Posted by newsjeff [ 216.54.96.140 ] on March 24, 2004 at 22:24:17:
I had some time to kill at my local hi-end mall Monday. My girlfriend and her sister wanted to buy some clothes. So, I stopped in the Bose store to check out their speakers. I got a chance to listen to the 601s and the 901s for about 30 minutes. The salesman played the Dave Matthews live from Central Park DVD. The 601 had very boomy, loose bass. The 901s had no bass at all. I thought there was very little separation in the instruments. The horns and the strings sounded bright to me.
The salesmen told me the 901s weren't hooked up right, something about the active equalizer not being installed. Then he blamed the problems with the sound on the Onkyo receiver. It was interesting talking to these guys, to be honest.
The one salesman said the Bose blew away the Polk LSI series. I told him I have heard the LSIs, which use the Viva XT25 ring tweeter. The Bose doesn't even come close to the LSIs.
I did find a couple of things interesting. Both salesmen I spoke with talked highly of tubes. When I asked if I could run the 901s with a 7 watt set, they had no idea. The salesmen couldn't tell me the efficiency rating on any of the speakers. To be honest, I had to explain what efficiency meant. After checking the computer, the one salesman came back to say Bose didn't publish the efficiency of their speakers at all. Hmm.
Also, the $299 Bose noise cancelling headphones sounded good. Almost as good as the Grado SR-60s I got on Audiogon for $45. Well, not quite as good. I love my Grados.
It was a fun way to kill 1/2 hour at the mall.
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