Bose 201

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Bose 201

Postby msmpe » Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:29 pm

Just picked up a pair of Bose 201 Series II 6" 2-way- used cheap. Hooked em up to my workshop Marantz 2216 and A-B'd them with my cobbled 6" 2-ways. Definetely better lower octaves: base refelex vs sealed, also a better woofer generally. Cabinet volumse similar. Tweeter is concentric with the woofer - but not very good. I put a decent Vifa tweeter in my cobbled jobs which would account for the better upper octaves. So I took out the cobbled 6"ers and put in a set of small upper octaves speakers from a home theater set and the combo is pretty good. Now I can cobble some more... (lol)
8>) Mike

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Postby EWBrown » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:21 pm

I have a pair of 201s which I "inherited" after my Dad's passing last year. Still haven't yet tried them on tube amps, they sound fairly good for TV sound with a solid-sand "AV" receiver. Probably not going to be first place winners in the dB/W/M SPL efficiency horserace, however... :/

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Postby EWBrown » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:22 pm

I have a pair of 201s which I "inherited" after my Dad's passing last year. Still haven't yet tried them with tube amps, though they sound fairly good for TV / DVD sound with a solid-sand "AV" receiver. Probably not going to be first place winners in the dB/W/M SPL efficiency horserace, however... :/

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Bose 201s

Postby msmpe » Thu Jun 23, 2011 10:32 pm

Hi Ed,

The 201s compared very similar with my cobbled 6" 2-ways which were originally "rated" 91dB. I expected them to be less efficient also, but not so. Of course a dB difference at 1/10W means they could be a bunch of dB less at 1W.

What I need to do is pull the woofer out and check the crossovers, I'll bet the caps are crap which may be what's affecting the highs. :/

I'll try them with the 7695 SE I'm working on - dubbed "WeZen", for reasons to be explained when/if it works. I doubt WeZen will have a strong bass as the OPT are small. So, could be good match with the 201s which are strong on bass - I think because it appears to have a relatively large bass reflex port - kind of like the vintage style where the port area was close to the same area as the woofer.

Let me know if you try yours out.

Cheers
8>) Mike

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Bose 201

Postby msmpe » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:54 pm

Hi Ed,

I pulled out my breadbox amp which is a 6V6 SE triode strapped and hooked up the 201s. Worked very well, good bass, no real loss of volume even though I only have about a half watt.
8>) Mike

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Postby EWBrown » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:48 am

I guess I'll have to unpack them and try them out - -they have been sealed up in a hefty shipping box for nearly a year and a half.

As I recall they sounded pretty good on a sand "AV" receiver" which Dad used with his TV and DVD.

Bose uses a lot of "psycho-acoustic" magical techniques and trickery to make their speakers, headphones and especially the small table top redios and AV receiver/speaker systems sound a lot better than they probably really are.

I have a former co-worker friend who comes from the Ukraine, who is an engineer there, and he is as happy as a kid in a candy store there [:)

Bose has come a LONG way from the early days of those wretchedly bad sounding Bose 901s and 501s...

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Bose 201 Surprise

Postby msmpe » Sat Jul 30, 2011 2:45 pm

I've been playing these alot, but not with the Marantz 2216. I inherited an old Sharp 30wpc transistor integrated amp. The Bose worked essentially the same with the Sharp as with the Marantz - same o' same o'.

But I've been bread boarding a 1626 amp and used one of the Bose as the test speaker. I was pleasantly surprised. Of course getting the 1626 BB amp to sound good took quite a few iterations on the VA. But finally got a good sounding amp! That with the Bose!

Good bass, articulate and strong - almost like I had the loudness switch ON on the Sharp. And that is using the P-T31 OPT from AES - I've gotten acceptable bass out of that OPT with other low watt SETs. The surprise was the HF, much better than with either of the tranistor amps! Why I don't know...
(???)

I also A-B'ed the Bose with my big 8" ESS which are around 90+dB/W. The Bose are less efficient - by about 20 degrees on the volume control I used for the BB1626 - which is a linear taper.

Conclusion - the Bose 201s are OK, don't pay much for a pair, they'er good for smaller spaces, probably better with a PP amp than a SE, and not too good with SS (if that matters).
8>) Mike

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Bose 201

Postby msmpe » Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:24 pm

Final blog on the Bose 201s. I pulled the woofers to check the xover. Single cap, 3.7uF, and 3ohm resistor to pad the tweeter. All seemed to be OK, so I left them as is. The enclosure is stuffed with dacron (?) batt - not the best. I did add a 1/2 inch flat of foam to the bottom of the enclosure opposite the batt.

Originally I thought the tweeter was concentric in the woofer VC, but not so. It is mounted in the appendage to the woofer enclosure. It fires backwards at an angle and is about a 1.75" diameter cone. At first I thought of just wacking off the tweeter appendages, bolting the two units together and using it as a stereo subwoofer.

Then I decided to put them in my "listening room". Actually it is my home office, but the speakers and my chair are well placed. The Bose are a left and right pair, and per the labels meant to fire the tweeters out... Well that might work in a larger listening room, but in my smaller room, I swapped them left for right so the tweeters fire to the center. Slight loss of staging, but better mid/hi-ranges.

Played a variety of music plus my "needs good system to sound good" discs. Well, I like them! :$ My old speakers were small and lacked in the lower register, but the Bose make my little amp bigger than it is. :)) These Bose are also a little more efficient, as the (linear) volume control is not up as high giving me a little more head room for my low power 6BM8 SE triode strapped amp.
8>) Mike

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Postby EWBrown » Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:46 pm

If the tweeter cap is one of the non-polarized electrolytics, then an improvement would be to replace it with a film capacitor of equivalent value, if you don't have the exact 3.7 uF value, 3.9 uF is more than close enough (within 5%) or you could parallel 1.0 and 2.7 uF (100V caps are fine) .

Solens or some "old stock" caps would be a good choice, I wouldn't go into debtor-prison hock for fancy "boutique" caps here, that would be like putting $1000 tires on a Ford Pinto :))

The dacron filling is pretty good. If you need some in an "emergency" , the fish tank "fiber filter" stuff is essentially the same thing, and any pet shop, or even walmart, should have it, for pretty cheap. Either case, it is a lot better to work with, than the old-school itchy scratchy fiberglass wool filling (666)

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Re: Bose 201 Surprise

Postby jhonbrown » Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:44 am

msmpe wrote:I've been playing these alot, but not with the Marantz 2216.


I think you should with Marantz 2216.
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