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As a classical musician, I had a funny experience when a Bose salesman tried to convince me that the opening "turntable rumble" of the recording I had brought in of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" was completely eliminated by the "superior" 901s. It definitely WAS eliminated BUT (ahem... too bad that "rumble" is supposed to be a 16hz/32Hz organ pedal low C....) LOL.

Years ago I was a researcher at a major loudspeaker company, and it was an open secret that Bose had more lawyers than engineers.

No Highs? No Lows? It Must Be A Bose!!

I used to work in home electronics sales years ago. We used to have a silly saying "No highs, no lows! Must be Bose" 😂

Still love the good old joke about Paul Klipsch passing Amar Bose in the hallway. Paul cupped his hands and shouted 'hi Amar' and Amar turned his head away from Paul and shouted at the wall 'hi Paul'.

You are not kidding about the 901's being iconic in the 70's. Sitting in a friends basement smoking funny things, munching Doritos, and listening to Tubular Bells through Bose 901's made for a great summer afternoon.

My dad got his Doctorate in Acoustics at MIT and while he was teaching there Amar Bose was one of his students. I always got a kick out of his statement that Acoustics was not Bose's major, it was Marketing.

I was a technician in the 80s. I was at an audio store listening to the 1812 overture with canon, on a set of Klipsch corner horns. The salesman said, "Listen to this", and hit the switch for the Bose 901s. There was a squeek. Then nothing. He switched back to the Klipsch and said there must be something wrong with the switch panel. Later that week I went out to lunch with a tech friend of mine. He told me the story of a set of Bose 901s he had in the shop that had every driver toasted. I asked if they were from Team Electronics. He said, yes, how did you know? We had a good laugh!

Oh I remember setting up so many Bose Acoustimass speaker systems for Home Theater customers. It always pained me greatly to have to look the customer in the face while outright lying to them about how wonderful their new overpriced system sounded. Complete and utter junk! Thanks for another great video.

Just as important, and perhaps even more important than the technology Bose was developing, was the army battalion sized legal team that aggressively pursued their patents. Bose was well known for taking an existing technology and tweaking it just a bit and then slapping a patent on it. A good example of this is the Bose Wave radio. Anyone with experience in speaker building could recognize what is essentially a Helmholtz Resonator, but because it used plastic tubing wrapped around a radio receiver in an active system, voila'! There's your 'Wave' patent. And this was a frequent occurrence. Bose was also notorious when it came to hiding specifications. It was marketed as a luxury brand at a high price, but was manufactured with cheap materials and cut corners everywhere possible. My friend has a pair of 901's that he has loved ever since buying them in the 80's, but I think he might still be compensating for how much he paid for them with stands and the optional EQ. To this day, I've never bought anything from Bose and never plan on doing so. There's nothing they do that someone else isn't already doing with better build quality and a lower price.

Ok so it wasn’t just me. I always thought Bose was horribly overpriced for the sound and build quality. Their radios aren’t even HD or internet

Once upon a time, I visited a Bose outlet store in NH USA. One product caught my attention, a 'bookshelf' stereo system. I read the price as $349.99, and thought that it was just a bit overpriced. I got closer, and then realized that the price was actually $3,499.99. Crikey, the speakers must have cones made of unicorn hymens. So I popped one of the speaker covers off, and while a sales clerk was leaping over furniture to reach me, I determined by inspection that the speaker cone was made of plain old paper (i.e. cardboard). Yeah... $3500 and cardboard speaker cones. Nutzoid. What a racket. Their customers must be empty headed.

Back in the day Bose was being introduced in the restaurant and disco market in Finland and I came across many of their speakers that looked like the 901, but had two ports in the front, while I was installing better audio equipment to a venue. I was curious and inspected the setup that always required a preamp between the main amp and say, a mixer. It turned out that the preamp actually was a fixed equalizer with a hard cut somewhere around 50-60 Hz. Why was that? Well, inspecting the speaker itself I found out that Bose had figured a new business model for building speakers with cheap components. They sourced small mid range speakers by the tens of thousands bringing the price down to a minimum and made a speaker cabinet with 8 pcs of those acquiring a modest power handling of say, 8 x 20-30W = 160-240W with the condition that the frequency range was kept above 60 Hz. The bass sound was created by peaking (amplifying) the 80-120 Hz range just before the cut off at 60 Hz. This makes it sound like there is good bass when there really isn't any. In other words Bose was misusing his scientific knowledge to fool the customers. And it worked. 😁

This was hands down the best history of Bose products and their marketing strategy that I have ever seen. Bravo. I briefly owned a floor standing Bose 501 in 1973 but soon after traded it in on a pair of JBL L26 Decade Speakers. During the 80's and 90's, I briefly had a "business" with a friend of mine when every wife was hounding their husbands with "when are you going to get rid of those gargantuan speakers you got in college in the 70's and get one of those Bose Satellite/Subwoofer Systems"? I went to countless garage sales and during that period bought close to 40 Advent/JBL/AR/Cerwin Vega products and then refinished the cabinets and would have them refoamed if necessary. Most we sold on EBay but finding boxes suitable for shipment became an issue. I had a fellow who did all my refoaming for me and he once exclaimed: "have you ever looked inside a Bose 901 speaker. Literally a bowl of spaghetti wire." Needless to say, one of my least favorite speakers to take on as a "resale" project. Please do a similar "seminar" on JBL's golden hour: the 1970's. My favorite? The L50. Similar to an L100 Century but with a 10 inch foam surround woofer and a "real" grill. I even prefer them to the venerable L166 Horizon.

In the 90s, I sold Bose at a high-end audio/video store. Bose would not tell us any specs for their products and would not allow us to demo them on the same wall as any other brands. Nevertheless, we had an adjoining wall in which we had our next-worse speakers hooked up (Boston Acoustics' CR series [squawky and inferior to their earlier, HD series]). Many customers were shocked by how much better these speakers sounded than the Bose speakers. We could not sell Bose to anyone who compared them to our other systems, and we eventually had to drop their products. While upgrading my college degree, I later worked selling home electronics for Sears, which carried the Bose 3-2-1 system. Every 3-2-1 I sold was returned. Customers were shocked by how much better the cheap Kenwood system we sold sounded in their homes.

After WWII, my dad got a job working at a Singer Sewing Machine dealer. They went out and sold the convenience of new ELECTRIC sewing machines to people (by the thousands) using the old foot treadle operated machines. They offered a ridiculously high trade in value for the old treadle machines and almost no one refused the deal. He told me that when the old treadle machines were brought back to the store, the odd one that was still in "showroom" condition would be put on the floor to sell as a used machine. All the rest... were treated to sledge hammers and sold to scrap iron dealers. It worked because the prices on the new electric machines were inflated to the point that they still made a fortune on each machine after trade-in. You can bet the margins on those new BOSE speakers are high enough that even with the trade-in, BOSE is making a healthy profit. Personally, I don't see all the "wow" factor with BOSE. The table radios sound great compared to most modern table radios. But if you compare them with old German table radios from the 50's and 60's (like Blaupunkt or Nordmende).... the BOSE radios only sound so good because everything else sounds like garbage today.

Bose has always claimed to be a high fidelity brand. However, audiophiles like myself have learned over the years that they are mid fidelity at best. In particular they don't compete with other headphone makers like Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic and HIFIMAN in my humble opinion.

Hi. I'm an Australian 62 year old gay guy and DJ and an Audio/Visual Engineer. I started spinning at a club but before I did I was horified at the way it was set up. They were using an Amcron DC300 for the treble and an under powered amp for the bass. I said to the owner that this was a failure waiting to happen. I removed all the rubbish from the console and started on a re-install of the equipment. All the processors and amps were taken off of the rack and blown clean of dust using compressed air. I looked at both amps and replaced the fuse holder in the Amcron wondering how it had not shorted to ground. I vacuumed the DJ booth and started reinstalling from the start. First was the limiter which I just set to limit in real time with a quick fast attack and decay. I rewired the 15 inch JBLs to the Amcron from the electronic cross over and the 4 BOSE 802s to the other amp as well as wiring the active BOSE processor to the input of the other amp. Luckily, someone had used a terminal strip to connect them and after a phase check, I wired them back in for good.The BOSE processor was just a way to feed the upper frequencies to the 802s. Once I had checked it was all working, I killed the 25 and 30 HZ on the graphic because 60 HZ is where the bottom end started really. After a few tweaks and adjusting the processors and the graphic EQ it actually had some really good grunt.I ran it hard after finding a fan to keep the gear cool for about 2 hours. I screwed some clear PVC over the gear with a warning not to touch the settings. It sounded 40% better and the DJs were impressed. They asked me why the graphics 25 and 30 HZ faders were pulled right down. I said that the subs cannot reproduce those frequencies so all you're doing is wasting amplifier power. After a few more tweaks with a crowd there I checked the 802s for sound quality. Because these speakers have 8 tweeters per box I raised the upper frequencies just a bit, put the perspex back to stop prying fingers. I said to them that at the end of the night to turn the gain controls on both amps down first to stop spikes from blowing them out and to reverse it when powering up. BOSE speakers are the most ridiculous units ever made. They sound ok for highs but not full range. Cheers Andrew.

As a retired repair tech who worked for a music store, I used to have to work on the Bose 802 along with other products. I hated working on the 802 due to the way they were made. first, all 8 of the speakers were 1 ohm speakers wired in series with some extra crossover thrown in the mix. There was no cabinet back so each speaker had to be removed from the front making service difficult. If one speaker developed an intermittent voice coil all of the speakers would cut out. This made finding the bad one a pain since there was no back to remove. You couldn't just jump around the speakers to locate the bad one. You wound up pulling the speakers out the front until you figured out which one was bad. The crossover they used was stupidly designed. As I recall, for the boosted highs they had a small size crossover cap that jumpered across 6 of the speakers throwing all of the highs on 2 of the speakers. This meant that for those high notes, the amp was driving those speakers at a 2-ohm load instead of an 8-ohm load. They also used another cap across some of the speakers to further change the characteristics of the speaker system. Again no back to to remove in order to get to the crossover caps. If all of that was not enough you were to use their special Bose processer ( which was a preset equalizer) to make it all sound good.

I was at BOSE for 12 years, retired now but what stories I have - I still use my BOSE Wave Radio as my alarm clock!

Ah Bose... My granddad (the man behind a certain audio firm now widely associated with big blue wattmeters) knew him and eh, pretty much despised him. There were two people who could cause my grandfather to utter profanity in conversation - FDR, and Amar Bose. He considered referring to Bose as a snake oil salesman to be a slander against snake oil salesmen.

I was big into home and car audio in the 90's and 2000's. We used to call it "No highs no lows Bose". Their marketing was a lot better than their sound quality or dynamic range.

I met Amar Bose and his wife on a service call as a technician for his satellite tv system at his Hawaii house high up on a ridge looking down over Honolulu in 2004. It was between thanksgiving and Christmas. Very nice guy. I told him I owned a pair of the QC2 headphones for the long flight over the pacific. He then Told me about the noise canceling headphones idea he came up with in the 1970’s but had to wait until tech caught up to make it small enough to fit in portable headsets. But used it in helicopters for years waiting for the QC line to come to fruition. As I was leaving standing in their foyer his wife goes in that kind old lady voice “Amar did you give him his Christmas present yet”. I chimed in being on the clock we were not allowed to receive gifts. He said nonsense walk over to a closet by the front door opened it and stacked from floor to ceiling were boxes of the QC2 head phones. He reached in grabbed one turned and said here merry Christmas. Holding a $300 pair of brand new Bose QC2 headphones and being on the clock not allowed to take gifts I kindly said thank you and left with the box in hand.

In the early 1990's I was receiving too many neighborhood complaints about my huge loudspeakers so I sold them and bought an Accoustimass 5 system. The speakers shorted out and back fed and blew up my Yamaha amplifier. I lost a lot of money there and will never go back to Bose. I finally brought my system back out of mothballs with Cerwin Vega loudspeakers. Millennials are blown away by the experience of feeling music.

Ah yes....good memories of the 301's in college, as a bachelor, and through the first 5 years of marriage. When placed right, they sounded awesome for their size. They're long gone, have moved up in the home theater world with speakers, but man, did they ever serve me well when I had them.

I remember going into a Bose brick and mortar store and sitting through one of their presentations where you going to a room and hear this phenomenal sound coming from these great looking speakers; and then what they do is lift those great looking speakers up in the air to show these little cubes which are actually producing the sound. Then, of course, a sales rep would try to sell you a $5,000 acoustimass system that, if I bought it, would replace the $2,000 system I already had that sounded terrific. Now we know those rooms were actually heavily equalized and acoustically treated in order to get that sound. That means that what Bose could have done is to sell acoustic treatment packages along with their products. Of course, that would kill their recall program, but I think it might have also advanced home audio appreciation in general; as a public would have finally discovered that the best way to improve the sound of their systems (whatever that system might have been) was to improve the sound of their listening spaces.

I went to a few Bose presentations some decades ago. The Acoustimass AM5 was the first sometime in the late 80's and my teenage mind was absolutely blown away by the glorious sound coming from these tiny cubes and subwoofer. I sang praises of Bose until I started working in car audio straight out of high school, which is when I learned that the Bose systems in GM and Nissan cars were utter bunk compared to what I could put together for much less than the Bose options cost using JBL speakers and Rockford or Kenwood amps. But, surely Bose was still "audiophile quality" in the home arena, right? Bose wowed me again right before heading off to college with their powered Roommate II speakers which were a dead ringer for their quite ubiquitous 101 bookshelf speakers, but with an amplifier in them. In those days they were still expensive for me (just over $300 back in 1990) so I could only dream of having a pair. That changed in 1991 when a guy down the hall from me in the dorms showed up with a pair of Paradigm Atom speakers and an old Aiwa receiver after Christmas break. Everyone on my floor were stunned at how good those little bookshelf speakers sounded. It was to the point where I hopped into my car and drove to the nearest department store with Roommates so I could have a listen: They couldn't hold a candle to the Paradigm speakers. Many moons later and I wound up owning both: I picked up the Roommates in '94 and got the Paradigm Atom speakers (an original set) around 2000. I've since A/B'ed them and, yeah... The Paradigm blow them out of the water in every conceivable way. I still have both pairs of speakers. I've used the Bose for computer speakers for years and the Paradigm served as my main speakers with a sub to anchor them for a number of years until eventually becoming my listening pair in my bedroom.

When I was younger, and looking to build my audio system, I looked at Bose. I considered both the 901 and Acoustimass products. I ended up with Martin Logan Sequel II speakers. I paid more for the Martin Logans, but have never regretted that choice. If you buy the best, you’ll never regret that you settled for less. It is now 2023. I am out of the game. I no longer know what’s good and what’s not. I still have those Martin Logans. They still sound great. 30 years later, and my ears can no longer hear the capability of those speakers, though those speakers are still reproducing sound as well as they ever did.

I have a set of 301 Series IIIs that I loved until I got a set of Paradigm Atoms that were 2/3s the money and blew them away. But I think Bose noise cancelling is top notch.

The Bose AM series are what I called "well-engineered" speakers. "Well-engineered" in that they were designed to appeal to a target market, and they did so very successfully. A casual inspection of two of the AM5 bass modules showed me that Bose did not waste any money on features that would not make a difference to the target market. The bass drivers used in the modules look cheap because, doh, they're in the bass module - who's going to be looking at them? Several years ago, my aunt's Bose Lifestyle system failed, and while they were looking for a replacement, I lent them my retuned Mordaunt-Short speakers and a DIY subwoofer that IMO would run rings around one of the AM systems in terms of sonic accuracy. She couldn't wait to replace them with a new Bose system. Turns out that being able to get speakers and their stands off the floor and replace them with tiny hidden modules mounted near the roof was more important to her than sonic accuracy, and I think Bose realized that most of their target market probably thought the same way.

I had a love affair with the Bose AM5 back in the early 90's. I thought they were the best thing after listening to one at a friends place so had to run out and buy a set. I always thought wow how can such a small speaker system handle up to 200 watts (RMS) per channel as stated on the bass unit. It wasn't until I upgraded my amplifier to a unit at 100w per channel that I started noticing some kind of serious sound compression and the bass would flatten when I cranked the amp up. So I opened the bass unit, played some music and all of sudden this crazy light started emanating from the circuit. WTF? It was then I realised Bose deploys a current limiter to protect the speakers which obviously aren't rated up to 200w. In reality I was only really getting around 50-65 watts of power into the speakers (depending on the music) before the protection circuit would cut in. Love affair over. I ended up giving them away.

Same years ago we had dinner with friends who wanted to show off their brand new Acoustimass system. We suffered through a movie where even though they turned the volume up to uncomfortable levels, we couldn't understand the dialog. A couple of months later we had them over for dinner and watched a movie in our dedicated home theater with a calibrated 7.1 audio system. They were astounded at the clarity of dialog and the overall quality of sound, even at comfortable listening levels. I then hurt their feelings by telling them I'd actually spent less on the speakers than they did.

When I sold hifi in the early 1980's, a critic of their products once told me, "No highs no lows... it must be Bose." After listening to the 901s back to back with some Snell Acoustics and Polk Audio systems we had in the store, I had to agree. You've pegged it: it was hard to beat their combined marketing and legal strategies.

I remember, back in the early 2000's being keen on getting an Acoustimass home theater system. I listened to a demo (in a normal room, not a specially setup one) and felt that it was....ok. Then I listened to a demo of the Energy Take 5.1. At half the price (including a Yamaha surround receiver) it just flat out-performed the Bose system. It's what I ended up leaving with instead.

The only thing worse then a Bose speaker is a Bose fanboy. It's unbeliveable how many of them think they have the best thing on the market - and have NEVER even tried something else. I grew up listening to a pair of 601s (was playing music on them since I remember being alive, like age 4 or 5) and I worked at a hi-fi shop when Acoustimass 3 & 5 came out. Literally EVEYTHING ELSE in the shop sounded better, regardless of price - but we had some good brands there. Anyways. This is probably the best BOSE video out there. Well done.

In 1980, I bought my first decent stereo setup. The shop I was at had a set of Bose 301 bookshelf speakers to use for comparison to what they were selling. I bought a pair of Mission 700s, to go with my NAD receiver. The Missions were excellent, and I still have them!

In 1970 me & a friend went to a consumer products hi fi show & went to the Bose room & after the demonstration we asked if he could turn up the volume on them & he wouldn’t do it, so we went back after everybody left and turned on the tape he was playing , slowly turned up the volume & those things sounded like they were gonna explode! Just distorted all over the place-terrible

I purchased two new pair of Bose 901 series IV speakers around 1981. I wired them to 4 ohms. Powered by a Pioneer SX-1080 and coupled with to a Technics 3300 turntable. Hung from the ceiling per Bose parameters in a hard 25 x 25 foot basement the four-speaker system continues to perform admirably especially when cranked in a party atmosphere. Mostly Classic '60's and '70's rock. Although other types of music play well also. Direct to Disc albums at high volumes are especially ear and mind blowing. Never clipping or failures. The only issue with the speakers is that I had to install new surrounds about ten years ago. Other than that this will continue to be my forever system.

I remember when I worked at Circuit City in 1997 we had a listening room that was only supposed to have Bose in it. I put a JBL Simply Cinema SCS120 system that blew the Bose out of the water in terms of both clarity and dynamic, it's key features being the larger satellites and self powered subwoofer. Our Bose rep found out, since the JBL out sold the Bose Acoustimass 100 series II by 5 to 1, and threatened to pull Bose from every Circuit City in the region and possibly the country if we didn't take the JBL out of the room. Since Bose didn't have a brick and mortar store, we dared them to do so. I Since CC eventually went belly up years afterward, not sure who truly won that, but it felt good to have both my store and my regional bosses back me up.

You forgot to talk about Bose suing Physician's Monthly and Audio magazines in the late 1960s. Sued them for critical reviews of the 901 speakers. For many years Bose spent far more on marketing than research and development.

I have a pair of Bose 501 ser. 2. I got them cheep and refoamed the main speaker in each cabinet. I love the low end they provide. I also have a pair of Klipsch RP-600R II's as well. These bring out the mids and high's the Bose are lacking. Personally these two speakers together make for a great sound in my front room. So I have old and new speaker technology in my stereo system. By the way. I power my system with a Pioneer SA-7500 II amp from 1977. Works just fine for my listening pleasure.

Did Mr. Bose change the world of audio? Yes. Was the 901 an absolute masterpiece? Yes. Did they beat a set of monster floor speakers with 12+" woofers? Nope.

I used to own Bose cinemate system and it sounded great specially if understand how sound travels in your room. No I didn't had room acoustics on my living room but I knew for the surround effect to work I needed strategically use the walls in my room . It was the most organized , better sounding sound system I ever owned.

I moved to Sacramento in 86. Started going to Faces Disco. The club used Bose 802's. Two3 302 bass speakers, Bose and the four 802's suspended about 8' high. Sounded pretty good but never loud or strong enough. They remodeled several years later. I did the sound install. I ran 14 gauge wires through the ceiling to the four corners of the dance floor. Providing the sound after playing with amp levels etc. comes out pretty flat, then you did a good job. Now the "dance floor disco EQ curve is a boost at 100hz, a small boost at 250hz, a small cut at 1k,, then boost 2k, 4k, & 8k to bring the cymbal energy alive and the 100 hz boosts the kick drum while cutting the 1k stops the singer from "screaming in your ear. The sound was not fatiguing and the eq made the music alive but not shrill at that volume for 5 hours a night. They had a sound engineer from a rock club come and eq the system. Brought up the mid bass and vocals, made it really muddy and exposed this system's weaknesses and they sounded like shit. They ended up buying the system from a club that was closing. This system was TOO BIG for that club. Even playing at "normal" disco levels, the sound was so much stronger, you can now hear the dance music in the video room stepping all over their videos & music. Oops.

I've had some Bose products over the years, 141s and 161s in my early experimental days, then a set of Acoustimass 3 on stands driven by a quality stereo receiver (they actually did decent imaging - ! - when carefully set up), and some 402s and MB4s as PA speakers. I have more serious speakers, but the Bose speakers are fun to play with every so often. Don't let anyone look down on a speaker for using paper cones; virtually all PA speakers currently made, even the high-end ones (JBL, Meyer, Nexo, Renkus, etc.) are using paper cones, because even though paper is not the strongest possible cone material, it has the highest tensile strength to weight ratio, and this produces the most efficient conversion of electrical signal to sound output.

When I was a kid in the early 2000s, you were a baller if your parents had Bose speakers. I remember going in houses with 401's and Acoustimass Red Lines. Every restaurant had 151's and 32SE's outside. Good times.

Bose is the apple of the sound industry.

I remember my parents finally getting a stereo of their dreams in the 1970s It was a set of Bose 901 series II speakers driven by a Pioneer reciever, they had a nice turn table and a flash cassette player to go with it. I just remember it was the loudest and clearest stereo I heard for many years, though the sound stage was never one of its strong points. It did make me a bit fussy about audio though. When looking for my own stereo and AV system components I did a lot of looking, that original system was a benchmark. Thing is I never ended up with Bose speakers, never even close. I heard lots of speakers that were worse but, there were always speakers that were better at a better price.

Back in the '70s, after weeks of speaker shopping, I finally settled on the IMF TLS80. My dealer had a pair of Bose 901s set up in the same room, and just for the heck of it, I did A/B comparisons on them both. I figured the IMFs would sound a little better, since they were about twice the price. But, I was surprised how big the difference was. The IMFs were detailed and dynamic, while the Bose sounded mushy and smeared. Ever since then, I've had a strong dislike for Bose, and it reminded me of a comment I once heard: "No highs, no lows, must be Bose."

Thanks for the video. Please make more videos like this.

I cannot count the number of failed Bose systems I have ripped and replaced from GM's and Nissans over the years I worked in mobile audio. The repair costs were just too high, and a lack of schematics killed us... With very few exceptions, for less than the cost of getting a single Bose head unit repaired (Had to send it off) in a Maxima in the 90's, we could swap in a high-end AM/FM/CD and cassette unit, and R&R all the speakers with really good aftermarket, and the diver was like, "This is mountains better the the factory system!"

I recently found your channel and I have to tell you that I'm not into audio as much as I was in my youth but the level of research and knowledge that you impart with your storytelling is absolutely phenomenal and I've been watching all your old shows just to catch up! Cheers

Dreamed of getting "everything Bose" when I first heard the 901s back in the 70s, peer pressured into being the "best" ever. Fast forward to the 80s, joined the Navy. Got the Acoustimass AM5 at my base exchange when it first came out. Bose expanded their speaker models going into the 90s, got the 601s, 301s and a Bose center speaker for my 5.1 setup at the time along with a sub from another brand (forgot what) and a Pioneer A/V receiver. Now retired and along the way I have read and researched about other audio components and such and took off my blinders away from the overpriced Bose products. I now own a much "simpler" 7.1 setup for a fraction of the price of that old 5.1 Bose configuration. A refurbished Denon AVR S760H A/V receiver, Jamo Studio Series 803 5.0 system speakers, Polk bookshelves for heights and an F1 BIC America sub. I'm no audiophile but it sounds just fine to me. With emphasis on TO ME.

I still have my Bose Series II speakers that I bought in 1976. I don't use the Bose equalizer, I use the one in my receiver which has auto set-up. I also have the rear of the speakers facing forward. Works great. 👍👍

I remember the first time I heard Bose, I was working for a sound and light company who refitted nightclubs and I was sitting in their office with this tremendous sound. I looked around the room but all I could see were these two little stacks of cubes, I couldn't believe this sound was coming out of them, oh and the hidden sub. We used to fit the professional Bose 901 it was one of the most popular choices besides JBL.

I bought a number of Bose speakers cheap, at rummage sales in recent years, for my cabin…I was amazed at how good they sound. At home…it’s Klipsch only, but in the log cabin, they rock.

I am not a Bose fan, except for their QC headphones, but my university pub's sound system back in the early 80s had 12 Bose 901s and was powered by some massive Carver amps. I have to this day never listened to sound this loud with such clarity.

When the Bose 901 came out at $900 a pair, my neighbor and some enterprising engineers reverse engineered the speakers and crossover network. I remember they built over 10 pair in his garage and the wood materials were the most expensive part. Speakers as I recall were $1.75 each.

Back in the 1960’s and ‘70’s my father and his brother owned a midsized woodworking business located in Cambridge, MA. They were suppliers of speaker enclosures to Bose Corp. most notably the oddly shaped 901 cabinets. I worked there one summer between years of high school and built many 901 cabinets. It was such a simply designed enclosure, with just plywood on the 5 sides, but we did use some very nice walnut veneer over particle board on the top and bottoms. There was nothing fancy about those cabinets. We would build and finish the cabinets, pack them up in the boxes that they would eventually be sold in, then truck them out to the Framingham plant to be completed. My understanding was that the appeal for the Bose was always around it’s direct reflecting design, and that the room becomes as important as the speakers in developing the full sound potential. I never forked out the money for a set, so couldn’t say if they were great sounding or not.

I got my BSEE in 1990. One of my professors had been a contemporary of Amar Bose at M.I.T. I don't know what transpired between those guys back in the day, but he had a couple of lesson plans based around demonstrating scientifically how Bose was "Better Sound Through Marketing"

I love their (older) QuietComfort 25 headphones. It's one of the most comfortable headphones you can buy and they sound surprisingly good too. I never checked out their follow-ups like the QC35 or QC45.

I still have my 301's from 1980. I did have to replace the foam, but they still sound good to me. Great video about Bose.

The small drivers in the 901 cost $.38 each. My company and Bose had a common vendor.

I owned a pair of 901s series 3 that I had refurbished about 6 years ago. They sound pretty awesome. Maybe they are not as accurate as my jbl 4312s but the sound is pretty incredible. I can't speak for the modern Bose speakers.

I used to have a pair of Bose 6.2 (like 301s on steroids). They were OK. The .2 series is probably the best series Bose ever made. I eventually replaced them with a pair of vintage Dynaco A25XL. No comparison. I got rid of the 6.2. The A25XLs are magical with my old Pioneer SX720. On the other hand, I use Bose's A20 noise-cancelling aviation headset at work. They are absolutely awesome. I was able to compare directly with other brands of aviation headsets and they are the absolute best in noise-cancelling and comfort.

Back in the 90’s I purchased a pair of Thiel CS 2 2 s. Bose threatened to sue Thiel if they used a decimal point if they called them Thiel cs 2.2s. Trust me no one would mistake the Thiels for the Bose!!

I love my Acoustimass speakers! I have 2 sets which I use solely as surround rear speakers. Nothing better at this size...

Yes, done very well. I remember when Bose created separated demo display areas in stores away from the retailers soundrooms, to focus on the marketing message and to lessen the chance of direct A/B comparisons with other brands. The AM5 rollout was also full of stage tricks, they created a light cloth covered frame to emulate a big speaker only to have a pair of AM5 upper modules sitting inside the cloth. Again away from anywhere direct comparisons were available. Later when the cubes and bass modules were incorporated into our sound rooms and displayed against their direct competing sub-sat systems, they were the blown away by just about everything else on the shelves...All smoke and mirrors. So sad. I recall my old soundrooms and having 301s, 501s, 601s comparing to other brands, and as a serious pro and enthusiast of good audio, those speakers actually did sound good, compared well to the other marquee brands we had in the rooms. Bose DOES know how to build good product. But the insane profit margins and ease of manufacturing of the acoustimass line just really completely diverted the company away from what we call ' hi-fi '..

I really like this history behind Bose. Could you do the same thing with Klipsch, JBL, etc?

I bought a pair of 901’s in 1979. They were paired with my Pioneer 180 watt per channel receiver. I was a bachelor and I could setup my apartment to accommodate the speakers. That was how you had to do it if you wanted them to sound great. And they did. I loved them. I got married in 1991 and I lost the power to control all interior decorating. So the 901’s had to go. I bought a Bose Acoustimas to replace them. Completely unsatisfying. I was told that I needed to set them up “right”. I believe I did. The sound was thin and directional. Their other products seemed to be designed to look good but not for versatility or performance. If I wanted just looks I could buy Bang & Olafson. So while I still like the Bose Bluetooth speakers I have, I haven’t bought anything else of theirs.

Back in my pro audio installation days, we had a saying, "No highs, no lows. Must be Bose!" 😁

I really liked 901s when I heard them in 1980. A few years later my parents were looking to get a sound system professionally installed in their house that features a large open floor-plan (kitchen, living room, dining room). My dad was upset that the estimate came in at well over $5,000. I told him my opinion about Bose speakers and suggested he try out a pair of the shelf sized ones. One in the NE corner and one in the NW corner of the open area were more than enough to give great sound coverage to the whole open area. He was very happy with them and they are serving still 40+ years later. About 10 years ago my sister bought me one of their mini blur-tooth speakers and I'm still using it today.

Good tips!!

Back in the 70s, there was a small music store west of Boston that kept a copy of a Court Injunction that kept them from comparing Bose speakers with Klipschorns on the coffee table in their listening room. I had to go to another shop to hear the Bose, but my ears heard the difference and I went back and bought a used pair of K-horns that came off traded in mono systems. Sadly, I don't have corners for K-horns right now, so they are in the basement. I fire them up when I work in my shop. I thought the Injunction was Bose marketing at its best.

Great History story. I remember selling Bose products. I never owned anything carrying a Bose label, but customers came in wanting them. I never lied about them. I just explained the differences as you went up the Bose price line and let the customer convince themselves with the volume control. One interesting thing I heard was when Amar was a professor at a prestigious university and he owned a speaker company. He had research done at a very low cost. College students worked cheap. I wonder if they got grades rather than patents.

I knew a guy back in the 80s who had the 901 speakers, but he had them set up backwards with the 8 drivers facing forward and the one driver facing away. He insisted they sounded better that way. At the time I thought so too.

Bose did more damage to sound quality than any other manufacturer. You were not critical enough of the company.

I purchased a Panamera in 2014 and ticked the Bose option box. It was the worst mistake I ever made; the audio "dynamics" sounded impressive for a short while, until you really started listening. The low and high ends discrepancies became so mind-numbingly jarring, I couldn't live with the car anymore and sold it after 9 months.

I have Bose 301 book shelves a friend gave me. Hey, can you shed some light on the class of amplification in the great old receivers, amps, inter.-amps? Also satellite speakers and subwoofers combo’s. What ever happened to Carver equipment? Thanks

I always thought of Bose as a 80% speaker, they cover 80% of the audio spectrum, which for 80% of the listening market is 100% enough. And there is nothing wrong with that, let the market dictate product design, in that way, Bose was very smart. Full disclosure, I don't like their sound myself, but respect the design work that went into them.

I have had my 901's for some 35 years and they still sound like they did on day one!

I had a 1976 bose spatial control receiver pretty powerful had a neat way of turning it on you would touch the name bose on the front it had conductive letters the bo and se were seprate they controlled a relay that would turn it on. It was made for the 901s you could use the spatial control to shift the sound to fit the room and had built in 901 EQ.

Awesome capture of what Bose was and is. I remember the sale tactics of Bose just as you described it. I am not a Bose fan. This started when they would not help me with my Nissan Maxima Bose stereo system which would produce a large shrieking noise every time I turned it on and their CD player would get very hot. I end up ditching the whole system for an Alpine. Love your reviews, especially your knowledge of Audio equipment. If I ever come to your shop, I probably will spend hours drooling on just about every system you have there. Thank You for very informative videos.

All of my Bose speakers from the 80s still sound great. My main Left / Right are like a angled triangle, 301s for high rear and am5 for rear.

I only ever bought one Bose product, the 301 Mk II speakers back in the early 80's. They weren't terrible, but I didn't have that satisfaction that they were a worthwhile upgrade to the inexpensive two-way acoustic suspension speakers I bought from Radio Shack a few years earlier while in high school. But when I moved into a large attic room with irregular-sloping upper halves of the walls, they performed much, much better. Placement and environment are an important aspect to any speaker setup, but some moreso than others.

I think Bose got his doctorate in marketing, not electronics...

Talk about the Bose 1801 power amp 250 W per channel they made for the 901s Used to go to a club that had the 901s and that power amp great sound

I had a pair of the orignial 901s but they represented a big drop in audio quality from my previous AR3as. But the effect was very cool, so I sucked in like many. A friend bought a pair and took them apart. He found the exact same nine speakers ($3.29 each) from a wholesale catalog and built the boxes to match so he had two pair. Cost less than $100. Identical sound as far as we could tell (McIntosh electronics, Thorens/SME table). Over the years, it has been hard to ignore all the store demo rooms with really crappy sound for thousands. Amar may have been a good physicist but couldn't tell a flute from a clarinet.

My dad has a bose soundbar and sub in our small room and it sounds really good. the sub is probably around 6" and it can really hit lows really well.

awesome.. just awesome. thank you

Nothing beats a dedicated stereo loudspeakers and an integrated amplifier. Be it standmounters or floorstanders. Proper stereo imaging is the key. Not some multiple drivers placed in awkward position aimed to reflect, deflect and direct sound waves. Hoping to make the sound big for its size. It just doesn't sound good because our room varies a lot. That's why I sold all my bose smart speakers and went back to traditional good old stereo speakers and subwoofer.

My dad gave me his system he bought in 1970... a McIntosh set MC 2505 and MX114 and a set of the first Bose 901 speakers. I refurbed both McIntosh units and are now working in my current set up. The Bose speakers are still in storage. I don't have the interest to refoam the 18 speakers for average weird sound quality. I also don't have the heart to tell my dad I don't like them, as he is one of the original Bose lifetime customers to this day. Always getting the latest system, bless his heart!

In the early 90s I played the "where do I acoustically locate the subwoofer module in this shop" game and never failed. The amount of mids coming from the sub to compensate the very cheaply produced paper wideband satellites was rediculous. The first series 901 actually demanded an insane amount of power to produce sound.

Still rocking my 901's in wood cabinet from the 90's in my Den, Bose 301 satellites and base module in my bedroom and Bose Smart 500 in my Living Room. Great company.

Only Bose I ever had were amplified bookshelf speakers that I had hooked up to my Mac. Remembered they had surprisingly good sound for such a small speaker and more bass than you would expect.

Back in the day, I installed a set of AM-3 Series II speakers in my BMW. The two satellites velcroed in place on top of the dash, and the sub strapped in the back seat with the seat belt. It sounded awesome! Before that, I drove around with a pair of Cerwin Vega AT-40s in the back seat (a little less practical, obviously).

Interesting video. My perception of Bose is that their expertise really lies in marketing, certainly not in audio quality. Being an old guy who got into audio way back in the 70s, I've owned some pretty great gear over the years. Always avoided Bose and still do.

Hi from Denmark. I remember vividly being in an outlet in Verona, Italy, back in about 2005-ish with my wife. Being a guy, I absolutely hated all the shopping crap and while my wife went from store to store looking at shoes I just looked around for something to do. There was a BOSE store !! I'm the owner of a pair of BOSE 601s that I simply love... so I went in and the 'shopkeeper' invited me in to a small back room cinema... like a real cinema, only way smaller.... like for 20-30 people or so. On the walls were huge loudspeakers... I think 6 or 8 of them in all... and she started a small demonstration movie. Of course it was intended to show what the speakers could do. After the small 'show' (lasted maybe about 5 minutes) I just sat back in awe!!! It was crazy how fantastic that sound was, and I looked around at the huge speakers and understood how great they were. She re-entered the room and removed the huge 'speakers' that turned out to be only fake fronts for some of these small BOSE satellite speakers. Needles to say I found that just completely wild.

I had a pair of Bose 301 Series II speakers in college. I loved them. Years later I was moving and I dropped one on the driveway. It cracked like an egg.