Originally Posted by hjames
no, not really.
I've heard them . Not really bad, but not "my cup of tea" . Consumer Reports magazine got sued when they reviewed the 901 and commented that the image "was not stable, tended to wander" (not a direct quote - but my recollection")
found something on their website:
Because Consumer Reports once wrote that musical sounds as produced by the Bose 901 stereo speakers ''tended to wander about the room,'' the magazine was ordered to pay the manufacturer $210,000 in libel damages.
bose released the Bose 901 speakers (you know, the strange design with lots of drivers on the rear of the speaker). A lot of stereo magazines gave the 901's good reviews. Consumer reports, however, did not.
"Worse, individual instruments heard through the Bose system seemed to grow to gigantic proportions and tended to wander about the room. For instance, a violin appeared to be 10 feet wide and a piano stretched from wall to wall. With orchestral music, such effects seemed inconsequential. But we think they might become annoying when listening to soloists. (May 1970).
Bose sued the magazine's owner, Consumers Union, for libel, and asked that they be awarded damages covering estimated lost sales.
They noted, for instance, that CR was the lone magazine to cast doubt on their products. Long time supporters of the Consumers Union would probably retort that the other journals were influenced by ad revenue (the six moons (http://www.6moons.com/) of the day?), whereas CR was subscriber supported.
Anyway, the case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and in the end, the court ruled that the review was false, but not maliciously so. I'm not sure why it was a false review, it seemed to hinge on the reviewers use of the phrase "around the room". Maybe the 901s deliver a rock steady image that's nonetheless wrong.
However, you won't find very many reviews of speakers in in recent volumes of Consumer Reports.
from wikipedia
Criticisms
Bose's systems have been criticized by Stereophile in 1975[48] who, in reviewing the 901 system, state that in the magazine's opinion the system was unlikely to appeal to perfectionists with a developed taste in precise imaging, detail and timbre and that the shortfall in these qualities was an excessive price to pay for the improvement in impact and ambiance generated by the large proportion of reflected sound. The review also said that while the system Stereophile magazine reviewed gave a more realistic reproduction of natural ambiance than any other speaker system, that they found it otherwise unexceptional.
A reviewer in PC Magazine stated that he believes Bose is not a producer of high-end audio systems, because it didn't fulfill his expectations of what a high-end system should be.[49] (Widely-accepted performance characteristics of 'high-end' audio systems typically include a flat frequency response curve throughout the audible spectrum, and precise impulse response.) Audio enthusiasts frequently criticize Bose in online forums, accusing it of overpricing its products and criticizing the sound produced by Bose products.[50] Enthusiasts who have dissected and measured certain Bose products have found that the frequency response and build quality does not match their expectations for products at those prices.[51]
[edit] Legal Action
In 1981 Bose sued the magazine Consumer Reports for libel. Consumer Reports reported in a review that the sound from the system that they reviewed "tended to wander about the room." The District Court found that Consumer Reports "had published the false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity" when it changed what the original reviewer wrote about the speakers in his pre-publication draft. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling on liability, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the statement was made without actual malice, and therefore there was no liability for libel.[52][53][54]
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