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In Reply to: RE: Magnepan, Ohm Walsh or Bose 901 (vIV or V)? posted by endusersolutions@yahoo.com on January 11, 2009 at 20:53:31
I think if you know a few people who might own these speakers would be great for you to help make your decision. First off, these are all different designs and technologies.
Amar Bose (MIT grad student) despite all of the bashinge here; was one of the first speaker designers who went out to live venues to measure live sound and recreate this sound with carefully designed systems to allow listeners to get the same excitement as a live event. That is why 1000 watts were the max with their first iteration of 901s', so that people can drive them loud. His speakers were a break through back then and so was his methodology of musical recreation.
Mangneplaners were developed on electrostatic technology and was made for the home musical environment. These speakers set the standard for absolute mid range clarity and lifelike recreation of music. They were not compared to live music as Bose was and therefore any comparative analysis of these two speakers should be in how they would play live albums versus recorded non-live musical recording and see how they measure up to your needs.
I like all of the technologies involved and think you you should think about how to balance the price versus your musical requirements.
Ciao,
Audioquest4life
Follow Ups:
Hardly.
At the time the Bose 901 was introduced, a number of speaker builders were messing around with omnidirectional speakers, etc. What Dr. Bose did was pure marketing genius, which is still the hallmark of his company.
1. He produced a speaker that sounded (and looked) remarkably different in the showroom. Compared to the direct radiating speakers of the time (which did not image well and projected no sense of depth) the Bose 901s were a revelation. (I know, that's how I first experienced them in 1968.) Marketing 101 teaches that you must differentiate your product from its competitors.
2. He equalized the beejeezus out of a bunch of 4" cone drivers to try and make them reproduce bass and treble. Again, compared to the performance of most of the competitors of the day, the sound was not too bad, although they were huge power suckers and drove the modestly-powered amps of the time into hard clipping.
3. He developed a "story" to sell the speakers (the "scientific research" business that you slavishly repeated).
Over a period of ownership, these speakers are likely not to satisfy because they homogenize the sound, i.e. everything they reproduce has a sameness to it -- spacious, reverberant, diffuse, with a midrange emphasis. With symphonic music, this doesn't sound too bad; with other kinds of music, especially solo work, the effect detracts. Perhaps as background music reproducers, they're o.k.
Keith has pretty much corrected your statement about Magnepans, which have a certain sonic similarity to the 901s (but are much, much better) because they are a dipole radiator. I owned a pair of Magnepans for several years in the late 1970s. I was very fond of them (although they needed a good subwoofer . . . which was not really available then) but they have demanding placement requirements. Again, their strengths are symphonic and other large-scale music recorded in a reverberant space.
Whoa!! I can relate to Business 101 as I am a Business Major myself. I know all about the rules of marketing and keeping your product more viable and appealing then your competitor, why do you think you need to teach or preach to someone what the basics of business and marketing are? I thought this was a speaker question oriented post?
Historically the designs of these two speakers did not even make the product cost analysis aspect in the product development phase and advertising was a distant mark on the radar scope. Yeah, we all want to eventually succeed in our own business initiatives, but that is after the research, development, cost analysis, demographic analysis and weiter (auf Deutsche). After you comeplete your research and product development without much financial backing, marketing and advertising will be pretty slim.
So what after development Bose had a great business plan incorporating some of the aspects of his research. There is no denying the fact that his plan worked and many others lauded him for the technical breakthroughs in his research. Of course, that was back then and present day we do have many competitors, and the speaker market is full of samo samo technology just bundled differently, oh that is product advertising but using different skins, veneers, colors or materials.
I merely provided facts that were available on both web Bose and Magnepan web sites, the information I extracted was directly from each web site specifically.
Magnepan:
Magnepan has been manufacturing innovative, world class stereo speakers for over 35 years since Jim Winey, the inventor of the Magneplanar loudspeakers, first owned electrostatic loudspeakers and began the process of experimenting to design an improved electrostat. In 1969, Jim invented the Magneplanar, a thin-film magnetic equivalent to the electrostat and started the company Magnepan, a speaker based company currently manufacturing home theater system speakers.
13 January, 2008; http://www.magnepan.com/about
Bose:
Bose Corporation was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, then professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As an MIT grad student in the 1950s, Dr. Bose decided to purchase a new stereo system. He was disappointed to find that speakers with impressive technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance.
The quest for better sound was on.
Extensive research in the fields of speaker design and psychoacoustics—the human perception of sound—led to the groundbreaking 901® Direct/Reflecting® speaker system in 1968. Its unprecedented approach to sound reproduction came much closer to the essence and emotional impact of live music, and won immediate acclaim.
13 January, 2008; http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIEW_STATIC_PAGE_EVENT&url=/about/history/index.jsp
If you would like I would love to discuss cost per pounds of materials for each one of these speaker systems and conduct a comparison of the budgets over a period of time. First off lets work out the Sales budget, the Production budget, Direct material budget, then the Direct labor budget. And we will be breaking this down into quarters so we will need this over a period of time as well, we can pick any end of year for the stats to make the comparative analysis.
Ok, this is way off the beaten path. Both these speaker companies have great merits from their founding days based on honest and tried and trued research. I think many people forget the historical aspects over time based on the new flavor of the month mentality and often when a new speaker is developed it is a eye catcher (marketing) and some times as we know that is just hype. For what it is worth I have never owned either one of these speakers, however friends of mine do own them and they sound great in each one of their listening environments. I am not going to tell someone else that they should change speakers BECAUSE I SAY IT MUST BE SO! I am not the expert and I am willing to bet that their is a large amount of questions answered here by so called experts who skew their reply based on stereoptypes or preconceived notions.
Ciao,
Audioquest4life
t
Then judging from the perspectives of origionality/innovation, improvements over time, and a positive critical review/advertizing budget, Ohm's must compare very well IMHO Scott
Scott (the aural nuance lover)
Another load to take with a two ton block of salt.
Thanks 4 the informative post, knowing design intent helps (I've designed a lot of clinical software). That may also be why I've see a number of 901's used by DJs or live vocalists.
I do have a lot of live music, and it is still the minority of my collection.
So I guess it may bit a bit unjust for bashing something that achieved its design objective, when those objectives are not yours.
Abstracting from an old Joni Mitchell songs seems apt 'I've looked at speakers from both sides now..."
Scott
Scott (the aural nuance lover)
Allowing myself a little chuckle here about the Bose. Don't be taken in good buddy! This is one of those occassions where it's good to be old, because you were actually there.
901s were indeed different back in the late 60s, as stereo was king but speaker technology was not what it is now. Even then, the Bose weren't considered "high end" i.e. an attempt at high "fidelity". They were designed to give a spacious sound, which they did, as advertised. But they didn't really sound like "liv" music, then or now. They also made most music recordings sound the same, and slightly indistinct. Transparency was not their strong suit. I listened to them at the time, as I was a teen searching for my first real stereo system. I passed. I was in love with ARs and others.
If open, spacious and transparent is your goal (we'll leave out the clarity for now), you can do much much better with some of the other speakers mentioned here, which will be much truer to the music.
Be wary of Bose apologists.
t
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