interest which was the ESS AMT 1B, and at a completely different dealer (Sound Distributors for locals who recall that small chain). I'm glad I did. I still have the ESS speakers only replacing the woofers and passive radiators with parts from the later-day ESS Company. They still sound pretty great even if they too were sometimes maligned for their blending a very large woofer to the Heil Air Motion Transducer. The Bose were exactly what you called them, a fun speaker that had many unique shortcomings not the least of which was the room placement thing.

I have that pair of 901 Vs, and I love them. My favorite listening forum is to recreate the live sound stage, and these things deliver in spades. Having said that, for the very best acoustic result, I listen to multichannel SACDs. Using the stereo mode on my Onkyo amplifier, music from the 901s sounds kinda meh. So I use the pre outs to a Kenwood KMF-9000 stereo power amplifier along with a Technics SH-8600 computer equalizer (in addition to the Bose EQ set just right of the middle detent) with pink noise generator. After running pink noise to set the EQ, my setup sounds absolutely amazing. Crystal clear and encompassing sound stage. It’s funny how when these things were originally introduced, there was nothing but praise from the most ardent critics.

Having never heard any of the speakers that you test and review, I didn't really have a baseline for just what your measurements might mean to the ears. But since you've reviewed these and I know what they sound like, you've confirmed my general opinion; which is that I believe your reviews are straight, fair and accurate. Now I can look at your other reviews with fresh ears, so to speak. I have a pair of the 901 Series II with the equalizer recapped with higher quality and of course much newer components and they sound great to me. You hear a lot of talk nowadays about DSP and what that does is basically what Amar Bose did with his active equalizer except it's (A)nalog (S)ound (P)rocessing. Same principle, but the technology is ancient compared to what's available now. And I have to laugh whenever I see these huge line arrays of little tiny speakers with sophisticated sound processing to get the things to cover the full dynamic range of real music, and newer speakers with dipole segments so that some of the music is being reflected to the wall, thereby providing a more immersive, airy experience that sell for thousands of dollars. The Bose 901s were decades ahead of their time. Pick up a pair before they begin to cost more than a decent pair of new Wharfedales or some other quality floorstanders. And all you haters; just keep hating.

what would be interesting is putting better driver units in there to improve the sound quality and reduce the distortion. At-least then they would be even more fun to listen too.

Just now seeing your review 3 years later Erin! I pretty much agree with your general take on these speakers. While I'm someone who generally longs for the most accurate reproduction of a recording, I do still enjoy some speakers for simply being enjoyable to listen to even if it's not accurate. I've been blown away by some amazing stuff over the years in various hifi shops and still I can enjoy my old Cambridge Audio FPS2000 speakers made for PC gaming surround. They're not accurate or flat and probably suffer from plenty of distortion but they have this killer mid-bass that some music just sounds perfect with. Not accurate, but they are really fun in a small room. Meanwhile I have a decent set of 23 year old "audio enthusiast" grade Infinitys with a similarly matched 23 yo Denon amp that aren't amazing but sound good enough for me and my budget. I can't stand folks who insist the 901's or pretty much any Bose loudspeaker are accurate though. I wish folks could just admit they are what they are and not be ashamed to enjoy them despite their flaws. If you love your 901's, I love them with you. Just don't try to convince me it's some masterpiece of faithful audio reproduction cuz we all know it ain't! When an old friend of mine bought a pair of 501's just to analyze them, the consensus between us, besides being horribly inaccurate, was that they and all the models we auditioned after simply sounded "pleasant". Bose speakers are just pleasant to listen to. Not disagreeable in any way, not really fatiguing, just.... pleasant. And for that reason I totally understand why so many people like them.

Back in the day I went and listened to the 901's. And Bose would actually sell anyone them without the EQ. Really odd. Listing to them the biggest drawback by far was the muddy bass - like near zero dampening factor. I decided to keep my ESS AMT 1 B Studio Monitor Towers. Zero regrets

I had a pair of 901 Series 3 back in the late 70s. At the time the wide sound stage won me over, but that got a bit tiring after awhile when it was combined with music not recorded with that in mind. I suspect the issues you had with equalizing them beyond what the Bose eq box does is due to the fact that you are applying the same eq curve to both the rear directed sound that arrives a little later, and has some of its treble absorbed by the room, and the direct sound coming from the forward facing driver, which should less room attenuation of the treble. Perhaps setting the eq for just the direct sound would help? I suspect that may be what the Bose eq is doing at the center settings.

Whew great breakdown explains a lot of what I like about reflected sound ,as you say you can feel these speakers there is life out there.

I've just buy the speakers without the EQ or amplifier, whats the best and recomended way of making them work? I would like to have a bluetooth way of sendind music to them! Thank you!

I heard the Bose 901s around 1970 and at the same shop I listened to the JBL Paragon system. After hearing the Paragon I totally forgot about the 901s. I can't over emphasize how impressive the Paragon was. It was way out of my price range but I knew I had to check out some other JBL speakers that I might be able to afford some day. I settled on the L100s and in 1974 I purchased them. By that time they had been upgraded and were now called the L100As. I still use them today and they sound better to me. They could be a little bright in the higher frequencies but my hearing is now limited to 8khz so that's not a problem anymore. Sound quality is more important to me but the JBLs can produce a large sound stage with the right material. I feel that I am missing nothing.

Bose isn’t the product you want if you want faithful reproduction… for pretty much anything. Bose is about sound enhancement and not sound reproduction. A lot of classic cars weren’t all that comfortable seating and comparatively crappy radios. If you restore one and improve the seats and stereo … you’re not less of a person… it’s just a different kind of awesome

No self-respecting audiophile Would ever say that The Bose 901 is a accurate speaker

I've never heard an audiophile praise those speakers. I'm not an audiophile but I know what good/great sound is. I first heard the901s in 1980 and bouncing sound off of the wall is not accurate sound.

Got a 40 year old version of these and they sound amazing But you have to have the perfect room wide and carpet on floor rite positioning from walls and a powerfull amp 100 to 200 wats per channel

You should play the Boston song “The Journey”. The Air moving through those rear ports gets some phenomenal velocity. A good party trick these speakers have.

never listened to the 901s but I have the 501s and they sound good...low end suck though

All the crap Bose has taken for many years from there enemy's in the Audio world came from only 1 thing ,They patented Direct reflecting.

Nice review, thanks. "Gimmicky" is an apt description. Not to deride gimmicky. I find much of the DSP stuff to be gimmicky as well, and I enjoy using it at times. The difference is that DSP can be gimmicky, and it can also be "corrective". The 901's dispersion isn't in any way corrective. And the main problem is it locks in the sound reflections of the room they are placed in. Again, unlike DSP where you can add the spatial sounds of a variety of environments. And what happens when you do not want all that reflection? Can the new version of the speaker turn it off? And if so, then you are simply left with the very mediocre front speakers? DSP can give you much of the same effect, with far more control. And you will still get to choose whatever (and higher quality) speaker you want to go with it.

Careful reviewing these speakers; Bose may sue you

I had a Pair. Enjoyed. Now JBL Sound Bar & ++ hooked up with my Smart TV Enjoying.

Excellent review! Thanks

Were the old Mission 751's any good? My friends Dad had a pair (never hooked up) and I wanted them bad.