BOSE 901 Series V

[Guest cksmith]

A couple of questions have arisen from a party last night, during which the cranking of James Brown's Sex Machine caused my speakers to turn into fluttering trash. In researching my Bose 901s, I've read about "fix"s with kits that replace the rubber rings with cloth. How do I know if this will work? Secondly, I ripped off the front cloth in an effort to find the screws that hold the speakers together, but couldn't find any: how do you disassemble these speakers to actually look at the woofers, because the fluttering actually seems to come with the low frequencies? I pulled the back panel off and all of the smaller speakers in the back seem to be shedding rubber, but the high sounds seem okay.

Is it a lost cause?

Any help would be so appreciated--I'm quite atatched to these speakers and would like to revive them, though James Brown at full volume is a noble way to leave this world.

Thanks.

[soundminded]

It sounds to me liket these speakers need new surrounds. Bose 901 series one and two drivers were manufactured by CTS with impregnated cloth surrounds and should last forever, well for a very long time anyway. Starting with series three, Bose manufactured their own drivers with foam surrounds. Anyone following these message boards or having any interest in vintage loudspeakers knows that many speakers manufactured with foam surrounds experienced foam rot, a normal aging process which was either unforseen or seemed so far in the distant future that they didn't worry about it. Well the future is now and so is the need to refoam your speakers. It is a somewhat arduous process which anyone can learn but it absolutely MUST be done correctly the first time or you will not get good performance and may have much more serious problems. Perhaps someone else has a good site link for how to do it properly. Each driver requires more than a dozen steps. You might consider contacting Bose's service department directly. I did with a minor problem with my series one and they offered to sell me a new series six on a trade in for half price. (I declined not wanting to trade down and made my necessary minor repair.) You can also have someone else do it professionally but it may cost you more than they are worth. You'll need to refoam all 18 drivers.