Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Bose 901 comparaison

I haven't listened to 901s for a lot of years, but here's what I remember :

- as long as you used the EQ, the frequency response was surprisingly good

- they played more loudly than you would expect from a bunch of little speakers, although they started to sound congested at high volumes

- the direct / reflecting was really nice for listening to content where precise imaging wasn't an issue (eg. an orchestra) but I missed the sharp imaging of a regular speaker system. Quad ELSs (or Maggies etc...) seemed to give the same nice spacious feeling but without losing the imaging sharpness when listening to quartets etc...

I would seriously consider going with 901s if only for the nostalgia factor, but I honestly think M80s would be better all-round speakers. The 901s suck power because of the heavy EQ required... the levels are taken way down in the midrange where the speakers are naturally efficient, and boosted in the bass and treble. To Bose's credit, the resulting sound WAS pretty darned good.

As someone else posted, I always thought 901s would make fantastic surrounds. There is the EQ issue but worst case you could address that by putting the EQ between the surround pre-outs and a cheap outboard amp.

EDIT -- just one more voice saying that Bose did NOT get their bad reputation from the 901s. That came much later...