Bose 141....why the hate?

Being a musician I have always considered loud speakers musical instruments. Each marque had a “sound”, you could tell the difference between a Warfedale, a Bozac, an AR, KLH, Klipsch, etc. The has faded somewhat thanks to audio computer design modeling software. But the major marques still endeavor to maintain “that sound”. To me the computer designed Bose speakers are like a plastic learning Recorder. with personality of a Clam. Dr. Bose would have loved me, untrained ear my ass I have been a musician most of my life, I know what it is supposed to sound like. You can take your oscilloscopes, and software and take a flying leap out the door.

I wonder how Paul Klipsch, and Amar Bose got along. I keep thinking of Paul Klipsch’s famous Bull Shit badge. :biggrin:
 
It seems to me like modern-day Bose is employing highly talented engineers to design very fancy wizardry into their headphones, and I'd venture to say that's worthy of some respect!
 
I have no experience with new Bose. I had some 901s that were good for entertaining a house full of people, nice wide distribution. Sounded the same anywhere in the room and filled the house just fine. They weren't good for sitting and listening to stereo music, similar to mono. But good mono.
I also had some 501s that weren't good for anything to do with listening to music. Flabby bass, sounded like a cheap speaker on a tiny over worked receiver and with the same short comings as the 901s. Bad separation. Both with a Harmon Kardon 730. Not enough power?
All of my old beam boxes are much better than the two Bose I had. These two Bose speakers were a concession to good vintage speakers when sound is the objective.
That's my experience with Bose speakers. Yes other people defend them, not me. Not one bit. I don't hate them. I would buy them to sell.
If I saw a wave radio at a yard sale I would try it for the patio as a portable but not the garage.
 
My 501’s epitomize “one note bass”. There’s a huge bump around 40Hz that just HITS with the fire and fury of the old gods. The acoustics of the room don’t help matters much, and EQ does nothing. From there on up, nice airy soundstage and neutral response. They do get harsh on high powered solid state, and the boomy bass remains.
 
My kids gave me a Bose Soundlink Color II for Father's Day. It sounds remarkably good for near-field listening after equalizing my Kindle as the source. It won't replace my vinyl records and Altec speakers, but it wasn't designed for that.
 
Bose 141's were just a basic 1 driver speaker. Cheap cabinet. Had a pair, listened, and sold for a little profit due to name.
Still have my JBL L1's..... yes a 2 way. Thought minimus 7's were better, yes a 2 way.
141's were a utility speaker in my book, ok, but.....? Not worthy of a debate.
Bose has some other speakers you can debate, but 141's?? Many better offerings in my non biased opinion.
 
What would be interesting is to compare the Bose 141 which is selling for less then $50 bucks for the most part, and the Dayton Audio B652-Air $44 USD brand new.

4E0476F1-CB97-43D8-B7D4-8D496EBC2209.jpeg

Dayton B652-Air
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shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I've got a pair of 141's I need to sell


which BTW I am sure would smoke the Dayton's hands down, no problemo!...:p
 
My brother has one of the Bose 5.1 systems. In my opinion, it sounds better than any other system with speakers the size of a beer can. A tiny L-bracket is all you need to wall mount them for surround sound. He likes it. I prefer my speakers to be keg sized :beerchug:
 
IME all speakers the size of beer cans with shoe box sized "subwoofers" sound pretty bad.
 
I've heard several sets of 901's that never peaked my interest. I do have a pair of 301 lll's that don't sound horrible. I use them in a bedroom system. If placed right, something close to the manufacturer's suggestion they sound pretty good if not a bit too rolled off at the top end. Placement seems to be pretty important for these reflecting type speakers. In some situations it can be difficult to place them correctly. I did like the 601's I heard many years ago. When the Bose speakers hit the shelves hot and heavy in the seventies I can't remember a single person I knew that bought a pair or thought they had to have them. Living close to an Airforce base Japanese Kabuki speakers ruled into the early eighties.
 
Retrovert said:
When Amar Bose died in 2013, Michael Fremer—who disliked Bose, both the company and the man—wrote his own obituary, of sorts. You might find it entertaining
Click to expand...

This puts the nail in the coffin in terms of Bose. Amar Bose sounds just like Noel Lee of Monster Cable. Noel Lee like Amar Bose sued everyone. Monster cable would threaten to sue any business with the name Monster in it, If you had a hamburger stand with the name Monster Burger you could be threatened with a suit and were forced into a expensive consent agreement. You can go over to Blue Jeans Cable and read what happened when Monster Cable tried to sue them over and RCA plug they had.

I remember those Bose ad’s that made out Amar Bose like he was The Einstein of audio. I was going to the University of Wyoming in the early 1970’s. At the time I was still an AR snob. With my AR-7, AR-2AX Speakers. The Bose Boys looked upon us like we were the great unwashed.
 
Having dissected a great many of Bose speakers to reveal their low budget innards that were being sold at what would seem to be hyper-inflated pricing, I have my prejudices. What amazes me is the fact that what still remains is how much these speakers hold their value like an old Camry. It's a testament to just how genius marketing has indoctrinated a great many people. Now I have just stumbled upon a pair of 141's at an uber cheap price and figured I'd clean them up a bit and sell them. I tested them and was quite surprised at how good they actually sounded utilizing that single 901 looking driver. Perhaps it's the lack of any crossover with it's inherent problems that aid in it's fairly decent sound, I'm not sure. My thought from there was a possible experiment utilizing the 141's as a strictly a mid bass/midrange unit supported or complimented by two subs underneath crossed over at let say 150 Hz and using either a self contained ribbon tweeter or one of those chinese made B&W 801 nautilus clone tweeters mounted on top of the 141's cabinet with a high frequency crossover to supplement the high end. The full range driver would then have its acoustical responsibilities focused on the zone of musical information focused in the area it probably performs best. The fairly flimsy cabinet and its inherent resonances would no longer have much negative impact on the sound and the aforementioned tweeters voice coils could be independently placed in alignment with the voice coil of the 141's, thus, helping to eliminate out of phase signals. Just a thought.
 
How do the little nht speakers sound compared to your Bose? I have A few pair of bigger NHT speakers that I Love. Sorry don't want to hijack this thread. Carry on...
 
Played through a decent system with a good amount of EQ tweaking the 141 sound like a really, really good AM radio:D

OK, actually I'm being kinda serious. They really reminded me of AM radio but in stereo when I listened to mine.
Limited bandwidth and all, but really good AM radio. I'm thinking that's the crowd Amar Bose was actually aiming for.
 
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