Bose 901 for post-mixing listen

[gullfo]

I have 2 pairs of Bose 901 speakers. Over the years, I've used them for monitors, PA, and just plain home listening. I find them to be unusual in the sense that they can be very unforgiving on mediocre mixes and especially nice on good mixes. I've been using them now for around 25 years or so, carefully driven with up to 250W per speaker and they still sound very good.

I currently use a pair as PA speakers for my "live room" through which all the electonic instruments can be monitored - rather than using head phones. They seem to be fine for this purpose - I use them reversed - i.e. the 8 speaker back is out front and somewhat aligned to project to each performers area of the room.

What I'd like to do is add them as a pair of "monitor" speakers in the control room for post-mix listening. i.e. I don't intend to mix through them, but would use them in their proper mode just for listening. I know some people who have added high frequency drivers and subwoofer to round out the range. I plan on use a dual 8" JBL subwoofer and a high pass on the Bose above 100hz (or thereabouts).

anyone else using Bose 901's? comments? ideas? experience? pros? cons?

[Mr. DOS]

This is of course highly opinion-based. but I wouldn't use them for anything other than, "I wonder how this mix will sound for my friends who have 901s?"

I think there are quite a few other choices ahead of Bose 901s that would allow customers to playback mixes.

[gullfo]

I agree there is a large list of mains that I'd like but as fate has it I have 4 of them... I bought them over time from (what I consider) audiophiles - people with very neatly organized record libraries using precision turntables on meticulously maintained albums through macintosh preamps and class A tube amps to power them just right in their 2 story personal library rooms

I wonder just how much of Dr. Bose's theories are valid - one being that 90% of sound we hear is reflected rather than direct. To wit the 901's, the Wave radios, and now those funky free standing tubes for performance...

Even the soffits we design are for the purpose of extended the "face" of the speaker to create the proper baffle effects - so if the speaker projects into the soffit plate to reflect the sound instead of projecting from it, is that better or worse?

granted a number of 4" speakers can only have so much range but what range do we really need if the final mix decisions come from listening to a single 4" mono speaker on the mixer bridge or a pair of ear buds? and then to be finally mastered with 3db of dynamic range left and converted into an MP3 file to be played on a car stereo while driving around...

but I digress...

[ChrisWiggles]

I have 2 pairs of Bose 901 speakers. Over the years, I've used them for monitors, PA, and just plain home listening. I find them to be unusual in the sense that they can be very unforgiving on mediocre mixes and especially nice on good mixes. I've been using them now for around 25 years or so, carefully driven with up to 250W per speaker and they still sound very good.

I currently use a pair as PA speakers for my "live room" through which all the electonic instruments can be monitored - rather than using head phones. They seem to be fine for this purpose - I use them reversed - i.e. the 8 speaker back is out front and somewhat aligned to project to each performers area of the room.

What I'd like to do is add them as a pair of "monitor" speakers in the control room for post-mix listening. i.e. I don't intend to mix through them, but would use them in their proper mode just for listening. I know some people who have added high frequency drivers and subwoofer to round out the range. I plan on use a dual 8" JBL subwoofer and a high pass on the Bose above 100hz (or thereabouts).

anyone else using Bose 901's? comments? ideas? experience? pros? cons?

I would never use Bose 901s. Ever. For any kind of critical or objective listening, least of all monitoring or mixing.

The 901s are of a hideous design philosophy that was a terrible idea 30 years ago or whenever Dr. Bose first came up with his ridiculous idea. It's a terrible implementation of that idea, and it hasn't changed one bit since then.

901s provide you no imaging accuracy, and are all room ambiance. Moreover, they don't sound very good at all.

I wouldn't use them in a home system just for subjective listening, let alone any kind of critical task.

[Bass Rocks]

I don't have much experience with Bose, myself, but there is a saying:

"No highs? No lows? It must be Bose."

[guitardad72]

Even though this topic is old I got to pipe in.

I think part of the reason why Bose speakers in general sound so good to "some" people is like Bass rocks said "No highs? No lows? It must be Bose." Having less mids in speach frequency lets people converse over the music easier as well as think. I've heard many Bose systems in Clubs, restaurants and there's alot of new digital juke boxes which use bose speakers... in those applications customers and owners are always happy.

I've plugged into the jute boxes to throw sound all around a room live and they work great for just throwing a live mix into a room. Used the 902's live in many clubs with the speakers in various places.

In one instance I was left with very little control over my live sound, a mixer with only 2 bands of EQ and no effects fed to the bose magic box> power amp> and to 902's located all over the ceiling of a 15 foot high room. For what I had it sounded great for that room.

BUT all I just spoke about was live application, hell there the size of a lunch box and pretty easy to carry.

I would never use them in a studio just becasue they add so much color to sound and are designed to lack in the mids.


Marc

[GuitarStv]

From everything that I've read, Bose speakers have large gaps in the sound that they reproduce (as well as a wildly uneven frequency response), and the subwoofer is more of a mid range driver skewing spacial references in music. Here's a well written article about the Acoustimass system they have: http://liquidtheater.com/editorial_56.html

[gullfo]

thanks. yes I've primarily only ued the 901's in live situations because they tend to disperse the sound field really nicely. acoustic music just sounds huge in small-mid size venues. from a "critical" listening perspective though, I definitely wouldn't use them but from a mix check I find they can be very harsh on small mix mistakes in low-mid and mid range.

one question I had though was (pretend they had full range) if they do their direct-reflection off a hard surface, is that effect similar to a soffit mounted speaker? assuming the walls were built like a soffit but instead of mounting the speaker in the soffit, the 901's where in their normal position (~6" out centered on the 30 degree wall with the front speaker aimed 30 degree to listener location).

could i reasonably use both my soffit mounted mains and the 901's (as shown in #3?)

[terry1]

gullfo

They were never intended to be mounted that way. If you mount any speaker other than the way they were designed to be of coarse they will sound like crap. all speakers not monitors were designed to present the sound in the best possible way. unless you get into the high dollar ones they will never sound accurate. I would never consider using speakers like that no matter who makes them for mixing. As for Bose sounding terrible maybe its more like how you are setting them up than any thing else.

just my two cents!

[gullfo]

your 2¢ is appreciated. just bouncing some ideas around... its likely they'll go into the "live" room for playback (mounted, of course, to manufacturer specifications ) and as jam session monitors (pretty much what they've been used for). critical listening will be done through the regular audio monitors in my control room...

[Eriksmusicproduction]

To answere your question if mounting the 901's infront of the soffits would be similar to soffit mounted mains.

No, quite the opposite actually. In soffit mounted speakers the whole front wall/soffit becomes invisible to the speaker and hence has absolutely zero reflections, one of the many attractions to soffiting a speaker. Your 901's would be the opposite, firing large quantities of sound backwards to then bounce off the wall and recombine with the direct sound, albeit with lots of comb filtering and delay.

I don't think it'll sound that good. However they might be quite usefull for your live room as you mention, or maybe even for some cool room reverb chamber reamping situation. Something to think about. Hell It makes me think about trying out a pair myself, after all most reverb chambers used limited bandwidth speakers anyway.

[gullfo]

I agree the mechanisms are different but if you consider that the baffle extends the face of the speaker which effectively eliminates the ability of the sound to traverse around it and potentially reflect, the face itself becomes the reflector of those waves. one of the reasons the relative size of the baffle matters to the overall response of the system...

so in effect, you have all direct sound from the baffle and speaker, but given that 90% of the 901 sound is reflected back in less than 1ms (assuming placement of under 1 foot), its now using the "baffle" to return the sound waves. so in that context is there an appreciable difference in the behavior? I suggest there is little, especially given the fact the baffle size does matter to normal speakers.

one thing I did back in the mid-1980's was to build a cabinet to transport the 901's and a small mixer/amp rack, that when opened, placed the 901's on a shelf with the cabinet faces all opened (a portable wall if you will). the cabinet faces are on piano hinges which allow them to adjust. when you adjust them, you can hear the changes to the frequency response (combing/phase effects). I'm wondering if I were to "soffit mount" a normal monitor in the main face and adjust the other panels, would I hear something similar (as if they were walls or ceiling boundaries)?

[Eriksmusicproduction]

"I agree the mechanisms are different but if you consider that the baffle extends the face of the speaker which effectively eliminates the ability of the sound to traverse around it and potentially reflect, the face itself becomes the reflector of those waves. one of the reasons the relative size of the baffle matters to the overall response of the system... "



Ok, I shouldn't have used the word 'invisible'.

What the baffle does isn't really reflecting the sound but allowing for proper and complete hemeshperical wave propogation, think dropping a stone at the extreme edge of a pool vs say 2 feet out from it.

One way I like to think of it is to compare a soffit speaker to a boundary mic, same principle in reverse. Try if you will to imagine that a speaker element imbeded perfectly flush with the soffit will have no path in wich it can glance off the baffle at an angle, hence no reflections only wave propogation.

Maybe your saying the same thing I am? stupid semantics.

Looks like your kind of set on it anyway, why don't you try it out and let us know? You might consider disabling the front firing speakers to lessen the comb filtering, or at least temporary for experiment.

The sub/tweeter idea is interesting, might get some good results there.

[gullfo]

yea i think we're talking basically the same thing - i understand the flush mount is extending the "radiating" surface, just that the source to the baffle is external (901) instead of flush (normal monitor). once I get my basement setup I plan to do some testing so I'll haul the cabinet out of the garage (or make something more suited for testing both) and play with it... I'm not going to use the 901's in the control room... might add some subs and tweeter in the live room though.

[britune]

A friend of mine let me use his 901's for about a year. I thought they were hyped to hell and back. They sounded like PA speakers.

I think they would be terrible for mixing, but your idea of using them for live room playback is a good one. I think they might sound better mounted on a pole, if that's possible.

I think the Bose engineering concepts are all BS. I think they have to sell the customers on their "technology" and "engineering" because the speakers won't sell based on their sound!

All that said, they do make some nice little bookshelf speakers!