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Bose Interaudio 4000 Speaker Info? No Laughing/Bashing Please!

I've listened to a pair of the 10" Interaudios quite a bit. One of my long time friends (Jim) has a pair that he was using on his all Mc & Revox System. This fellow is a career musician. Jim played Bass and Percussion for decades and also spent nearly twenty years teaching and conducting choirs, bands, and orchestras. He owns several sets of speakers and uses the pair that best match the dimensions and acoustics of his current listening room. For several years the best ones for his house were the Interaudios. I loved taking Vinyl & CDs over to his house so we could listen and discuss recording/mastering and musical performance. Jim had also spent several years doing live recordings of Choral groups with Revox 1/2 tracks and Neumann microphones. I went with him a few times and would watch him spend hours changing mic placement by by inches and degrees until he had the sound and stereo image he wanted. So.... If Jim and an old Brass player like me can sit and enjoy listening to Sheffield Labs Direct to Disc recordings, produced by Lincoln Mayorga, played through Mc electronics and Revox TTs, on Interaudios, then it's probably fine if you enjoy them too. :music: Oh, by the way, when I was playing Trumpet I spent a few thousand hours with Concert Bass players sitting right behind me and the Sax players to my right front, Trombones on the left, and French Horn bells pointed right at my face. I kinda know what sounds good.:thmbsp:
 
Last month i bought a pair of interaudio 4000xl from a german e bay seller for 100 euro. I hooked them up to my harman kardon amp and was not that impressed as the output lacks high notes and so decided to replace the tweeters with a pair of 4ohm bose 501 Mk2 - the high notes improved a bit but still lack behind the bose 301's or the bose studiocraft speakers. I have decided to either twiddle with the crossover - if that would be possible or fit a new crossover and hope for a better result- alex
 
re interaudio 4000 xl

pjbeee said:
I have a pair of these (Bose Interaudio 4000), like, forever. The foam surrounds on the woofers are still in fine shape, and they sound just great (go figure). Paid $ 200 for the pair at a wholesale club, probably in the 80s, yep. I was impressed with the sound of the pair on display, and didn't expect much bringing them home. But they've remained part of my living-room home theater system, of course with added center, surrounds, and sub. Funny thing is the 10" sub I got for the system really wasn't needed given the excellent low-end from the 4000s; it was only after I got a 12" sub that I could hear any real difference. Anyhow, I'm sure these speakers won't impress everyone, but they are and were decent performers. BTW these were made in USA, a rarity these days.
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Compare them to the bose 301 and you will notice that the 4000xl lack high notes and have to push up the treble to get a decent output. I tried replacing them with high sensitive dome tweeters but i got the best high notes output from a pair of bose 501 mk 2 cone tweeters but still not satisfied with the overall performance
 
re interaudio 4000xl

MoparMan said:
I'm sure the back of the woofers are generic and plain looking like most Bose drivers I've seen. Although the front of them do look pretty impressive. Some of the best drivers I've heard look really generic... I'll take a woofer out and peek later today. I think with a good silk dome tweeter that could be crossed over low enough, these would be really great speakers within their limits. The cone tweeters sound way better than expected but are just naturally beamy. Thanks for all the replies (and no Bose bashing). I've be guilty of plenty of Bose bashing myself in the past. Now I have to eat my words!
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i have tried dome tweeters but they are not sensitive like the cones - the cone tweeters of the 4000xl sound crappy and the overall output is boomy - i have replaced them with 4ohm bose 501 mk3 tweeters and the overall sound improved but not that much. will experiment with the crossover in the next days or get a crossover replacement
 
My friend has the SA102 Interaudios which are the same as 4000's except they are rated at 150 watts and have a tweeter protection light on the front that lets u know when ya pushing a wee bit too hard.
 
re bose interaudio 4000xl

as said earlier i bought a pair of these speakers and the XL is only printed on their original box - this morning i unscrewed the woofer and had a look inside - no passive crossover or LC circuits - the tweeter (4 ohm) is in series with a capacitor, a wire resistor (around 8 ohms) and a protection bulb. Since these speakers lack the high frequencies i desire, i shorted the resister by soldering a piece of wire, replaced the tweeters with ones pulled from bose 501 Mk 3 speakers and wired a monacor 8 ohm 98 db rated tweeter in series with the bose cone tweeter. The monacor tweeter is so small that i fixed it to the front wood panel with double sided tape and the cover fitted perfectly - the tweeter compensates for the shorted resistor and so the overall impedance should be the same. WOW - the sound quality is much better now with crisp highs and can play the speaker with my harman k 3380 receiver treble and bass knobs set at neutral. Later on i will compare them to my bose 301's and i m sure they will sound as or better.
 
I had a pair of 3000's. Loaned them to a family member 7 or 8 years ago. They must be pretty good 'cause i haven't seen 'em since.:no:
 
I don't know that model, but I had a pair of Interaudios back in the 70's that were a 2-way design with a 6" woofer and a port.

Those things were excellent!

For a while I had them in the back seat of my '67 Mustang; they sounded great playing Fleetwood Mac, even with the meager 5 wpc of my Craig cassette deck.

I remember they had a sticker boasting that they were "Computer Designed". Very advanced :D
 
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kirk57 said:
....For a while I had them in the back seat of my '67 Mustang; they sounded great playing Fleetwood Mac, even with the meager 5 wpc of my Craig cassette deck.

I remember they had a sticker boasting that they were "Computer Designed". Very advanced :D
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Yes, you were not alone with the smaller Interaudio speakers - I knew of more than one set that ended up in Datsun 240Zs and other smaller cars once the head units had enough power to drive them over the road noise.

On the 'computer design', that was actually a claim that the drivers themselves were guaranteed to operate the same because Bose had developed a Quality Control computer (quite the rage in the early 70s, BTW) that they called Syncom. It was intended to match operating parameters of the OEM drivers for the 901s but its use was extended to include most all OEM drivers that Bose used, most of which came from CTS back then.

For the computer-heads here, the Syncom computer was built on a DEC PDP platform since the good Dr. Bose and Ken Olsen , founder of DEC, were both of the same age and went to MIT.

Cheers,

David
 
dshoaf said:
Yes, you were not alone with the smaller Interaudio speakers - I knew of more than one set that ended up in Datsun 240Zs and other smaller cars once the head units had enough power to drive them over the road noise.

On the 'computer design', that was actually a claim that the drivers themselves were guaranteed to operate the same because Bose had developed a Quality Control computer (quite the rage in the early 70s, BTW) that they called Syncom. It was intended to match operating parameters of the OEM drivers for the 901s but its use was extended to include most all OEM drivers that Bose used, most of which came from CTS back then.

For the computer-heads here, the Syncom computer was built on a DEC PDP platform since the good Dr. Bose and Ken Olsen , founder of DEC, were both of the same age and went to MIT.

Cheers,

David
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Once again sir you have provided us a wealth of information, very interesting.:thmbsp:
 
Bashing is pretty unusual in this forum, usual is tolerance, this is one of the main reasons why I am here.

I am owner of Bose 205, 301/II, 501/II, 601/1, 901/II, 901/III - enjoy your Bose 4000 speakers!!!
 
how to get better high notes from 4000 xl speakers - replace the tweeters with bose 501's with aluminium centre for better dispersion (luckily i found two on ebay)- short the series resistor or replace with 3-4ohm one and install a half amp inline fuse in series with tweeter for overload protection - the result - they now sound better than my 301's - deeper base and clear high notes - ' no highs no lows ...bla bla' now definitely does not apply to these speakers.
 
Advice taken...

alexfarrugia said:
how to get better high notes from 4000 xl speakers - replace the tweeters with bose 501's with aluminium centre for better dispersion (luckily i found two on ebay)- short the series resistor or replace with 3-4ohm one and install a half amp inline fuse in series with tweeter for overload protection - the result - they now sound better than my 301's - deeper base and clear high notes - ' no highs no lows ...bla bla' now definitely does not apply to these speakers.
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Im'na take up that mod! I have these speakers too...(not xl) running on a 7.1 Onkyo ... Im using the surround back channels to power a set of Klipsh SB 2's parked on top of the 4000's. Tthe Klipsch set are carrying the mids and highs and the Bose the lows for the back side of my room. BUT...I like the mod...I was considering putting a round horn in but unsure of the frequency range of the "mid" , and now reading the lame crossover setup. But the mods you recommend are easy and cheap eneough...beats buying crossovers and cutting holes...LOL But Im still gonna re-veneer with good wood and fix up....not for re-sale just for me so keeping original is not even a consideration.

Cheers. Dusty
 
I bought a pair of the 3000 XLs for $15 today at the yard sale.
Unfortunately I didn't realize that the sub woofer surroundings are toast.

Would it be worth it to replace the surroundings?

I'm not sure how much time/money it would take.

Maybe this is a topic for a different thread.

Any advice?
 
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I have an old pair of interaudio sa 200s with 6" woofers that I've refused to part with for the same reasons, great bass and impressive for their size. They look just like yours only smaller. I'm still trying to figure out how to upload pictures.
 
moodkil2 said:
I have an old pair of interaudio sa 200s with 6" woofers that I've refused to part with for the same reasons, great bass and impressive for their size. They look just like yours only smaller. I'm still trying to figure out how to upload pictures.
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Your sub surroundings are fringing/rotting/torn/gone?
 
interaudio 4000

i have tried different dome tweeters of up to 97db spl but still did not get a balanced sound as the tweeters were too insensitive. These speakers were born with highly sensitive cone tweeters but i did get a decent improvement when i replaced them with the bose 501 tweeters (aluminium in cone centre)





MoparMan said:
I'm sure the back of the woofers are generic and plain looking like most Bose drivers I've seen. Although the front of them do look pretty impressive. Some of the best drivers I've heard look really generic... I'll take a woofer out and peek later today. I think with a good silk dome tweeter that could be crossed over low enough, these would be really great speakers within their limits. The cone tweeters sound way better than expected but are just naturally beamy. Thanks for all the replies (and no Bose bashing). I've be guilty of plenty of Bose bashing myself in the past. Now I have to eat my words!
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bose 4000 xl

well good luck then - I hope you will find the 501 al tweeters and i guarantee the 4000 will sound better than the bose 301's...deeper base and rich high notes. cheers alex

DustyD said:
Im'na take up that mod! I have these speakers too...(not xl) running on a 7.1 Onkyo ... Im using the surround back channels to power a set of Klipsh SB 2's parked on top of the 4000's. Tthe Klipsch set are carrying the mids and highs and the Bose the lows for the back side of my room. BUT...I like the mod...I was considering putting a round horn in but unsure of the frequency range of the "mid" , and now reading the lame crossover setup. But the mods you recommend are easy and cheap eneough...beats buying crossovers and cutting holes...LOL But Im still gonna re-veneer with good wood and fix up....not for re-sale just for me so keeping original is not even a consideration.

Cheers. Dusty
Click to expand...
 
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