Bose 901 Series V Speaker Review!

[tomtoo]

Nice YT review. It's exactly my impression.

Have fun with them but dont think this speakers are accurate.

 

[anmpr1]

Really liked the 'blown away' T. Props for the effort.

 

[boswell]

I was under the impression that the good Doctor decided, through analysis?, that a lot of the efforts, that designers and manufacturers were putting in to achieve the lowest "noise, distortion etc), was in audible and that good commercial common sense required a good sound to the ear not the eye on the graph, hence the Bose products.

 

[Xulonn]

I was under the impression that the good Doctor decided, through analysis?, that a lot of the efforts, that designers and manufacturers were putting in to achieve the lowest "noise, distortion etc), was in audible and that good commercial common sense required a good sound to the ear not the eye on the graph, hence the Bose products.

If that was true, considering the total panning of Bose in the "ears only" world of subjectivist audiophiles where subjective "good sound" was the most important criterion , Dr. Bose failed miserably. But he succeeded magnificently with respect to sales and revenue.

The success of the Bose 901s is a classic example of "sell the sizzle, not the steak". The huge, room-filling soundstage of the 901s sealed the deal for many happy owners, and they enjoyed their speakers for years. OTOH, there are those who succumbed to the "good sound with great clarity and detail" first impressions of bright, high-frequency biased loudspeakers, and ultimately found them to be fatiguing and irritating after extended listening at home. There is much to be said for extended, money-back guarantees with loudspeakers, although reading many reviews and comments by owners - and looking carefully "between the lkines" for non-specific hints can make "blind" buying fairly low risk.

 

[617]

Thought, if one was to tackle a home brew version of the 901, what drivers might be worth looking at?
Oh, I’d assume crossing them to one or more subs and applying liberal amounts of Dirac-type correction.
Apologies if someone has already taken up this thought elsewhere

I'm looking into it. To keep costs reasonable you don't have many options given you need 18 drivers.

I'm looking at these Dayton TCP woofers which are around 10 dollars and have a very smooth top end which would be preferable to the breakup. Output with 9 drivers is no joke, my simulations show that.

You'd need a front tweeter though. Or a couple of them.

 

[DownUnderGazza]

I'm looking into it. To keep costs reasonable you don't have many options given you need 18 drivers.

I'm looking at these Dayton TCP woofers which are around 10 dollars and have a very smooth top end which would be preferable to the breakup. Output with 9 drivers is no joke, my simulations show that.

You'd need a front tweeter though. Or a couple of them.

This one? https://www.parts-express.com/dayto...ated-paper-cone-midbass-woofer-4-ohm--295-415

Yes, I could see that working.
Personally I'd do a sealed cabinet to avoid port complexities and nasty upper range resonances.
I'd also probably do a straight 'sub' plinth for it to sit on...

Regardless, I'll follow with interest your thoughts on this

 

[617]

This one? https://www.parts-express.com/dayto...ated-paper-cone-midbass-woofer-4-ohm--295-415

Yes, I could see that working.
Personally I'd do a sealed cabinet to avoid port complexities and nasty upper range resonances.
I'd also probably do a straight 'sub' plinth for it to sit on...

Regardless, I'll follow with interest your thoughts on this

Those are them, yeah.

I'm thinking three tweeters, nine woofers per side. One woofer/tweeter on front, 8 woofers and 2 tweeters on the back. I'd like to see a smoother top end, and getting out of that cone breakup is the best way to do it. The TCP woofers have a nice benign breakup but lack that upper octave energy.

The EQ required might be pretty dramatic, so it would be best to do that actively. Instead of a box of electronics, just a set of filters which could be implemented with software/minidsp/whatever.

Crossed over at 80 hz, this speaker could go very, very loud.

 

[skyfly]

Series VI EQ has less overall gain, due to higher output of CD players. 0 dB at about 100 Hz.

However, the gain in Series VI EQ is still too high. There can be clipping in the amplifier (e.g. clipping in IC volume control). If the EQ is between pre amp and power amp, there is no clipping, but S/N is worse than that in the case the EQ is in the tape monitor loop.

 

[skyfly]

I don't know whether it is suitable to apply an additional EQ to 901 by a piece of software designed for conventional speakers. Ear's frequency response is dependent on the angle at which the sound hits the ear and the spread of sound energy in time(short burst vs longer lasting signal).

As an analogy, imagine EQing a headphone toward a flat raw response curve on a headphone dummy. It is incorrect.

 

[skyfly]

The OP's choice of toe angle is conventional for conventional speakers, but quite unconventional for Bose 901.

 

[whazzup]

Following bose 901's footsteps....nah, giving myself too much credit. Thank you for the review, lots of details to chew over.

But I'm digging the bigger sound with my ghetto front and rear firing setup (ignore leftmost speaker, unconnected):
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...re-your-speakers-backwards.14968/#post-491523

You get a sound that sorta starts from the 'plane' of the computer display (where speakers are placed) and extends behind the display (because of the rear firing speakers).

 

[Mars9569]

Nice analysis. What amp did you use? I only ask because 901's (due to the extreme low and high eq correction) need power.. may be your source of distortion.. I was having the same issue until I pulled out the old adcom amp.

 

[Mars9569]

Oops, adcom 545 will do it.

 

[skyfly]

Set up the 901 V based on the measurement and the suggested target curve for conventional speakers.
->
Listen
->
Very different tonality compared to conventional speakers achieving the target curve of the measurement system.

This is very expected result.

Speakers producing more indirect sound than conventional speakers are supposed not to adhere to the target curve by the conventional measurement.

See, for example, Fig. 4 Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 9, Stereophile.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bang-olufsen-beolab-90-loudspeaker-measurements

 

[AlexanderM]

We had Bose 901 knock offs when I was a kid, we knew nothing of the flaws of the design.

Eric said, "I wonder how a design like this could be made to sound if you just replace the front full range speaker with a modern 5-inch midrange and tweeter."

This was my thought, along with are there more capable full range drivers available today, as compared to then. If so use those, then put something different in the front. It's all about nostalgia for me.

 

[krabapple]

I had a pair of Type IVs for years..even hung them from the ceiling at one point. They were fun but a pain to move.

Back in long ago Internet days there was an audiophile who made a pretty good case for Bose...or Bose-like -- setups. He had a bunch of them arrayed around a room. Also reportedly his Bose-style speakers outperformed other speakers in a well-designed shoot out. I forget his name now...though I think his last name started with Em..something?

I don't get why you toed yours in though....it's not what Bose recommends....

Btw I knew a guy who preferred to listen to his turned around (i.e., the array and rocket ports facing forward). It takes all kinds.

The audiophile was Gary Eickmeier, the improved version of the 901 that he had built was the 'IMP'. It won out in at least one blind preference test against some interesting competitors.


Google these words to read all about the IMP:
Gary Eickmeier bose

 

[Minidsp-flex-901]

Hi,

I did register to this forum because of this wonderfully 901-Test.

I bought 10 years ago a Bose 1801 just because I wanted to start listen music and i love the look and the history about this Amplifier.

Now 10 years later it is time to remove my 30€ Bluetooth speaker and build up a stereo system based on my Amp.

After buying a pair of 901vsVI I realized that this version has problems with the rubber/foam around the paper membrane of the drivers. The rubber geht's hard over time and the paper membrane cracks on the edge to the rubber.

Now I have 901vs.VI.2. and they don't have this issue any more. Boses last update to the speakers after 45? Years are new drivers. The drivers know have a different foam which does not get hard any more or get brittle over the years (as it is in version III-V). Also the menbreane and the cone (now plastic) is now different.

? My question to this nice and details test would be if you think that I can run the bose901 with a minidsp-flex instead of the original EQ?

I see that you used a miniDSP in combination to the original EQ (and I do have the 6.2 EQ as well) but would it make sense to skipp the EQ?

I don't have a pree amp and I thought I can save the money for it and buy a minidsp-flex right away and maybe sell the original EQ.

 

[egellings]

It's surely one of the most controversial speakers out there.

 

[fpitas]

I was under the impression that the good Doctor decided, through analysis?, that a lot of the efforts, that designers and manufacturers were putting in to achieve the lowest "noise, distortion etc), was in audible and that good commercial common sense required a good sound to the ear not the eye on the graph, hence the Bose products.

I think the good doctor saw dollar signs in mediocre mass-produced stuff, usually with good WAF. Turns out, he had a good head for business.

 

[krabapple]

The audiophile was Gary Eickmeier, the improved version of the 901 that he had built was the 'IMP'. It won out in at least one blind preference test against some interesting competitors.


Google these words to read all about the IMP:
Gary Eickmeier bose

I'm also realizing that it was the Series V that I owned -- the same as in this test.

In the last phase of owning them I powered them with a humongous (but lovely) '100WPC' Bose 'Spatial Control' receiver that had a built-in Bose EQ box.