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I have an old pair of bose indoor/outdoor speakers. They are just a 4 inch paper speaker. The sound isnt that good am I missing some components or are they just bad speakers? I really need some input I am thinking of selling them to get better ones and if they are bad I would like to know. Thanx in advance
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The Bose 101 is not a hi-fi speaker it is a professional monitor. It does exactly what it is designed to do. It is weatherproof, highly indistructable and can handle very high power for that class of speaker. It is used extensively by professionals for near field monitoring at live events, radio shows etc.
The 101 is also magnetically shielded which was very rare back in 1984 (I think) when it was launched.
The 101 is a great monitor and (along with all the other Bose Professional speakers) truly outstanding at what it was designed to do (IMHO).BUT playing music in the home environment is not what the 101 was designed to do. They do make rather good rear surrounds and are quite good as centre speaker though.
you probably have the music monitor 101's.to sound their best they need to be mounted near a ceiling or under a large overhang.By audiophile standards, the sound will not be very good.
I have said it before and I will say it again, Bose is very overpriced for the level of preformance they deliver. Companies like Bose sell products based on popularity. Go out and ask ten people on the street who Mark Levinson is and most likely 10 out of ten average people will have no idea who he is. Now ask the same 10 people who or what Bose is, everybody knows Bose. I used to work in a store that sold shoes for the sport of running. Nike is a popular Athletic shoe manufacturer, but the people that bought running shoes for the sole purpose of running mostly bought New Balance, Saucony, or Etonics. You may have heard of the 3 companies I just mentioned, but I would bet a dollar that you have heard of Nike. The point is that image is nothing, trust your ears.
Even in the context of corporate conglomerates Bose is a poor citizen, responsible for a lot of bad law.1) They successfully sued "Consumer Reports" for libel for saying that images wandered about the room with the 901s.
2) They successfully sued Thiel for Thiel's use of "2.2" in a speaker model name.
3) They successfully sued Harmon/Infinity for using an elliptical horn shape.
These are all free speech or technologically chilling decisions. (Some of these cases were/are on appeal.)Their company is akin to a corporate cult, in my personal opinion, much like MBNA.
I haven't listened to all their stuff, so I can't say it's all junk, but there are lots of speakers out there which are far superior. Shop wisely.
"3) They successfully sued Harmon/Infinity for using an elliptical horn shape."Why is that? Does Bose have anything to do with elliptical horn shape?
"3) They successfully sued Harmon/Infinity for using an elliptical horn shape."> Why is that? Does Bose have anything to do with elliptical horn shape?
Since my post makes it obvious that I loathe Bose, and that I think Bose ought to have no right to limit Consumer Reports opinions or Thiel's use of the text "2.2", and thus by extension the right to limit others' use of plastic, elliptical horn shapes, I wonder if there is something behind your post apart from a request for basic information. Obviously if Bose sued Harman with initial success, Bose and at least one Judge feel Bose has some sort of claim. That's why, to answer your question at face value. But to elaborate:
Of course, Thomas Edison was not a great inventor; he was really a great patent accumulator. As you know, the Supreme Court has ruled that _forms of life_ may be commercially protected, and that Diaural has received a patent for a basically pre-existing crossover implementation. The area is rife with abuse and incompetence.
So Bose has all sorts of patents and copyrights. (Everyone does this, but Bose is way out of bounds.) Bose even keeps a page of them for the "convenience" of other manufacturers.
My point remains that there are plenty of reasons to avoid Bose, sonic and otherwise.
One link good as of 1/2002:
http://stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1231
Thanks for your reply. I was actually just wondering about what patent does Bose have on horn design. Did Bose have any design on horn?Anyway, I agree with you on what you said. I found the Thiel numbering thing especially ridiculous. And it is unbelievable to me that they succeed in that case. I also think the Bose is very silly in doing that because what it gains from winning the case does not compensate on what it loses - everyone dislike it ...
Ahhhh...Audio Nirvana at last!!!!
R
We have to give thanx and credit to the pioneers like:Dr Bose,Jim Strickland,Jim Whinney who provided us with the sound we favor from our plannars.Using that back wall was a stroke of genius.We will never be satisfied with Box speakers again!!!!!
they are very easy to sell. Everybody wants them (their advertising clearly works). Put them on ebay and you will probably get a good price for them. Then go buy some real speakers.I saw the light myself about 5 years ago and sold my Bose 901's (for an excellent price on Ebay). I changed to Maggies and now my system is about 1000% better (the price of my Maggie 1.6's is almost exactly the same price as 901's).
I think Bose get a lot of negative responses because they charge way too much for what they deliver, and advertise as if they were the best.If they charge 80% less and drop their "better sound thru research" then the audiophile crowd would leave them alone.
There's a few more aspects, but they're all covered in the BOSE faq that's available on this site.For myself personally, I just find the whole direct/reflecting thing laughable.
Why should they? I agree that they are pretty bad as audiophile standards go, but they aren't trying to sell to the audiophile. They are selling to the average joe at Best Buy and Circuit City. You may not like their products, but you can't knock their ability to sell.
David G.
Yes, Bose speakers are exceptionally mediocre sounding and overpriced. But I agree that if they would stop trying to convince the public that a clock radio can produce sound on par with the best available, people would just ignore them.
When it comes to loudspeakers, one man's meat is another man's poison. Strictly a personal decision. However, I strongly believe there aren't many speakers that are a worse value dollar for dollar than Bose. For what you get, they are grossly over-priced, especially their Acoustamass products. Plastic little satellite boxes and vinyl-clad particle board woofer enclosures, 2" mid/tweeters that can't be worth more than $3 apiece, with 5" or 6" sub-woofers (and I use that term loosly) for $1200 plus? Decide on how much you can afford and buy new speakers with an eye as to how they might fit into future upgrades (incorporating them into a home theater for example) and listen to as many models as you can within your price range. Just don't be a lemming and fall for Dr. Amar's hype.One more thing. If you're at all handy with simple power tools, consider DIY. There are a lot of well-designed kits available that offer tremendous bang-for-the-buck. Plus, there's the undeniable satisfaction of saying "I did it myself".
If you can find someone who will give you some money for them, take it and run!
What can you expect from a single 4" speaker? Not a lot of bass and the treble will be weak. Midrange should be decent.Bose takes a LOT of flak here on AA and a lot of other audiophile sites, too. Basically, Bose caters to the mass market, and the popularity and sales figures say that they know their market. Their indoor models are a lot better than what you have. Drop in to a Circuit City or Best Buy store and give the 201 and 301 a listen, they're not all that bad. They don't cater to the audiophile market, but I have never understood why the vehemence of the response. Seems like as soon as a company makes a success the audiophiles turn on them. I guess exclusivity has something to do with it. When the Bose 901 first came out back in 1971, the audiophiles acted as if it were the second coming. It was new, it was unique, and they just had to have it. Five years later they were throwing rocks at it.
I have an audiophile system in my den, and a Bose AM-5 setup in the living room for casual listening and for TV sound. The den system is better, but the living room isn't all that bad.
Hope that helps.
The issue to most knowing audiophiles/music lovers isn't whether they are good or bad it is their true value. They are WAAAAAAY overpriced for what they deliver, marketing hype, pure and simple. The so called research is in better ways to market, certainly not in product performance and value. I owned a pair of 501's in the early 70's and in retrospect should have had my head examined when I sold a pair of Dyanaco A-25's that cost a fraction of the Bose and were immensely better. I attritube this digression on youthful indiscretion and Bose's marketing hype along with the popular audio press. I knew after the first few days that I made a big mistake. The Accoustimas design or the Waveradio, take your pick, takes this performance/value inequity to new levels.No they're not bad if they knocked the price down 75%. "You can fool some of the people most of the time and that's all it takes baby".
nt
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