Bose 301 Series II speakers any good?

pglbook

I just picked up a nice pair of Bose 301 Series II speakers locally for $30 (with stands!).

I know Bose speakers do not get a lot of love on here and I also have not been a fan of the few Bose speakers I have heard over the years but I figured $30 was nothing to risk to check them out and see how they sound. I read somewhere that older Bose are better than the more recent ones.

Does anyone know the Bose 301 Series II? How are they?

I listened to them at the Seller's house through a vintage Pioneer receiver and they work fine and sounded decent but I won't be able to hook them up to do any critical listening to until this weekend at the earliest and I am curious what people think of them.

Thanks.

Conradicles

Some years ago I had some in the garage...they were fine for background music but not something you would want for a real 2-channel system.

I am not a Bose hater like some. I actually like them for certain applications.

Conradicles

For $30 that is a great deal.

Schurkey

I got a pair of 201s that my wife's aunt gave to us when she "upgraded" to some crappy mass-market rack system. These guys are O-L-D.

I thought at the time that the 201s she was getting rid of sounded better than the new speakers that came with the rack system; and those speakers were four or five times the size of these. But some folks just have to have "new", and old is bad even when it's better than "new".

The 201s are entirely pleasant speakers, used in a secondary system. I'm not saying they're adequate for critical listening.

I'd expect the 301s to be better, with similar "pleasantness", but also unsuitable for intensive listening.

cnh

$30? That's a good price. And I agree with everyone above; nothing wrong with that series for general listening purposes. Should sound OK. But vintage Polk Monitors will sound "better"!

Enjoy!

cnh

pitdogg2

Just make sure all surround foam is good and intact or 30.00 becomes 75.00 quickly

mhardy6647

The 301s are, I'd opine, the best sounding loudspeakers Bose has made to date, and the first couple of "Series", arguably, were the best of those.

One thing that many Bose speakers do - and the 301 and even their little brothers, the 201 are particularly good about - is 'getting the midrange right'.

I'd argue that even if the surrounds are shot, it could still be a good deal; the surrounds are easy to replace and there are a few suppliers who sell generic surrounds of perfectly decent quality very inexpensively. I usually get 'em from MAT Electronics; the only problem with MAT is they have a minimum order, so they're not a good source if you're just buying two surrounds... but if you have an excuse to stock up, they're perfect. Last time I bought some 8" surrounds from MAT, they were about 3 bucks a pop.

Here's an EPI 110C with a MAT surround installed on its 8" woofer, FWIW:

pitdogg2

Not to argue Mark but I'd have to say it was the .2 series(6.2-10.2) that had some of the better sound also. Nothing fantastic but respectable none the less. Orange county speakers is another place for foam surrounds dealt with them a bunch nice guys. IF they are shot give westmassguy a shout he'd most likely have some on the spot..

Devlon

For 30.00 they're awesome! However, I have owned in quads the 301's, 201's, and the 141's, Interestingly the 141's were the least expensive and sounded the best IMHO. I got 5 of the 141's on Ebay for 100.00. Myself, and others that hear them could not figure out why Bose discontinued these. Then a year later they re-introduced them. But enjoy! For 30.00 you made a great investment!

westmassguy

Thanks pit. The 301s are actually decent. You should have a front and rear firing tweeter. The cabinets are marked left and right, so make sure they're setup properly. Make sure they have breathing room, for the rear firing tweeter to bounce the sound off the wall. The 8" woofer should be inspected carefully. If they haven't been re-foamed, they'll be due very soon. Don't expect anything lower than 40-45 Hz, or higher than 17 KHz. They have 1st order crossovers, and either Mylar or NP Electrolytics. The may or may not have a fuse lamp for tweeter protection.

mhardy6647

Entirely possible - I don't know if I ever heard any of them (although I do remember them).

A couple of pairs of 301s floated through over the years (from my erstwhile favorite local emporium, of course) - they were great starter speakers for, e.g., kids going to college.

I kept a pair of 201 series III for some while - I think I finally gave 'em away; I didn't move 'em...

pitdogg2

You're welcome Dave I didn't want to be chided again for leaving you out of the loop

westmassguy

No worries, was just busting your chops pit.
My humor has been described as "parched"

oldrocker

$30.00, can't go wrong with that, I have a newer set I use in the garage, works good enough out there.

pitdogg2

westmassguy wrote: »

No worries, was just busting your chops pit.
My humor has been described as "parched"

reverse chop bustin here my friend....I only worry when I know I have a big ticket item coming and the wife is in the dark:eek: So next Wednesday I will be very worried not really I'm fearless.

westmassguy

pitdogg2 wrote: »

reverse chop bustin here my friend....I only worry when I know I have a big ticket item coming and the wife is in the dark:eek: So next Wednesday I will be very worried not really I'm fearless.

More Toys?

pglbook

Thanks for all the information.

The first thing I did prior to buying them was to check the surrounds and they are all fine so thankefully I won't have to deal with re-foaming the surrounds.

I am glad to hear that they are some of the better Bose speakers and should be decent-sounding. They sounded pretty good to me in the few minutes I heard them at Seller's house.

I knew that these would never replace my Polk Monitor 7s or Monitor 10s (the Polks ARE great-sounding speakers) in my secondary system. But, for $30, I figured it was worth it to check them out and, if they sounded ok, to throw them in my bookshop with a vintage receiver and use them there for a while.

They are atually pretty cool-looking little speakers and the Seller included stands with them. I do not know if the stands are original or not (they are smaller black metal stands with carpet spikes on the bottom) but that was a nice bonus.

Thanks again for all of the input. Club Polk rocks!

leftwinger57

Mark for $20 and 4 surrounds I thought the 601s I had were great. Yes they were sunbleached like driftwood but after cleaning them up the house really rocked with those. I had the Adcom so power was not an issue and unlike the quirkey 901s placement was an easy proposition. Saying the 301s are better than the 601s series 1 I would have to dissagree to a point. The switch on back of the 601 allowed you to either bounce the sound literally off the walls or put the switch in normal for a front and up firing speaker. No eq. needed and you have to read the book just once for an easy set-up. Not so for the 901s where there were more no corner mounting and all sorts of other restrictions which was a huge drawback. All totaled $20, $40 for surrounds, sandpaper and OIde English after owning them for a good 8 months or so I flipped them on C/L for $175

westmassguy

leftwinger57 wrote: »

Mark for $20 and 4 surrounds I thought the 601s I had were great. Yes they were sunbleached like driftwood but after cleaning them up the house really rocked with those. I had the Adcom so power was not an issue and unlike the quirkey 901s placement was an easy proposition. Saying the 301s are better than the 601s series 1 I would have to dissagree to a point. The switch on back of the 601 allowed you to either bounce the sound literally off the walls or put the switch in normal for a front and up firing speaker. No eq. needed and you have to read the book just once for an easy set-up. Not so for the 901s where there were more no corner mounting and all sorts of other restrictions which was a huge drawback. All totaled $20, $40 for surrounds, sandpaper and OIde English after owning them for a good 8 months or so I flipped them on C/L for $175

The original 601s, 77'/78' were possibly the best speakers Bose ever produced, aside from the original and Series II 901s.

pitdogg2

westmassguy wrote: »

The original 601s, 77'/78' were possibly the best speakers Bose ever produced.

heck yes those were very nice for the time. I never understood why they never came with better tweeters. My Bose must of bought them by the gross as they seem to be the same tweeter for EVERY speaker he built. 2" paper tweeters never did it for me. 10yrs ago a good friends why had 501's from day one when they came out called Bose to seek guidance on repairing them. Bose CS told him to ship them in and they would take care of him. They did and also sent out a set of the newer 501's to boot no cash out of hand except for shipping to Bose Corp.....Lets just say he's Bose for life now:( but I was also amazed at the generosity of Bose.

westmassguy

pitdogg2 wrote: »

heck yes those were very nice for the time. I never understood why they never came with better tweeters. My Bose must of bought them by the gross as they seem to be the same tweeter for EVERY speaker he built. 2" paper tweeters never did it for me. 10yrs ago a good friends why had 501's from day one when they came out called Bose to seek guidance on repairing them. Bose CS told him to ship them in and they would take care of him. They did and also sent out a set of the newer 501's to boot no cash out of hand except for shipping to Bose Corp.....Lets just say he's Bose for life now:( but I was also amazed at the generosity of Bose.

That paper cone tweeter is still used on the 301s. I owned several pairs of the original 601s, and contemplated changing the tweeters with some nice Vifa textile domes, but got into Polks, so the 601s were sold.

mhardy6647

Nothing wrong with a well executed paper cone tweeter.

DaveHo

At one time I also had a pair of 301 Series II's. Picked them up at a yard sale for $30 just to see what they were all about. Played around with them for a couple weeks then sold 'em. While they were not horrible, they weren't good enough to replace anything else I had at the time. They seem to go for stupid amounts of money on eBay.

westmassguy

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with a well executed paper cone tweeter.

True, but they do "Beam" more than a Textile Dome

mhardy6647

Several cone tweeters over the years have cheated by using very protuberant :-) dustcaps to augment HF extension and dispersion --- Henry Kloss, e.g., took this approach at KLH and, later, at CSW.

The venerable Peerless 2" AlNiCo cone tweeter - used in many loudspeakers over the years, some of which were quite expensive (ahem, McIntosh, ahem) is a good sounding driver, full stop.

... there's more to life than dispersion, too.

westmassguy

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Several cone tweeters over the years have cheated by using very protuberant :-) dustcaps to augment HF extension and dispersion --- Henry Kloss, e.g., took this approach at KLH and, later, at CSW.

The venerable Peerless 2" AlNiCo cone tweeter - used in many loudspeakers over the years, some of which were quite expensive (ahem, McIntosh, ahem) is a good sounding driver, full stop.

... there's more to life than dispersion, too.

The key word is "cheat". Henry added a large convex dust cap to emulate a dome.
I've never heard the macs, so can't comment. SDAs would never work with a typical paper cone. You can't toe-in an SDA.

mhardy6647

I chose my words carefully :-)

I don't disagree at all - although I am not much of a fan of the SDAs... they're OK, but gimmicky. Not my cup of tea, is all.
(... but would I mind having a nice pair? heck, no!)

EDIT: I believe Dick Sequerra used the Peerless cones in his speakers when the former were still available; he's still using a cone driver AFAIK -- no idea whose, though.

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2007/09/the_pleasures_o.php

That said, I likes me a well implemented dome, too (Peerless did OK in that venue, as well...)

westmassguy

SDAs aren't for everyone. I happen to love mine for 2 channel and HT. I also love my Series II 901s too, so go figure.
To the OP, sorry for going off on a tangent with your thread.

mhardy6647

:-)

Actually, I'd opine that we haven't pulled this thread all that far off topic at all! One thing about Bose, at least in their early decades, they took pains to "get the midrange" right - and that gets one a long ways towards good loudspeakers for music reproduction. The aforementioned 901s, of course, use extended range ("full range") drivers with electronic EQ to reproduce full-range sound. The CTS drivers used in the early 901s are excellent drivers with very good midrange reproduction.

Finally, as most here probably know, the Bose/Polk connections run very deep! Polk started out building Bose 901 knock-offs -- only switching to a different approach using "augmented extended-range drivers" when Bose 'asked' Polk to cease and desist. Given a large stockpile of the 4-1/2" CTS drivers, the result was the Polk Audio Model Nine. :-)

westmassguy

The only Bose 901 knock-off I'm aware of, was by Linear Design Labs AKA LDL. They were sued, and stopped making them. The original drivers were off the shelf, made by CTS, and Rola, and available to anyone. Series II drivers were custom made for Bose by Rola and CTS. The Series II were improved with slightly heavier voice coils, and New Zealand Pulp cones, which gave them greater power handling and improved high frequency response.

mhardy6647

westmassguy wrote: »

The only Bose 901 knock-off I'm aware of, was by Linear Design Labs AKA LDL. They were sued, and stopped making them. The original drivers were off the shelf, made by CTS, and Rola, and available to anyone. Series II drivers were custom made for Bose by Rola and CTS. The Series II were improved with slightly heavier voice coils, and New Zealand Pulp cones, which gave them greater power handling and improved high frequency response.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?19965-virgin-post-Early-Polk-history-question&p=195919&viewfull=1#post195919

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?25734-Model-Nine&p=460691&viewfull=1#post460691

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?50681-looking-for-chronology-etc.-Polk-Model-9-vs.-9A&highlight=model (see my question and the response from Polk in post 2)

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?123228-The-Polk-Audio-Monitor-Series-Model-9-and-Model-9A&highlight=bozos