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Bose 901 Powered speaker system

J

John Sidle

New Member
Today at the resale store I scored two 901 speakers on stands, one on the power base, one on unpowered base. I won't say how little I paid! The control unit and connecting cable are missing but I have the old Bose 1801 power amp rated at 400 watts/channel into 4 ohms (2 901's in parallel per side) and the old Bose EQ unit. I even happen to have a Phase Linear 400!
My question is how connection between the speaker and stand is accomplished. As bought, there are heavy zip cord tails attached to the speaker bottoms. Evidently, the powered base was not used. It would be fun to use the base power. The manual gives pinouts for audio in and control. Is it possible to use "+10 volt control line" and "SMART SPEAKER DATA" to just turn on the power and feed my audio from an external source?
 
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Welcome to AK! I don't know much about how these could possibly be hooked up. Bose doesn't seem to be the most universally respected speaker company here on this site so brace yourself for some flak.
I hope someone will venture forth and get your setup sorted out.. :)
 
Hard to say what will work or what you need to do based on what sounds like some hacks/modifications.

Afraid you're going to need to do some exploratory surgery to see what's going on with the (apparently) non-original/added speaker cables.
 
Lifestyle 901 system. Congratulations, these still sell for a ton of money (north of $1K on Ebay). The powered base connects to the Lifestyle control system (cd player / tuner). Then a second cable connects the powered base to the non-powered base.
One option would be to buy the Lifestyle 20 controller and try to find/make the needed cables.

Alternatively, the easiest would be to drive the speakers directly (as it sounds like the prior owner did). The speakers are the same as any of the series VI 901's (aside from the finish). The speakers can be removed from the stands revealing the speaker terminals on the bottom. For the Bose 901 equalization, any series V or VI equalizer would work.
 
There's a jack on the side of the column which looks like the amplifier output to the speaker. If I can figure out how to enable the amplifier and feed in left/right audio I should be OK. Anybody have a tech source for the control unit?
 
The LifeStyle 20 controller is what shipped with these speakers originally. I don't know if any of the other controller models will work or not. BTW, you will often find these with non-working displays. This is typically caused by failed electrolytic capacitors and is a relatively easy repair.
 
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