Product Description

The introduction of the revolutionary Bose® 901® speakers in 1968 redefined the phrase high fidelity. For the first time, a speaker was capable of reproducing music with much of the impact, clarity and spaciousness of a live performance. Today's 901 speakers incorporate some 350 enhancements over the acclaimed original. 901 speakers work by reflecting most of the sound off walls and other flat surfaces, instead of aiming all the sound toward you, as conventional speakers do. With Direct/Reflecting® speaker technology, anything you listen tofrom the latest DVD audio to your favorite vintage recordsacquires lifelike realism, because the speakers reproduce the natural concert hall balance of direct and reflected sound. The result is what we call Stereo Everywhere® speaker performancestereo performance that is clear and lifelike everywhere in the room, instead of in just one "sweet spot." You'll experience balanced sound throughout the listening environment, no matter where you sit or stand. Just as you enjoy beautiful music reproduction from these speakers, you can also experience thrilling home theater effects from your home theater components. These speakers are an appropriate choice for use with your surround sound receiver, and can be used in conjunction with other Bose home theater speaker options.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45798 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Bose
• Model: 3224
• Dimensions: 12.75" h x 21.13" w x 21.13" l, 35.00 pounds

Features

• Our best speakers for movies and music. Only live sounds better
• Nine full-range drivers for each speaker
• Free-standing active equalizer for smoother, more natural balance and clarity

Customer Reviews

They last
I have owned this model of speaker for about twelve years. I would add to the above review that if you have a good equalizer in addition to the active eq, you can make these speakers put out unbelievable bass. Basically, the speakers accurately reproduce the sound on the recording, nothing more or less. They have the capability for lots of bass, as several of my present and former neighbors can attest to.

The 901s do take a lot of power and generally aren't as loud as other speakers would be connected to the same set-up. Loss of stereo separation is only an issue if you are unable to set them up properly. They don't go right in the corner or right next to each other, and they don't sit on the floor. The stands, unless you can build your own or intend to suspend them from the ceiling, are necessary.

If you plan to listen mainly to music and have a powerful component system, these are great speakers. Bose used to make a matching center channel speaker for surround sound applications (back when they were only five channel) but currently don't have anything specifically matched to the 901. This makes them a poor choice for someone really into home theater. Also, if you don't have an adaptor or tape loop for the active EQ, the sound will be very fat in the midrange. These aren't speakers you plug into one of those DVD/Tuner?Surround Sound all-in-one units.

Stellar Audio Icon

As a professional musician I have known about BOSE for most of my 28 year career and wondered what all the controversy was about the 901's so I decided a year ago to give them a try and see for myself. I also own other mid to high end audio components. Through extensive listening sessions I have experienced both good and bad aspects of these speakers. 901's when properly set-up, which only took me about an hour and when used with quality components are capable of producing spacious sound stage, detailed imaging with depth, positioning with excellent sonic clarity.
Hearing minuet differences with musical sources such as CD, SACD, DVD and other digital sources as well as using different audio components, even when switching audio interconnect cables of the same brand and grade are not usual. On quality recordings such as Telarc CD's and SACD's, I regularly hear vocal and instrument musical details that I have not heard with other speakers like my Polk SDA's and Martinlogans. If your ear is trained well enough and when used with quality components, you can actually hear whether or not an acoustical sound sock was used on the vocal mike or just a nylon mesh. Also, low frequency bass is very tight, detailed and defined down to frequencies you can feel more than hear. When lower frequency notes are not present bass disappears as it should. Listening to the TelArc CD of the 1812 Overture, when the cannons fired, the 901's vibrated and rattled all the windows in my living room. Even at low volume these speakers perform with most of the musical detail intact. High frequency notes are handled equally well with depth, detail and clarity. Mid frequency content on quality disk are razor sharp. If you listen close enough one can actually hear individual pulsations of vocal chords, not the variations in pitch but the vocal un-pitch air moving across the vocal chords. Like wise, acoustical guitars are so vibrant those not only hear the guitar strings acoustical footprint but the body of the guitar reverberating with slight acoustical sounds. The 901's reproduce all of the musical content imbedded in your digital media reproducing nothing more and nothing less!!!!
Surround sound applications such as Dolby 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 work well considering in general 50% of surround information is directed to the center channel, 30% is dedicated too front channels (901's), the remainder to the back channels. Taking this into account the steering effects of Dolby and DTS are adequate and should yield satisfactory results on most DVD or Blue-Ray formats.
As for the negative aspects here is what I encountered. Positioning is more of an effort than other designs but not a big pain. One draw back that particularly annoyed me is the fact the speaker terminals are on the bottom of the speakers unless you rotate the mounting then the speaker connections are visible from the top of the speaker. So to solve this connection/mounting problem I purchased two inexpensive CD cabinet/stands and drilled 2-1/2" access holes in the top for speaker cable connection. Also the speaker terminals are thumb screw binder post type. With a little ingenuity I managed to drill and tap banana style terminal post and mount to the speakers binder post to make a secure tight connection that works really well and allows for maximum signal transfer. Also, if you intend to use higher quality speaker cables don't bother buying the BOSE speaker stands as most of these higher quality speaker cables such as Monster Z Series will not go thru the stands center section due to the cables diameter and terminal configurations. Pedestal stands cover the speaker terminals when mounted to the 901's allowing cable access only through the center section of the stands. Use of common stranded cables with these stands would most likely be okay.
In conclusion, for the price of the 901's you might be able to find other manufacturers that sound somewhat similar as the 901's like Polk, MartinLogan, Infinity and many others but I doubt that you will find any capable of sounding as musically defined across all the musical spectrum as these units do because of the unique BOSE technology.

The World's Best Sounding Speakers
I'm a passionate music lover - some call an audiophile! In my search for speakers that can bring me the warmth and power of a live performance in my own home, I decided to buy a pair of 901's. This was more than a year ago ... the 901's are still kicking, and I can say with the utmost confidence that they're the best out there, no matter what the consumer and audio industry communities say otherwise about these speakers. Bose was the first to study and discover the direct/reflecting nature of live sound in a concert or ampitheatre setting. These are the only places where greatest musical sounds can be experienced! With this finding, Bose developed the direct/reflecting technology that changed the ways speakers were being made. After that, other speaker manufacturers were trying to erase the name Bose from the audio consumer industry. But the Bose 901's have been born and they were there to stay - right on top! Today, the 901's are in their 6th series.

The only downside about the 901's is that they are very picky about amplifier types and room conditions. But once you manage to set room conditions right and get an adequately powered nice-sounding stereo receiver or amplifier, the 901's will prove to you that they are truly the best of the best!

I've never come across speakers as revealing as these. They let you hear all the details of a performance to an extent that sometimes you think you're floating right in front of a live symphony orchestra.

Most haters of Bose products criticise the 901's as lacking deep bass. That's probably because they've never owned them to actually experience every musical nuance the speakers are capable of reproducing with incredible ease and smoothness.

To emphasise my point, one of my friends' dads owns a pair of Legacy Helix that's also claimed to be the ultimate in sound reproduction. After comparing the musical quality of the 901's with the older man's Helix, he was eventually convinced that the 901's were the winner.

Believe me these speakers can evoke all your inner feelings with their music reproduction capabilities. They are just the greatest, try them out and you'll see what I mean!!!