I've lived with a set of 901s......also a set of Missions, a set of BIC (looooong ago), a set of Klipsch, a set of large Advents (circa 1972), and lots of listening to Sneel, Thiel, some Boston Acoustics, and Apogee, among others.
The Bose were early in my audio career......and after I finally trained my ears to become adept at critically listening to speakers, the Bose died quietly.
My beefs were simple.......and power handling is not a concern. Instead, I finally began to question how good a set of speaker were that requried an equalizer to sound decent. The soundstage it presented was very artifical and listless......didn't precisely put the instruments in their places.
As an aside, Bose's claims to reproduce the "direct/reflected" sound found in concert halls.......how silly a claim. True, there is a direct/reflected sound in concert halls....in the cheap seats way back toward the rear, which is why the better seats up front are the more expensive. No reflected sound.....jsut unvarnished direct sound. Let the peasants in the cheap seats have that reflected sound....so why should I pay for speakers that recreate the cheap seat sound?
There are many good speakers out there and everyone's ears are different. If a speaker sounds good to you, so be it. But don't blast those speakers you've never experienced....and, Helpless, judging by your lack of experience with speakers out there, you're doing yourself an injustice not learning about them and what to expect when listening to them. You may just begin to discover a whole new world.
Oh, and your Carver amp....while it can pump some wattage out, is considered a utility amp by many......tubes is where it's at these days. Much warmer amps, more musical......much the same sort of comparison as a Ford Escort vs. a Ferrari.......both get the job done with one plebian and one viscerally exciting and fulfilling.