Bose 901 Room Selection

[therieldeal]

Heck of a first post, right? I know Bose is not the most popular brand in the world amongst audiophiles... HOWEVER I recently picked some up and would like to try them out.

Reasoning:
My father was in college in the early 70's and got to experience these things brand new. Although we never owned a set, he ALWAYS raved about them. He and I share similar classic rock musical tastes. I also listen to a lot of "lo fi" analog-recorded and/or live recorded modern music as well... i think they would be a great fit for this type of music.

Secondly, assuming the refoam job goes well on these I'd like to eventually pickup another set to refoam & install in my dad's home for him. I don't know how many times he talked about these things, but he still has the same cheap pioneer bookshelf speakers that he had when i was a kid. He has a great 60s-80s record collection & I'd like him to really be able to really enjoy it in his retirement!

Finally, i love the quasi- mid-century styling of these speakers.

ANYWHO enough justifying my purchase

I'm pondering which room in my house would make the most sense to install these in. I will be hanging them for sure, to keep them safe from pets. The question is where? I have three rooms with potential, but all of them are of course compromised in some way.

Please refer to diagram below (not to scale!)... the names of the rooms are unimportant. I'm looking at rearranging the whole house and probably setting up my drums, guitar amps, etc. in whatever room the 901's end up in... whatever is in there now will get shuffled around.

Living room 23x12 short wall
Would probably be ideal, if not for the proximity of the window

Living room 23x12 long wall
Off center placement could be a problem. Again, possible proximity issue with the window.

Dining room 16.5x12 short wall
Worried about proximity to both windows, and the overall smaller size of this room.

Bedroom 18x12 short wall
Again window proximity, but really just one nearby window this time. Another downside is that this is on the 2nd floor (bedrooms & bath only) so playing the speakers up there for parties etc. would be less useful.

Any suggestions?!

 

[the skipper]

I'd keep them away from the corners. They like lots of breathing room behind them and to the sides.

Owing to their wide, noon-directional, dispersion pattern, I don't think they would be my first choice for classic rock though.

 

[therieldeal]

The Living room long wall would give me the most space around them, except i'd have to be off center in the room and near the window... Not sure what sort of effect that will have, any thoughts?

For all the short wall locations i am going to be basically limited to the minimum 18" from the side wall distance. Even at that, they will only be ~5-5.5 feet apart (minimum suggested is 4 feet).

To clarify a bit on their use... these would be mainly for parties or general listening, maybe jamming along with recordings, etc. I also have a pair of JBL near field monitors at my recording desk if I want precise detail, stereo imaging, etc.

 

[freQ(*)Oddio]

The 901s are best if you sit closer to them to benefit from the reflections projecting from the rear, long distance listening in a room can be confusing will all the reflections from a long distance.

 

[therieldeal]

Well, I’ve decided to hang them from the ceiling on the long wall of my living room. We’ll see how it turns out later this week! It’s the biggest room, one of the longest sections of open wall, and will put my seating position a little closer to the speakers. Plus, the raised fireplace hearth below means people should be less likely to hit their head on the dangling speakers.

I have recently acquired a decent Yamaha RX-V2400 receiver that I’ll be using as a preamp, as well as a couple of Crown CTs 600 power amps to drive the speakers. I’m going to try a single Crown at 300wpc first… hopefully that’s enough. If not I can run them bridged with one amp per speaker, but I’ll have to pick up a couple more for my dad’s rig!

 

[the skipper]

If they don't satisfy you with 300 wpc, adding more power won't make them sound any better.

 

[therieldeal]

Fair enough. I've been doing some reading here and there and have found more than a couple people recommending very powerful amps (500wpc+) in order to ensure enough low freq headroom for big transients. I'm not listening to any hip hop or electronic music though, so I'm hoping the 300wpc will be plenty. We'll see!

I'm thinking Led Zeppelin I for my initial test run...

 

[the skipper]

Let's get real. No matter how much power you throw at them, those speakers won't do really low, period. If you want low, start looking at sub woofers.