Hi wiseoldtech,
This shouldn't surprise you. Most firms are that way to varying degrees. It would blow your mind how many basic engineering mistakes were committed to thousands of products that a basic EE would have found. Even most techs would find these and correct them before they hit production. I'm not talking about ECO's, I'm talking about secrets these companies refuse to acknowledge.
-Chris
This shouldn't surprise you. Most firms are that way to varying degrees. It would blow your mind how many basic engineering mistakes were committed to thousands of products that a basic EE would have found. Even most techs would find these and correct them before they hit production. I'm not talking about ECO's, I'm talking about secrets these companies refuse to acknowledge.
-Chris
Thanks, freddi for the data on the 901's.
I had a profitably employed friend that bought a pair of Bose 901's about 1975. He powered them with a Heathkit AR1515 or something. I hated them. I highly respected his R&R record collection however. Stereo Review or somebody had touted the 901's. Those jagged 10 db responses freddi got would never be straightend out by their equalizer. And that comment about excessive boost causing distortion - I can salute that theory.
I was prejudiced, I had been playing with 120 real wind instruments for 8 years. My ears were used to accuracy. I also played real piano, a Sohmer grand at the teacher's house. In my 7th year of band the band director sent us to the Long Point Cinema to hear the Altec Lansing VOT's. Yeah, I wanted some of those. Never could afford them until after the company was merged into insignificance, and VOT were only sold in Dallas 230 miles away from Houston so never heard a demo.
I liked the KLH5's at Home Entertainment but couldn't afford them. The LWEIII's I actually purchased there were fine for my purposes until I blew a tweeter with a dynaco ST70 amp. Dad gave the LWEIII away while I was at Ordnance Advanced school at APG. Then the KLH23 2 ways I bought from Woolco were inoffensive for years, if a little bassless. Then blew a woofer on one of those. Hard to get decent parts before the internet.
The SP2-XT's on craigslist in 2008 looked like copies of VOT, so I tried a piano CD on them in a trailer down south. Yeah! Had to vacuum the cigarette ash off them, it was a bar band closeout. Still love them 10 years later. These tweeters are holding up. The distortion is pretty tame at the 1/4 W I use for pp (pianissimo) level. They are HUGE boxes on stands in my living room, but I'm serious about music. You can tell by the steinway console ear calibrator mounted between the speakers.
Bose - the more they advertise, the less I believe. I never saw a Peavey ad on TV, or an Altec Lansing or Dynaco ad either. Funny about that.
I had a profitably employed friend that bought a pair of Bose 901's about 1975. He powered them with a Heathkit AR1515 or something. I hated them. I highly respected his R&R record collection however. Stereo Review or somebody had touted the 901's. Those jagged 10 db responses freddi got would never be straightend out by their equalizer. And that comment about excessive boost causing distortion - I can salute that theory.
I was prejudiced, I had been playing with 120 real wind instruments for 8 years. My ears were used to accuracy. I also played real piano, a Sohmer grand at the teacher's house. In my 7th year of band the band director sent us to the Long Point Cinema to hear the Altec Lansing VOT's. Yeah, I wanted some of those. Never could afford them until after the company was merged into insignificance, and VOT were only sold in Dallas 230 miles away from Houston so never heard a demo.
I liked the KLH5's at Home Entertainment but couldn't afford them. The LWEIII's I actually purchased there were fine for my purposes until I blew a tweeter with a dynaco ST70 amp. Dad gave the LWEIII away while I was at Ordnance Advanced school at APG. Then the KLH23 2 ways I bought from Woolco were inoffensive for years, if a little bassless. Then blew a woofer on one of those. Hard to get decent parts before the internet.
The SP2-XT's on craigslist in 2008 looked like copies of VOT, so I tried a piano CD on them in a trailer down south. Yeah! Had to vacuum the cigarette ash off them, it was a bar band closeout. Still love them 10 years later. These tweeters are holding up. The distortion is pretty tame at the 1/4 W I use for pp (pianissimo) level. They are HUGE boxes on stands in my living room, but I'm serious about music. You can tell by the steinway console ear calibrator mounted between the speakers.
Bose - the more they advertise, the less I believe. I never saw a Peavey ad on TV, or an Altec Lansing or Dynaco ad either. Funny about that.
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Worked on Social music projects about 10 yrs ago with Ozzy Osbourns keybord player John Sinclair.I was amazed at his ability for perfect pitch. But as I learned to play instruments myself I realised I had the same talent.Looking back over my life NOW I realise why some music appealed to me.Bose did nothing to bring that to me.
If you think that eq box for the 901 speakers was guilty of deadly boost at each end of the spectrum, you should see how horribly cheaply it was made! Once I measured the boost. One end was +12 dB, the other +15 dB. I can't remember which end had the higher boost, but you want to believe that most amplifiers ran out of steam well before the midrange response even approached high levels.
The power supply was minimalist. Couple diodes and caps, I'm not even sure if they used any zener diodes. It was really cheap!
-Chris
The power supply was minimalist. Couple diodes and caps, I'm not even sure if they used any zener diodes. It was really cheap!
-Chris
Chris, I like to "feel" my music, to a point of course.
Ain't nothin' like a good 10 or 12 inch system in a properly designed box to get your blood going.
Those nasty towers - all cut from the same mold no matter what name is on them, with the dual 6.5 inch woofers and a tweeter - they suck.
jBL has been known to make cheap little speakers too. Just because they happen to make touring concert speakers and cinema install systems doesn’t mean their stuff made for “home” use, especially little battery operated portable stuff, bears any resemblance. They’ve even gotten on the bandwagon of making cheap junk PA stuff too, to get a share of the low end market. Sort of competing with... Bose.
JBL is no more. It's just a brand name of Samsung, along with these brand names:
AKG, AMX, Becker, Crown, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, dbx, DigiTech,
Mark Levinson, Martin, Revel, Soundcraft, Studer, Arcam, BSS Audio.
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Wow sorry to sound condescending but on power side for residential use, classD operating btl 18-24v gets it done (at any price). Best sound in my listening history. Verrry low distortion. Yes i have the equipment to measure elevated btl Thd.
Brand names pretty much meaningless now too ie JBL, Bose, McIntosh, denon, Sony, Yamaha, and so on.
Bose though was first to get it right combining classD and the Stromberg-Carlson speaker and bring to mass mkt.
Yes the cheap (and $$$ hi-end) poorly designed D, AB amps, and speakers sound terrible. (resonant ported reflex 'boom' boxes)
I have a case of $3 tpa3118 amps that outperform 99% what's out there.
The original Soundlink II now cost used nearly what I paid new retail. Wonder why?
Brand names pretty much meaningless now too ie JBL, Bose, McIntosh, denon, Sony, Yamaha, and so on.
Bose though was first to get it right combining classD and the Stromberg-Carlson speaker and bring to mass mkt.
Yes the cheap (and $$$ hi-end) poorly designed D, AB amps, and speakers sound terrible. (resonant ported reflex 'boom' boxes)
I have a case of $3 tpa3118 amps that outperform 99% what's out there.
The original Soundlink II now cost used nearly what I paid new retail. Wonder why?
Decades ago, in the early 1980s, Bose systems were an option on some GM vehicles, like the Buick Riviera, etc.
They used a decent head amp driving four independent 50 watt modules in the four speaker enclosures. (front/rear).
It wasn't a bad sounding system, in fact, it had a pleasing tone quality, better than the Delco/GM radios used as standard systems.
But that's about it.
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