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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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From some very unique minds
Barkingspyder wrote
Your obsession with Bose doesn't cut it with me. I heard 901's and was not as impressed with that as I was with Carver's demo recording of sonic holography. Worst of all for me the 901's had horrible mushy bass. Like what you want, it's fine with me. You do seem to have a problem getting all the facts you know into some sort of cogency. I have to agree, here. I had friends who owned Bose 901s back in the day, and I have to say that I never did get it. As you say, they had poor bass and I also thought that their highs were poor as well. I put the bass down to the active equalizer that 901s counted upon to get those small speakers to produce any sound below 60 Hz. I thought that the speakers always sounded better without the equalizer in the system and, apparently, so did one friend who owned them. Eventually, he "traded" the equalizer for a real pair of subwoofers and crossed-over at about 100 Hz. It improved the bass a thousandfold, but to my ears did nothing for the top-end (to be fair, I thought Popular Electronics' "Sweet-16" speaker system was terrible as well. The idea that you could make 16 cheap, small speakers sound as good as a well engineered commercial speaker was ludicrous). Even so, I always thought that the "direct/reflected sound" theory to be a bunch of hooey. 901's imaged horribly. They would take recordings with pin-point imaging and turn them into vague, nebulous sounding pastiches of sound "thrown up" on the walls behind the speakers. Frankly, I've always thought that Amir Bose was a bit of a charlatan. Most (but not all) of his ideas were marketing over engineering. I recall going to a demo of one of Bose's satellite systems. I'm in a lecture hall (belonging to a big electronics retailer) and on the stage was a pair of big speaker boxes that looked similar to a pair of AR-3's. The presenter started to play the music and it filled the room with sound that you were supposed to believe was coming from those box speakers. When the presenter thought that everyone was thoroughly enough fooled he removed the grilles from the speakers showing that they weren't boxes at all, just hollow frames with fabric grill cloths on them. Inside the boxes on small stands were a pair of Bose cubes. Unfortunately, while the music was playing and everyone else was ostensibly being wowed by the big sound, I was thinking "Why does this sound so distorted?" When, after the spiel, I asked about the distortion, the presenter just looked at me - he had no answer. I've heard these Bose satellite systems subsequently and have always thought that they were, at the very least, terribly colored. |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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From some very unique minds
On 7/23/2012 6:01 PM, Audio Empire wrote:
Barkingspyder wrote Your obsession with Bose doesn't cut it with me. I heard 901's and was not as impressed with that as I was with Carver's demo recording of sonic holography. Worst of all for me the 901's had horrible mushy bass. Like what you want, it's fine with me. You do seem to have a problem getting all the facts you know into some sort of cogency. Even so, I always thought that the "direct/reflected sound" theory to be a bunch of hooey. Have to agree. 901's imaged horribly. They would take recordings with pin-point imaging and turn them into vague, nebulous sounding pastiches of sound "thrown up" on the walls behind the speakers. That's my biggest issue with them as well. I have always had my attention "drawn" to the reflected sound, i.e. far from creating a realistic *image*, the presentation always drew my attention to the periphery of the room, and how much unnatural reverberant sound was present. Frankly, I've always thought that Amir Bose was a bit of a charlatan. Most (but not all) of his ideas were marketing over engineering. Again, hard for me to argue. Nor are you alone in that cadre of skeptics. That said, I thought the earlier renditions of the 201 were actually fairly good sounding speakers for their size, and for poking into corners where other small bookshelf speakers sounded pretty poor. But then, as I said in a previous post, the 501 was one of poorest speakers I've ever heard, so a bit of a dog's breakfast in my opinion. |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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From some very unique minds
On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:56:40 -0700, KH wrote
(in article ): On 7/23/2012 6:01 PM, Audio Empire wrote: Barkingspyder wrote Your obsession with Bose doesn't cut it with me. I heard 901's and was not as impressed with that as I was with Carver's demo recording of sonic holography. Worst of all for me the 901's had horrible mushy bass. Like what you want, it's fine with me. You do seem to have a problem getting all the facts you know into some sort of cogency. Even so, I always thought that the "direct/reflected sound" theory to be a bunch of hooey. Have to agree. 901's imaged horribly. They would take recordings with pin-point imaging and turn them into vague, nebulous sounding pastiches of sound "thrown up" on the walls behind the speakers. That's my biggest issue with them as well. I have always had my attention "drawn" to the reflected sound, i.e. far from creating a realistic *image*, the presentation always drew my attention to the periphery of the room, and how much unnatural reverberant sound was present. Frankly, I've always thought that Amir Bose was a bit of a charlatan. Most (but not all) of his ideas were marketing over engineering. Again, hard for me to argue. Nor are you alone in that cadre of skeptics. That said, I thought the earlier renditions of the 201 were actually fairly good sounding speakers for their size, and for poking into corners where other small bookshelf speakers sounded pretty poor. But then, as I said in a previous post, the 501 was one of poorest speakers I've ever heard, so a bit of a dog's breakfast in my opinion. I had a buddy who was duped into a pair of 501s when he was in graduate school. Not only did they sound lousy, but they weren't very well made either. Not long after he purchased them, one started to buzz loudly. For the same money (at the time) he could have purchased any number of better small speakers from the likes of AR, Dyna (A-25s anybody?), or even Infinity. But he didn't ask my opinion, he just bought those awful Bose monstrosities! |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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From some very unique minds
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... I had a buddy who was duped into a pair of 501s when he was in graduate school. Not only did they sound lousy, but they weren't very well made either. Not long after he purchased them, one started to buzz loudly. For the same money (at the time) he could have purchased any number of better small speakers from the likes of AR, Dyna (A-25s anybody?), or even Infinity. But he didn't ask my opinion, he just bought those awful Bose monstrosities! I forget why, but at one point during my tour in England I bought a pair of Bose 601s. I positioned them the same way I have recommended for the 901s, one quarter of the room width in from the side walls and an equal amount out from the front wall. These speakers were more fun than a barrel full of drunk monkeys. They set up a sound field that was so holographic I had to share it with someone who was interested in this sort of thing. I had a relatively famous British writer and acoustician, Peter Mapp, over for a listen. He was fascinated enough that he vowed to obtain a pair of them for further study in his lab. I don't know if anything ever came of it, but he did like them very much, at least the way I had them configured. Gary Eickmeier |
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