What's your favorite anti-bose saying?

[bigbootydaddy]

overpriced...thought it was pretty obvious..

and i second whoever said cant touch my infinity kappa's!

 

[ElFenix]

you may be able to hook a powered sub in to produce some bass that the "bass module" can't, but bose doesn't bill it that way. they sell it as a complete system, and the consumer should expect most of the complete frequency, down to 35 or so Hz at least. and the system doens't seem capable of it.

 

[bigd480]

did bose car audio always suck? my dream car is a 90-96 300zx and they came w/ factory bose systems (which most ppl replace)... and it's a bitch cuz all the speakers have their own little amp and the ohm rating for the speakers is diff from normal ones such that you won't be able to hook it up to a regular head unit for long cuz they'll mess up...

 

[AndrewR]

I just have the Infinity HTS20 set-up with a 150 watt sub. Since both my wife and my dog don't appreciate very loud movies (Saving Private Ryan at a high volume is just too awesome!), I really can't use anything more. I don't have the time or the inclination to become an "audiophile", but I'm perfectly happy with my Infinity's.

 

[Aihyah]

these comparison speakers the same size as the bose? easy to hide?

 

[ratkil]

Viperoni and/or Capn can you give any links to good sites on building your own speakers? that sounds kind of cool

 

[PG]

you may be able to hook a powered sub in to produce some bass that the "bass module" can't, but bose doesn't bill it that way. they sell it as a complete system, and the consumer should expect most of the complete frequency, down to 35 or so Hz at least. and the system doens't seem capable of it.


Bingo!!

For DVD's, the Bose systems are missing an entire channel of sound.

 

[Viperoni]

Speakerbuilder.net
Home of the Dayton 1(aka budjet bookshelf), 2, 3 and 4 projects, the Dayton 12inch DVC sub project, Audax HT project and the Vifa/SS project (using Vifa woofers and a Scan Speak dome tweet).

Partsexpress.com has the biggest selection of drivers I've seen anywhere, and probably the best customer service on the net.
Who else gives you a 5 year warranty on woofers?

For the ULTRA high end (IE; sonic orgasm ), there's NCM (NorthCreekMusic)

 

[Maiora]

Bose doesn't give a frequency response in the specification of their speakers!

I refer to their double loaded reflex woofer design they call "AcoustiMass" as Acoustic Mess!

901's have serious problems. Dividing the power input amongst nine edgewound copper voice coils results in impressive thermal power handling. The biggest problem with this design is the limitation of a single full range speaker. Using an array of FR transducers to reproduce the entire audio spectrum leads to severe doppler, TIM, and IM distortion especially at louder levels. Now if you use this array to reproduce the range of audio each single transducer was designed to, you have a system with very good dynamic range and low distortion. Slap a pair of 901's on top of a Hummer with a nice kilowatt mobile amp and microphone preamp and you would have a nice public address system on wheels. Good for the beaches on the Carolina coast during hurricane season!

When a speaker with this design plays two notes, one a very low note (39 Hz for example) and a middle note of 1,000 Hz; the same surface that is radiating the critical midrange is moving back and forth at 39 Hz! The result is devastating. NO design can compensate with this.

Then you have the issues with frequency response. Bose uses an active EQ that is placed between the preamp and amp or in a tape deck loop for receiver users to combat this. The amount of equalisation applied is quite high and will eat up amplifier headroom very quickly. Matter of fact, moderate listening levels of jazz and classical music can NOT be realised with a decent 100 WPC amplifier WITHOUT amplitudinal clipping. These speakers also have an annoyingly high imedance of 8 ohms making them utterly useless on high end amplifiers designed with stout output stages such as Krell, Mark Levinson, and FM Acoustics. (my favorites)

Direct/Reflected sound is a bad design as well. An ideal loudspeaker reproduces a recording where it allows the listener to realise the environment where the music is created. A poorly designed loudspeaker uses gimmicks to cover up its flaws, often colouring the output with excessive bass, flaring midrange with gundry errors, and/or has a honking tweeter that makes golden ears run for cover from its arsenal of 15 kHz plumes!

Maiora

 

[Viperoni]

<< When a speaker with this design plays two notes, one a very low note (39 Hz for example) and a middle note of 1,000 Hz; the same surface that is radiating the critical midrange is moving back and forth at 39 Hz! The result is devastating. NO design can compensate with this. >>



That's nonsense.
A typical 2way speaker crosses between 2k and 5k
so they would experience the same problem.
And there are some absolutely spectacular 2way speakers, just as there some spectacular 2.5way's, 3way's, 3.5way's, 4way's, 1way's etc etc etc.

The truth is, is that the bad sound caused by the 2 frequencies mixing like that is usually do to poor driver design. Bose's driver design in the 901's is very good, so I doubt theres much to worry about.

 

[Maiora]

<< That's nonsense.
A typical 2way speaker crosses between 2k and 5k
so they would experience the same problem.
And there are some absolutely spectacular 2way speakers, just as there some spectacular 2.5way's, 3way's, 3.5way's, 4way's, 1way's etc etc etc.

The truth is, is that the bad sound caused by the 2 frequencies mixing like that is usually do to poor driver design. Bose's driver design in the 901's is very good, so I doubt theres much to worry about. >>



Perhaps I shouldn't have said no design could compensate for this. What I mean is NO design using a full range speaker can compensate for it. Immutable laws of physics at work here.

Your example of a two way design is unrelated to my example. The 39 Hz tone (ignoring harmonics) would most definitely be reproduced by the LF transducer and the 1 kHz tone would be produced by the HF transducer. It is much easier to design an efficient crossover to compensate to keep each driver from getting signals they weren't designed to reproduce in the first place!

The 901's fare very poorly in this torture test. For a musical version, try the introduction to Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra. The organ pedal notes create quite a flutter within the brass section. These speakers just can't cut it. For popular music for the average Joe I guess they'll suffice.

Maiora

 

[spamboy]

<< Spamboy -

If you're listening to a dolby digital movie, the response of the sattelites must get down to AT LEAST 80 HZ. The crossover on most DD receivers for DD movies is fixed at 80 hz. If your speakers drop at 130 hz then you basically have a 50 hz window where your sound is weak. The sattelites must down to a reasonable level before a subwoofer can begin to realistically produce bass tones - that is, 80 hz.

Bose can't. >>



That's exactly what I'm talking about. You need to view the Bose bass module as part of the satilite system, and stop thinking of it as any kind replacement for the subwoofer. You can't run just the satilites on a Bose system, anyway, you'll blow them without the bass module to shield them from too much power... The bass module plugs into the standard speaker outputs, then the satilites are powered off the module. Reciever crossover doesn't even come into the equation.

However, I should have mentioned that I do know what you people are talking about. I don't like the &quot;signature&quot; Bose sound anymore than the rest of you. I listened to the full range of Bose speakers before buying the AM-3. The AM-3 and AM-6 have nice bass, crisp highs. But the &quot;direct-reflecting&quot; dual-satilite systems lack brightness and deep bass. The crossover for the bass module is too high, so it sounds boomy and you can localize the source of the sound. I hate that as much as the rest of you. But give the cheaper AM-3 a listen. It suffers from none of the above pitfalls, for reasons I don't understand...

 

[spamboy]

Good point on how Bose bills these systems. They do bill it as a complete system, and they really shouldn't do that. Like everyone says, Bose lacks the &quot;.1&quot; in &quot;5.1&quot;!

 

[Viperoni]

<< Your example of a two way design is unrelated to my example. The 39 Hz tone (ignoring harmonics) would most definitely be reproduced by the LF transducer and the 1 kHz tone would be produced by the HF transducer. >>



Buddy, are you dense or something?

Let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we?
In a 2 way design, you have a woofer, and a tweeter.
And of course a crossover, which splits up the frequencies to each driver.
Now, let's be rather leniant and say that the crossover frequency is a low 2khz, while utilizing a standard slope of 12db/octave.
SO
That means if I play a 1khz tone, the woofer is going to play the 1khz tone at full output, while the tweet is going to play the 1khz tone at 12db less SPL than the woofer?
Why you ask?
Because 1khz is exactly 1 octave lower than 2khz, and since our crossover slope is 12db/octave, that dictates the tweet will play the 1khz tone with 12db less SPL.

Now, if you have a full range driver that has no crossover, and compare it to a 2 way speaker, they will produce the 2 frequencies (39hz and 1khz) with the same &quot;problem&quot;.
Why?
Because both frequencies are in the passband of the woofer and of the full range driver.

It's not that hard to understand, really.

Of course the 2way speaker will have better high's, but that's besides the point.

 

[Viperoni]

<< Good point on how Bose bills these systems. They do bill it as a complete system, and they really shouldn't do that. Like everyone says, Bose lacks the &quot;.1&quot; in &quot;5.1&quot;! >>



That's definetely true.
I use 6.5inch drivers as tweeters :Q

 

[Viperoni]

^ Revived from the dead ^

 

[Maiora]

Let's phrase this another way. Yes, in your simple two way design there will be excessive doppler distortion. For close listening at moderate levels it isn't noticeable. At realistic listening levels without ANY compression, you're gonna run into big problems. This is why ultra high end systems with tremendous dynamic range may use six bands of amplification (hexa amplified) with NO components between the amplifier terminals and transducer terminals. A single woofer and a tweeter will fail to perform satisfactorily under those conditions.

Use your ears! I certainly have. I bet you're into car audio. Surely you've heard environmentally induced intermodulation distortion in a car. The car is a horrible listening environment, realistic dynamic range can never be realised. This is why CD's and even MP3's are acceptable in the car. The ruggedness of the media also makes it a good choice.

With two way speakers with small woofers (8&quot; and under) you definitely WILL have the problem I discussed above. Oops! My mistake! I can't imagine what I was thinking about the 39/1k scenario with a two way design since I'm used to pro transducers that can handle 500 Hz ~ 14kHz. Now if you take 39/5k the two way will blow away the Bose FR design.

Most people will not be feeding a small two way speaker with copious amounts of bass below 90 Hz anyways, this is what subwoofers are for. Of course, with the 901's you're not supposed to need a SW! In a good system with a decent SW, playing 20 Hz bass at -4 dB (like most industrial music) along with mid range notes would be disastrous on the 901's. It would sound like talking through a ceiling fan. A lot of modern music uses synthesised bass notes that go much lower than any acoustic instruments, short of a pipe organ. Dedicated subwoofers designed for first octave output (16~32 Hz) are the only way to reproduce these. The 901's equalised -3dB point is 29 Hz I believe.

Maiora

 

[beer]

<<

<< Your example of a two way design is unrelated to my example. The 39 Hz tone (ignoring harmonics) would most definitely be reproduced by the LF transducer and the 1 kHz tone would be produced by the HF transducer. >>



Buddy, are you dense or something?

Let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we?
In a 2 way design, you have a woofer, and a tweeter.
And of course a crossover, which splits up the frequencies to each driver.
Now, let's be rather leniant and say that the crossover frequency is a low 2khz, while utilizing a standard slope of 12db/octave.
SO
That means if I play a 1khz tone, the woofer is going to play the 1khz tone at full output, while the tweet is going to play the 1khz tone at 12db less SPL than the woofer?
Why you ask?
Because 1khz is exactly 1 octave lower than 2khz, and since our crossover slope is 12db/octave, that dictates the tweet will play the 1khz tone with 12db less SPL.

Now, if you have a full range driver that has no crossover, and compare it to a 2 way speaker, they will produce the 2 frequencies (39hz and 1khz) with the same &quot;problem&quot;.
Why?
Because both frequencies are in the passband of the woofer and of the full range driver.

It's not that hard to understand, really.

Of course the 2way speaker will have better high's, but that's besides the point. >>



Thanks for the lesson! That's very interesting.

 

[Viperoni]

<<
Let's phrase this another way. Yes, in your simple two way design there will be excessive doppler distortion. For close listening at moderate levels it isn't noticeable. At realistic listening levels without ANY compression, you're gonna run into big problems. This is why ultra high end systems with tremendous dynamic range may use six bands of amplification (hexa amplified) with NO components between the amplifier terminals and transducer terminals. A single woofer and a tweeter will fail to perform satisfactorily under those conditions.

Use your ears! I certainly have. I bet you're into car audio. Surely you've heard environmentally induced intermodulation distortion in a car. The car is a horrible listening environment, realistic dynamic range can never be realised. This is why CD's and even MP3's are acceptable in the car. The ruggedness of the media also makes it a good choice.

With two way speakers with small woofers (8&quot; and under) you definitely WILL have the problem I discussed above. Oops! My mistake! I can't imagine what I was thinking about the 39/1k scenario with a two way design since I'm used to pro transducers that can handle 500 Hz ~ 14kHz. Now if you take 39/5k the two way will blow away the Bose FR design.

Most people will not be feeding a small two way speaker with copious amounts of bass below 90 Hz anyways, this is what subwoofers are for. Of course, with the 901's you're not supposed to need a SW! In a good system with a decent SW, playing 20 Hz bass at -4 dB (like most industrial music) along with mid range notes would be disastrous on the 901's. It would sound like talking through a ceiling fan. A lot of modern music uses synthesised bass notes that go much lower than any acoustic instruments, short of a pipe organ. Dedicated subwoofers designed for first octave output (16~32 Hz) are the only way to reproduce these. The 901's equalised -3dB point is 29 Hz I believe.

Maiora

>>



Very true about the 39/5k comparison, but is the effect really that bad?
I remember reading a big discussion on that topic in some kinda magazine, or maybe it was online, don't remember by now.

About he 901's, they dont appear to be designed for the kinda person that would listen to that type of music. The way I perceive it, the 901's are made for the classical/easy listening kinda music, not for a basshead like me that's into rap/hip-hop.

Obviously it's awesome to have multiway aplification like the method you described, but I mean, the sheer cost involved is enormous (if you go with 6 different amps, they better be good ones )

There's nothing wrong with using equalization to boost bass output; quite a few subs use equalization to boost their f3 cutoff point.....namely Carver and their 2700watt cube subs (which are awesome, but stupidly overpriced). They need that much power due to the amount of equalization.
But hey, it's small, and it puts out monsterous amounts of bass, maybe a bit shy on SQ, but then again, it's tiny