It's the Boss
Whistle a few bars of "Radio Ethiopia". Go into a closet and repeat the performance. Go into the bathroom and do the same unless, of course, that's where you were reading when you turned to this page. Notice how the sound changes from situation to situation.
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It's the Boss
REWIRE YOURSELF
by
Richard Robinson
Whistle a few bars of "Radio Ethiopia".
Go into a closet and repeat the performance.
Go into the bathroom and do the same unless, of course, that's where you were reading when you turned to this page.
Notice how the sound changes from situation to situation. Whistle in a large room, a small room, a room with rugs, a room with tiles and each whistle produces a different audio effect.
The reason is that ears hear sound as the sound reaches them, and sound reaches ears in various fashions, specifically directly from source of sound to ear, and circuitously from source of sound to point of reflection to ear. It is this reflected sound that colors what ears hear. For instance: Most of the sound that hits ears in a concert hall is sound that has been reflected by the shell of the hall; only a portion of the total sound is direct from the players onstage to our ears.
I explain this by way of introduction to the Bose 901 Series III speaker. The job of the hi-fi system is to reproduce sound so that it duplicates the sound of the sound as it was recorded. The hi-fi speaker where this sound comes out reproduced in audible form is the point where this sound can either be "true to life" (true to the sound as recorded) or "artificial". Bose's 901 speakers are one attempt to produce a "true to life" source of sound. Over the last ten years the company has developed a speaker system that attempts to put the reflected sound of the concert hall into the sound reproduction process of the loudspeaker. In doing so, they have developed a remarkable speaker system; they have also pointed out that speaker technology is more than a box with a round hole cut out of one side where a speaker is mounted.
Attempts to produce a true sound from hi-fi systems vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Some see biamplification with panel speakers and sub-woofers as the answers, other swear by quadrophonic systems. Bose too has an answer and, as I describe it, I hope it will provoke you into first listening to a variety of speakers and speaker principles before you buy speakers and second, listening to the Bose 901 Series Ill's in particular.
Bose has been making their speaker for years now, but their latest version, the Series III, is a significant improvement from earlier models. The most obvious advance is that a 70 watt amplifier is all you need to power the speakers. Earlier Bose models required up to 250 watts of power to drive them and many of the current slew of competing speakers also like to eat up huge amounts of power—an important fact since a 70 watt amplifier is half the price of a 200 to 250 watt amp.
The basic difference between the Bose 901 and other speakers is that the Bose speakers have sound coming out of both ends. That is, one ninth of the total sound comes out of the front of the speaker directly at you (the direct sound of the instruments in the concert hall) and the other eight ninths comes out of the back of the speaker enclosure from eight speakers pointing at angles toward the wall or room corners (the reflected sound of the instruments in the concert hall). The effect is that you are surrounded by sound and it is difficult to pin-point the source of the sound. Bose also claims that the speakers provide an exceptional amount of clarity when it comes to each of the sounds reproduced and a true stereophonic panorama of sound.
Besides using reflected and direct sound to simulate "the experience of live performance sound" and nine identical speakers to produce that sound, Bose has an electronic frequency equalizer which allows the user to adjust bass and treble sound (actually, frequency emphasis) to suit both the listener's ears and the peculiarities of the room in which the speakers are being used. This has become an increasingly important concept in hi-fi, since no speaker sounds the same in two different rooms and it is often necessary to re-adjust the color of the sound to suit the listener's fancy.
Bose is one of the handful of American electronics manufacturers who have chosen the course of producing one product and improving it year by year rather than stamping out a full line of goods. The result is that their 901 Series III has some exceptional technological advances such as a cabinet core made of high-impact engineering plastic and "Reactive Air Columns" (they look like jet engines) sticking out of the back of the enclosure to reduce noise and produce tight, de^p bass sound. Bose has also developed their own speaker or "driver" which they say "results in more precise assembly, smoother frequency response, lower distortion, and decreased power requirements for the'system."
The Bose 901 Series III isn't cheap, retail price is $749.00, but neither is their competition. I suggest you listen to them next time you're at your hi-fi store (tell them you want to play with the equalizer controls too) and see what the state of the art is all about.
Okay, back to your whistling and turn the page.f^
