Bose 901

Hey Dazzdax,

Well, they're not like apples and oranges, but rather like old apples and diamonds.

Seriously, there was nothing wrong with your question, but as Jond said you might have asked in the wrong place. Folks here are pretty sure they know what they like and there is likely a consensus (as you have been seeing) that Bose 901s aren't what they like.

Having said that, I can relate to why some people might be interested in Bose 901s. They were popular in the 1970s and probably played a lot of loud music at a lot of fun bars and good parties. As you are finding though, most of the audiophiles here don't think 901s represented a good design for serious hifi. My guess is that if you found a pair in good condition on eBay for a price that made sense you might enjoy them, but they won't be an introduction to high end hifi, or even current midfi.

In any event, we defintitely shouldn't lump Quad 57s in anywhere near the pile we place the Bose on. Quad 57s, as I predict you will soon see from posts on this thread and other posts on Agon, are often regarded as "nearly as good as it gets". They can be old and finicky, but if they have been well preserved or correctly updated they can be outstanding. Generally they are considered to not play real loud without breaking and they are not the last word in the deep bass department, but they can provide glorious sound, especially in the midrange. In Wayne's 57s you will get decent volume, bass, and very good reliablity along with everything else Quad 57s are famous for. So, if you want a deluxe pair look into Wayne Picquet's refurbed Quad 57s. On the other hand, we are now talking about $2-3k or more vs. maybe a couple hundred $ for the Bose 901.

The moral of the story is vintage gear can be truly great or just vintage. If you hang around on Agon for a while you'll find that almost every peice of equipment has it's supporters and detractractors. Interestingly, you hit on one with among the highest number of detractors and another with among the highest number of supports.

I think you'll find Agon is a HUGELY benefical source of information and opinions. How useful the info is often depends on how much you can share in the way of your requirements and then how thick your skin is - hang in there and Agoners will point you in some good directions.

At $1,400 MSRP the 901s represent an excellent choice for any number of non-audiophile music lovers. If all you want is a speaker that fills the room with sound, is not terribly large, isn't demanding about setup, has good apparent bass and isn't insanely expensive, then the 901 fits the bill. Is it as good a speaker as comparable priced NHT, Paradigm or Energy products? No, but any of those speakers would start you down the path towards system matching, finding the best cable(s) and dealing with speaker/room interactions. That's great if that's what you want to do, but if all you really want is to sit down and listen to music, then the Bose 901 is an honest and viable product.

Another advantage of Bose speakers is that if anything breaks, now or even in the distant future, Bose will still be in business to deal with your problem. Only a small handful of audiophile oriented companies can say that (and Dalhquist ain't one of them).

Subscribe to the Audiogon Bluebook. At the prices that they are going for you might try them I ran a pair that were given to me for some years until I embraced this hobby. While I was still using them my first tweak was to upgrade interconnects and speaker cables. By the standards I then had, they did improve quite a bit.

They could even be a deal at $500.00, equalizer included.

Bought a pair in the early 80s when I was stationed overseas. 901s were THE speaker to own for military overseas. I enjoyed many hours of listening with them. And when the foam rotted Bose replaced the speakers with latest version for nominal fee. I sold the replacements without listening to them and bought a pair of Paradigms. The first thing I noticed was that certain cds (poorly engineered one) sounded terrible where as with the 901s they sounded fine.
I don't miss them but I've learned that finding equipment that doesn't make listening to many of my favorite cds a painful experience is what I'm after.

I remember this phenomenon during the 70's myself as that was when I started down the road with my first high end system of decent separates....A friend of mine heard my system and he was bound and determined that he would have one too....so he went out and bought a big Radio Shack receiver and Bose 901's...Then he invited me down for a listen and cranked up a Heart album....since we were both dairy farmers my only response to that wall of sound was Holy Cow...After that session I understood why I could never own a pair of 901's unless I went from the Dairy business to the Bar business...