Bose 901 VI, havent found the right amp - Page 5

You all are really lost causes.

If you'll notice, I have not once insulted any of your choices or your "taste" regarding audio. But that's pretty much all I receive from you. No intelligent, mutually respectful discussion, just childish insults, especially from your resident speaker designer guru.

I've said it many times, but I'll say it again. I freely admit Bose 901's are most emphatically NOT designed to be monitors. Which in essence is what many, if not most "audiophile" speakers are. If you prefer studio monitor sound, good for you. There's nothing wrong with that and I would not criticize anyone for making that choice. The 901 was designed to sound like real music. That's the difference. It's a music lover's speaker, not a studio monitor. It's for enjoying lifelike music, not for analyzing "sound".

Whatever. Life goes on. There are audio/music forums where the herd mentality does not seem so prevalent. Open mindedness actually is encouraged. Sadly, this isn't one of them.

And yet you keeping bumping this almost year old thread to keep making your point that poor-old Bose and their owners are just misunderstood and made fun of. Even the OP hasn't been back in months!

I'm not a fan of Bose, but you certainly bring up a fair point. And to be honest, I'm guessing most Bose bashers have never heard the 901s. I think most of the bashing comes from people's experience with the Acoustimass systems (which truly are horrible), not the 901 or their bookshelf speakers. Now, I have no idea if 901s sound good, but it would be pretty ignorant of me to say it's garbage when I've never listened to them.

Right. Don't think we don't remember you:

So one of your very first posts regarding Bose on AVS wasn't an "intelligent, mutually respectful" post.

Then in your first post in this thread, you stereotype everyone and make yourself out to be a victim

Get over yourself.

People have strong reasons for not liking Bose. If you join any thread by name calling and attacking others, you shouldn't expect any different.

Who made you the arbiter of what real music is? You talked about music sounding like it does at a concert. Don't you have any idea how much distortion is introduced when you crank the sound up that loud? Is distorted music "real music"?

fwiw ,imo this post is very useful to the uneducated audio person who has already been or just becoming a bose brainwashed audiophile who reads it to get a bit of education on how really bose products dont stand up to audio performance especially with their over enormous balloned prices. if this post deters just one of them its done its job. just cant stand seeing overpriced junk being so falsely marketed to the uneducated audio consumer.i'll give them credit,that they do know how to lure their victims in for the kill. wolves in sheep costumes. just my 2 cents

I don't understand why came all of you here. Is this a constructive topic? Don't you like Bose? Ok, we understand..but why continue to insult our speakers? Is there a particular reason to repeat to us that Bose 901 are not good speakers?
We're probably idiots, or our ears doesn't function properly! But for sure, we don't go into other topics to insult other speakers.
If you have nothing to add some constructive advices, or tell something positive, why repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat....
Annoying people....

Read the posts. I came to this thread only a few days ago while searching for Bose-related material on the net. And just like happened a few months ago, an innocent question was turned by frequenters of this forum, into a Bose-bash. THAT's what I was responding to. I didn't even notice how old the thread was. Regardless, I would have responded the same anyway.


You make no sense whatsoever. "Remember me?" What do I care if you do or don't? It's irrelative to the topic.

Exactly what did you find to not be "mutually intelligent or respectful? What you quoted? Simply asking a question and saying your past responses get old? My, aren't we easily offended? I guess challenging an opinion and calling you out to be fair and respectful to posters asking questions regarding Bose is just too much for your fragile ego to handle, eh? Show me the name -calling! Define "attack"! It's really hard to argue a point with someone who immediately, upon being challenged by a dissenting opinion, resorts to lies. I did not "stereotype" any one. Referring to the "bose haters who inhabit this forum" does not imply all who use this forum are bose haters. Good grief, can you not read and understand plain English? So get over yourself. You are the one who can't stand to have your little bubble challenged. For about the 10th time on this forum, I am not here to promote Bose, . I am promoting fair, respectful responses to Bose-owning posters who ask questions. That's all. If you don't like Bose, I could not care less.


That was what is called an opinion. Sorry I was not clear. I should have said they sound like music TO ME. Is that better?

That loud? What are you talking about? I didn't mention anything about loudness. Most live, amped concerts, IMO are too loud. I was referring to the overall experience. Music reproduction is about more than loudness.

PLEASE. I'm not offended. I am NOT the one that's griping that people on AVS continually point out that Bose speakers are over-priced, poorly designed, and heavily marketed to people that don't realize they are not getting good return for their money.

You gave as an example of "real music" all the concerts you went to as a "relic of the 70s" and how live is "the only measurement tool". (post 109) I too am a relic of the 70s and went to all the concerts. The music was almost always heavily distorted. The concert experience never really was about "the sound".

Most live music sounds like crap, in all honesty. Terrible room acoustics, ambient noise, echos, sound reverb, etc...

That said, I've said it one million times, it's not that I even, necessarily, consider Bose to be terrible. I would deem some of their products to be what I would call "OK". But, their products ARE terrible for the price. And they're one of the most, outright, deceptive and lying companies in existence. That's why people bash them, not because of subpar products, but because of their willingness to lie and prey on uninformed consumers.

They record each of the tracks direct off the FOH console, then mix them just as if they'd been recorded in the studio. A lot of today's live music sounds very good. When it doesn't it's the fault of a bad room or a hack at the FOH.

+1

And even though it's from the 70s and the SQ of the soundboard tapes aren't quite up to par with studio sound, I'll still take The Allman Brothers At Fillmore East and Led Zeppelin's How the West Was Won performances over anything they ever recorded in a studio.

(and if someone *thinks* they like Zeppelin and have never heard How the West Was Won, well, then you've never actually heard Zeppelin play)

I guess what I meant was, it usually sounds crappy when you're actually at the concert. Not as much if it's live and put onto an album. When the original poster said live music I was thinking sounding crappy in regards to being there.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Xparent Green Tapatalk 2

Not where I usually go, but the acoustics here are stellar:
http://www.meadowbrook.net/

FWIW, I probably did give the impression, by the concerts I listed, that I almost exclusively used those types of shows as my model for what a loudspeaker should sound like. Although some of those concerts did have fantastically good sound quality (1982, Elton John at Starlight Theater in KC!), taken as a whole, the sound quality was all over the map. Along with the best sounding of the "big-time" rock and pop shows, music that is my "absolute sound", is live, unamplified concerts I've attended at our local small college and at churches and our public schools. Everything from high school pep bands at ball games, jazz bands and concert bands, to intimate bluegrass trios, all purely acoustic. And the common thing I take away from all these different types of music and live sound, is that live sound, make that good live sound, is big and dynamic and visceral. Even the bluegrass trio, when heard in a medium-sized church from a distance of 15 feet or so, can generate some pretty good spl's. And I've noticed that even in that setting, pinpointing the location of the instruments, with closed eyes, is very hard to do. This is why I don't value the "pinpoint imaging" that most audiophiles crave, as having anything to do with how real music sounds. It just doesn't. If you like it, fine. It just has very little to do with fidelity to the live sound. I prefer imaging that is big and sloppy -and realistic.

The issue of which imaging is realistic is also one of experience.

My uncle was a conductor. I used to listen from the pit. I was *in* band (clarinet: so stage left, second row). I was in Vocal Ensemble (tenor, so center/center). There are instruments in my house. My cousin (who I grew up with) had a band, so I listened on his porch and in his family room. I've attended few professional concerts, but have listened to professionals in intimate or "standing around outdoors" unplugged and up close.

In sort: for me, "realistic" is detailed imaging. When I do attend a professional (say orchestral) performance and am sitting in the audience 20 rows back; it sounds unnatural. Not because I'm used to studio recordings (though that's likely true now too), but because I'm used to being too close for the room to be the major player and the distance to merge the sounds together.

Imaging was my biggest complaint listening to 901's. They project a broad image and tend to collapse separation. It sounds very impressive and "full" at first listen, but not terribly realistic to me. At least none of the many times I heard them in various systems through the years. I play in an orchestra and several bands and have heard lots of live music of all sorts at venues from big outdoor concerts to small jazz clubs. With 901's I found it harder to pick out where the instruments were on stage, unlike at a good concert hall, and I felt they absolutely destroyed any kind of smaller ensemble (solo piano became this monstrous thing all across the front, a jazz trio was smeared all over the room, etc.) I just did not feel they sounded realistic. Obviously opinions vary. - Don
Edited by DonH50 - 2/14/13 at 6:24am

I'd agree. Experience...and also personal preference, which is probably shaped by experience, will lead to different people having different "absolute sound" models. Also, I think we all respond differently to the various attributes of live music...and accordingly, value them differently.


Set-up plays a huge roll in this. 901's pulled out from the front wall will tend to image more conventionally. Most people have them closer to the factory recommended 8-18 inches, I would guess. Mine are 18" out, and true, center images are big (as are l&r images), but it generally sounds more life-like that way to me; not less. It just seems to me that in order to get pinpoint imaging, image size is what's sacrificed, and vice-versa. To each his own!

Interesting test...
http://www.tonepublications.com/review/we-review-the-bose-901/

For every positive review you'll find ten like this:
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/03/what-about-bose-part-2/

Give it a rest.

About the reviewer:


This is telling as well:

It tells me he's typical of reviewers who lack even the most fundamental knowledge of how sound reproduction works. He should stick to his day job.

The review in "TONE" was legit and unbiased; or "fair and balanced" if you prefer. The blog you linked to was written by someone who was already biased against Bose going in. That seemed to be the reason for the blogs existence, primarily. It was nothing more or less than a hack job.

Almost every forum discussion I've read or participated in regarding Bose always ends in a conflagration, or ­just smolders for a long time. Given this I nevertheless cautiously wanted to post an opinion.

It seems to me that the truth here is elusive, in that everybody is right in some sense. Or put differently, not every Bose product falls into one category.

I do agree with the criticism regarding pricing policy, absence of testing, and the difficulty of reviewers being able to freely investigate and critique the speakers, much of which seems to derive from Bose itself.

I was not at all impressed with the last Bose home theater system that I listened to. It was all high-frequency and appeared shrill to me, and like the one reviewer said, the system was situated in its own "island" seemingly placed away from any other potentially competing system on purpose. I also found that dialogue and placement of sounds was less than precise, probably because lower midrange was being handled by the subwoofer.

I also do not think that Bose products in general are priced at all competitively, given the performance of many of their products, and that there is a huge emphasis on marketing versus information and testing. As a result, many people buy Bose without thoroughly investigating the many, and often better alternatives. People that love music, whether audiophiles or not, are pursuing some sort of fidelity in sound reproduction, and are better served when some standards, benchmarks, or parameters are part of the consideration process. A marketing heavy approach is, in this sense, an obstacle to that knowledge.

However, the reviewer for Tone Publications makes some good points, though I'm not sure about his suggestions regarding wire gauge. This latter point doesn't constitute enough to judge him so harshly.

As he pointed out, Bose automotive systems can sound quite good, and it is improbable that higher end automobile manufacturers would include them if they were entirely without merit. I don't think that in the acoustical environment of a car a lot of the "rules" that apply to normal acoustical environments easily translate.

Then there are the 901s, which I don't feel are terrible speakers at all, but rather an interesting design with some real acoustical benefits. The Tone Publication reviewer's suggestions regarding room placement and raising them above the height of the included pedestals might indeed provide a more focused sound with more precise sound placement.

I've heard them sound very good, and the benefit in the design to me is its avoidance of crossover. Placed correctly the 901s can provide a very silky sound in the way that other crossover-less systems achieve.
Edited by taichi4 - 2/16/13 at 8:38pm

fwiw,go to the tone website and look under staff for jeff dorgay the writer of the bose review. hes nothing more than a photographer who worked and got fired from some big box audio store. he sure has the credentals i'm looking for to review speakers that i want to buy.
Edited by smasher50 - 2/17/13 at 6:55am

They include them as a high priced option, to appeal to the same crowd that their home systems do, ie., those who have succumbed to the hype.

Hype (def):
A fad. A clever marketing strategy which a product is advertized as the thing everyone must have, to the point where people begin to feel they need to consume it.