AudioCircle
Audio/Video Gear and Systems => The Vintage Circle => Topic started by: Charles Calkins on 27 Jun 2017, 11:19 pm
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Hi Guys:
When Bose first came on to the audio world didn't they have a direct reflecting speaker?
I think they were shaped like a wedge. Not to big. Had to be placed close to a corner wall.
If you guys have any information about these speakers I'd like to hear from you.
Did a google search on these and came up with Nada. Might not be the speakers I'm thinking about.
Cheers
Charlie
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I think this is the speaker you're thinking of. http://www.google.com/patents/US3038964
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Hi Guys:
I found out that these were Bose 901 speakers. Guess what!!! a seller on Amazon has a pair for sell!
Cheers
Charlie
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Make sure you get the equalizer with the speakers. Stands would be nice too, they have dedicated ones. If used the drivers may need to be re-foamed, all nine of them. Unique sound, some love it, most don't.
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Where are you located? There's a minty looking pair about an hour outside of Boston with equalizer and stands for $500.
You can use http://www.searchtempest.com/ to search Craigslist for a pair near you.
https://worcester.craigslist.org/msg/6134272916.html
FYI, it's nine drivers per speaker that may need refoaming.
Which raises a random sidebar question. Has anyone in the history of making loudspeakers used a different number of drivers in the left and right speaker?
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Hi Guys:
When Bose first came on to the audio world didn't they have a direct reflecting speaker?
I think they were shaped like a wedge. Not to big. Had to be placed close to a corner wall.
If you guys have any information about these speakers I'd like to hear from you.
Did a google search on these and came up with Nada. Might not be the speakers I'm thinking about.
Cheers
Charlie
http://ohmspeaker.com/
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http://ohmspeaker.com/
:scratch:
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Hi Guys:
I found out that these were Bose 901 speakers. Guess what!!! a seller on Amazon has a pair for sell!
Cheers
Charlie
You must be a young feller if you don't know the Bose 901. I had a pair when I was stationed in Europe.
Audiophile snobbery looks down on them, but man they were fun at party time. :singing:
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:scratch:
Video review:
https://youtu.be/Y_8xUDYBgZQ
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This explains some of the reasons that many audiophiles don't like Bose
http://nyet.org/bose/
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Bose also tends to take an aggressive approach towards certain things as well which doesn't always result in being liked by other companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation (see Legal Action)
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/04/19/lawsuitbose-secretly-collected-shared-private-data.html
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From North Alabama, the regional saying is "Just say No to Bose".
I think the disdain is primarily based on the prices they want for what they build. Frankly, their products have never done much for me.
I also find their Marketing schtick to be a bit over the top.
Everyone has ears. Trust your own ears and LISTEN. They won't let you down.
HsvHeelFan
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They'd be best for classical music and not so much for intimate, "dead" environment, single instrument recordings.
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The 901s use nine 4.5 inch diameter extended range drivers, one points to the front with four on each of the two rear facing panels. The 901s aren't the first or the last extended range driver speaker or even the first to use multiples of the same driver per speaker. Dr. Bose based this design on the fact that most of what we hear is reflected sound. While a valid premise, there's no point in compounding the effect by directing most of the sound rearward. And I've never been a fan of buying nine cheap drivers when one better quality driver could suffice. Note that small drivers, especially extended range drivers, just don't produce deep bass. The optional equalizer boost bass, so that a decent amount of middle range bass can be squeezed out of the nine drivers. And without tweeters the high frequencies were rolled off too, thus the old adage: No highs, no lows, it must be Bose.
They can't provide pin-point imaging either, so I'd avoid small ensembles of any kind. Without bass can't really handle orchestral, symphonic, heavy metal, or home theater either. Guess that leaves them well suited for background music and choral ensembles. And obviously they're sensitive to the construction of the front wall that they're bouncing most of their sound off of. And as I recall they were quite power hungry too.
Production of 901s started in 1968 and continued for 45+ years, yet audiophiles still berate them. We could laugh off the 901's if it wasn't for the numbers of Bose speakers sold using deceptive marketing practices such as their special demonstration auditoriums which has enabled Bose to become a $2 billion per year company.
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Still old enough to remember those wedgy boxes put up on the wall . I tend to think walls and floors are bouncy and detrimental to sound ,prefer away from walls on steel stands. Some people utilize the wall to the extend bass (like the nice small Linn Kans).The Kans did sound good much better than those 901 Bose would ever sound. If you can make an "audiophile wall" by modifiying it to project the bass in a less muddied way it might work well. "Audiophile wall" ,Hmm never heard of that idea addressed. Worthy of a thread issue to post mayby?
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Hi Guys:
When Bose first came on to the audio world didn't they have a direct reflecting speaker?
I think they were shaped like a wedge. Not to big. Had to be placed close to a corner wall.
If you guys have any information about these speakers I'd like to hear from you.
Did a google search on these and came up with Nada. Might not be the speakers I'm thinking about.
Cheers
Charlie
According to Wikipedia the first Bose speaker was the 2201, produced in 1966. It consisted of 22 small drivers across an 1/8th of a sphere and was designed to be located into the corner and reflect sound off the walls. It used EQ, sound quality reportedly was disappointing, but did lead to the release of the 901 two years later.
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Still old enough to remember those wedgy boxes put up on the wall . I tend to think walls and floors are bouncy and detrimental to sound ,prefer away from walls on steel stands. Some people utilize the wall to the extend bass (like the nice small Linn Kans).The Kans did sound good much better than those 901 Bose would ever sound. If you can make an "audiophile wall" by modifiying it to project the bass in a less muddied way it might work well. "Audiophile wall" ,Hmm never heard of that idea addressed. Worthy of a thread issue to post mayby?
Klipschorns and Allison speakers are a couple classic speakers designed to be used against walls. HT sees lots of use of wall mounted bipole surround and built-in wall mounted speakers. And there is a whole class of subwoofers called "infinite baffles" that flush mount to the wall and use the large space behind (> 10 times the driver's Vas) to produce more bass than open baffle (dipole) bass. But be careful with the space behind the driver to avoid hinged doors that could slam shut and blow out the driver cone.
For bass frequencies sound pressure levels double (go up 3 dB to sound half again as loud) every time the surrounding space is reduced by half. So putting a speaker against the wall should double the bass sound pressure level; putting a speaker into a wall/wall, wall/ceiling, or wall/floor intersection should double again (+6 dB) the bass sound pressure level; and double yet again (+9 dB) by putting it into a wall/wall/ceiling or wall/wall/floor intersection.
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This explains some of the reasons that many audiophiles don't like Bose
http://nyet.org/bose/
This link sheds more light on why Bose is widely disliked, (https://www.analogplanet.com/content/dr-amar-bose-dead-83) not just for their products but also for their business practices. They sued Consumer Reports for, essentially, giving them a bad review (CR pointed out- accurately- that the 901 made solo violins (for example) sound like they were eight feet wide (among other distortions). Bose couldn't handle a dissenting opinion, so they lawyered up. The link tells the story of Bose being unable to handle a negative view from some college kid with a tiny radio show audience. Except for a few of their noise-canceling headphone models, I've never experienced a Bose product that I thought excelled in its product category.
Interestingly, Bose is a closely held company, not publicly traded.
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Ohm and Allison were well regarded and sounded fine. Bose just sucked.
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Let's not forget that Dr Bose didn't invent the original 901s ... he bought the speaker company and the rights to manufacture them from the originator, as a side income generator.
To his credit, he improved the 901 (which wasn't very good) with the 901 Series II (a bit better, but more importantly the configuration that the 901 series would follow in the future) and finally the 901 Series III, which was the first iteration that actually had genuine HiFi aspirations.
The 901s by themselves sounded horrible, but along with the Series II and higher equalizer that boosted low and high frequency response, a reasonably wideband response was achievable. With 9 drivers, they could handle large power inputs and generate high SPLs, so became favourites of the party crowd.
Dr Bose saw early that this configuration was patentable, which meant he would have no competitors in the direct/reflecting market, and he could create a backstory to support his product vs the conventional speaker market. My guess is this is how his heavy-handed lawyer-driven litigation tendencies began.