It's taken me 28 years to realize just how brilliantly engineered the Bose 601 Series is.
The 601s were my very first speaker purchase back in '90 when I purchased a Yammie receiver, CD player and tape deck from Krazy Kiley's in Saskatoon. For $850, they threw in all the interconnects and 10 gauge speaker cable terminated with soldered and crimped ring tongue terminals to accomodate the posts on the 601s.
My 601s have made the rounds. When they were replaced by my M80v2, they went to a buddy for surround duty. When he no longer needed them, off they went to another buddy, again for surround duty. He refoamed both bottom woofers. As of last night, they're at another friend's, along with my 17 year old Denon, this time as mains. She's never had speakers so this is a real treat and gives her time to save up for M3v4s which she loves so much (and rightly so).
It took me all of 5 minutes to set them up and that included the time to adjust the balance using a mono signal. Real simple - slap them up against the front wall and leave 2 feet of room on either side. Done! Wide front soundstage with a bit of depth yet stereo imaging nowhere to be found.
As I sat there listening not so much to what was there but to what wasn't, it struck me why Bose sold so many of these. First, you have to recognize there's no appreciable bass below maybe 200Hz on these things. Also, large swaths of mid-range are missing. Likely there are no highs above 6KHz and between the large swaths of missing mid-range and missing highs, there are likely many more valleys. Yet, the music is understandable and those who have never heard a full range speaker wouldn't know what they're missing.
Are you starting to see the brilliance? You throw these in a room and without any fussing, they don't sound boomy and they don't sound harsh. The reason: all the bands that cause room-related effects are not there! The listener gets what they believe is wonderful sound without any effort; just instant enjoyment.
Brilliant. Wouldn't you agree?
P.S. I was glad to get back to my place and rinse my ears-brain with a good dose of M5s before that terrible affliction called Boseitis set in.
