Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Well if you want inner ear bone crushing mids you got it.

throw an 18 under it, some 1inch comp driver and a horn on top, tri amp the whole thing and you could break a few fingers.

Back when those came out there was a saying, "No highs, no lows, must be BOSE." Interestingly, like Timo, I have also heard a bass player in a jazz band use one for his rig and it sounded wonderful. Great sounding factory car stereos also.
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Back when those came out there was a saying, "No highs, no lows, must be BOSE."

That phrase came to be due to all the ones being run without the EQ box -including the 901 home stereo speaker that was the original bose home audio product.
I do remember as a brat, running 2 of them per side as a mid boxes with an emilar 1" bowtie horn piled on top and some cerwin-vega bass-bins under them. It worked, gave a good vocal sound and were easy to schlep.
So they weren't entirely useless :)
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

My circa-1980 rig was two pairs of 820/II w/processor over a pair of 4 ohm Cerwin Vega folded 18's driven with two CS800's - it was respectably loud. I sometimes removed the processor and used a pair of 3xPiezo boxes over them for the louder gigs.
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

That phrase came to be due to all the ones being run without the EQ box -including the 901 home stereo speaker that was the original bose home audio product.
I do remember as a brat, running 2 of them per side as a mid boxes with an emilar 1" bowtie horn piled on top and some cerwin-vega bass-bins under them. It worked, gave a good vocal sound and were easy to schlep.
So they weren't entirely useless :)

My home hifi speakers back in the '70s were a DIY scaled up version of the 901s with 16 drivers per box. They got suitably loud, but no amount of HF EQ was going to make mid-range drivers act like tweeters. If you had enough power amp headroom the bass (using EQ) was OK for living room duty, but I ended up adding real tweeters to get the rest of the music.

JR

[edit] the Bose drivers may have had slightly better top end than the stock CTS drivers I used, but at the end of the day they are not tweeters. [/edit]
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

My home hifi speakers back in the '70s were a DIY scaled up version of the 901s with 16 drivers per box. They got suitably loud, but no amount of HF EQ was going to make mid-range drivers act like tweeters. If you had enough power amp headroom the bass (using EQ) was OK for living room duty, but I ended up adding real tweeters to get the rest of the music.

JR

[edit] the Bose drivers may have had slightly better top end than the stock CTS drivers I used, but at the end of the day they are not tweeters. [/edit]
I used to have a pair of monitors that were custom built for Roberta flak. They each had 24 of probably the same CTS drivers in a "angled baffle".

There were 3 baffles and each had 8 drivers and they were arranged so they spread out like an 802.

Sounded like crap but you could not tear them up (built like tanks). I used to use them on punk shows.
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Sounds like a "Sweet Sixteen", a Popular Electronics article from the 60's that ended up actually being quite "popular"
http://p10hifi.net/planet10/TLS/downloads/Sweet-16.pdf

My home hifi speakers back in the '70s were a DIY scaled up version of the 901s with 16 drivers per box. They got suitably loud, but no amount of HF EQ was going to make mid-range drivers act like tweeters. If you had enough power amp headroom the bass (using EQ) was OK for living room duty, but I ended up adding real tweeters to get the rest of the music.

JR

[edit] the Bose drivers may have had slightly better top end than the stock CTS drivers I used, but at the end of the day they are not tweeters. [/edit]
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Sounds like a "Sweet Sixteen", a Popular Electronics article from the 60's that ended up actually being quite "popular"
http://p10hifi.net/planet10/TLS/downloads/Sweet-16.pdf

Yup, I remember that. It is no accident that the 901 had 9 drivers, the sweet 16, 16, and a friend of mine back then made his own version with 25 drivers. Even squares can be wired to deliver the same impedance as the single driver. So three parallel strings of 3 drivers in series makes the same 8 ohms (4 strings of 4, or 5 of 5). Later Bose tooled up their own <1 ohm driver so they could wire them in simple series.

There is some mythology (or puedo-science) associated with using a bunch of similar drivers related to acoustic gain. The marketing story about the Fender passport was that their array of similar midrange drivers was superior to other speaker approaches for the same cost. Some in the industry who should have known better actually believed it. When I was tasked with designing a competing product, I resisted drinking the kool-ade and proposed a more conventional arrangement using a woofer and tweeter. My boss didn't believe me so we built up boxes both ways and performed a shootout. My boss was heard cursing several offices away when my way won. :)

My DIY 16 driver box ended up in a dumpster eventually, but served me well playing as loud as I could stand for some 15 years. I finally replaced them with some much better sounding proper speakers.

JR
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

Yup, I remember that. It is no accident that the 901 had 9 drivers, the sweet 16, 16, and a friend of mine back then made his own version with 25 drivers. Even squares can be wired to deliver the same impedance as the single driver. So three parallel strings of 3 drivers in series makes the same 8 ohms (4 strings of 4, or 5 of 5). Later Bose tooled up their own <1 ohm driver so they could wire them in simple series.

There is some mythology (or puedo-science) associated with using a bunch of similar drivers related to acoustic gain. The marketing story about the Fender passport was that their array of similar midrange drivers was superior to other speaker approaches for the same cost. Some in the industry who should have known better actually believed it. When I was tasked with designing a competing product, I resisted drinking the kool-ade and proposed a more conventional arrangement using a woofer and tweeter. My boss didn't believe me so we built up boxes both ways and performed a shootout. My boss was heard cursing several offices away when my way won. :)

My DIY 16 driver box ended up in a dumpster eventually, but served me well playing as loud as I could stand for some 15 years. I finally replaced them with some much better sounding proper speakers.

JR

looks interesting but before my time, I was 4.

but I do remember my Grand Father having a thing for sound and " long hair " of his day.
i remember hearing it play from his one, then one day a second one was there, Bozak Concert Grand. I had no idea what it was at the time but I've heard some since. What a speaker to have a pair of in any room. Must be where I got the bug from.

Leads me to my moto, many speakers taking it easy trumps one screaming.
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

looks interesting but before my time, I was 4.

but I do remember my Grand Father having a thing for sound and " long hair " of his day.
i remember hearing it play from his one, then one day a second one was there, Bozak Concert Grand. I had no idea what it was at the time but I've heard some since. What a speaker to have a pair of in any room. Must be where I got the bug from.

Leads me to my moto, many speakers taking it easy trumps one screaming.
I had the honor of knowing and working with Rudy Bozak (RIP) on a few products (I designed 2 different rear channel delay systems for Bozak back in the '70s-80s).

I once asked Rudy why he didn't add a port to the huge "Concert Grand" cabinet and extend the LF response even lower. His answer was that it just didn't sound right on classical music.

JR
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!

I had the honor of knowing and working with Rudy Bozak (RIP) on a few products (I designed 2 different rear channel delay systems for Bozak back in the '70s-80s).

I once asked Rudy why he didn't add a port to the huge "Concert Grand" cabinet and extend the LF response even lower. His answer was that it just didn't sound right on classical music.

JR

That was the only music my Grandfather listened to. And if you were in the room while he was listening you had to be very quiet or he got pissed.

I remember them sounding very large. It was like standing where the conductor was, that sound was all around you and not drilling a hole in you from one spot. I know the number heads will be all over this but so what. They sounded great for the day. I'll bet they still sound good, with fresh cones and surrounds of course.
 
Re: Opinions on BOSE 802 Series II (2) PROFESSIONAL LOUDSPEAKER ??!!



I use four Bose 802II speakers for some of my applications. They are great for choral applications as FOH speakers using the Bose processor. I also use them as monitors for bands (classic rock, etc.). When used as band monitors I almost never have feedback issues and the bands love them.

Bose does make an 800 series III version. IMO the series II sound way better than the series III (the III's sound "tinny").

Bose gets bashed pretty regularly on the forums but used in appropriate applications they are great.

IMO: Bose 802's would not work well for teen/DJ music. Kids today just want their music LOUD.

Maybe you should look for a "used" pair of Yamaha 15's, a single (or double) 18 subwoofer, crossover, and an old Crown Macrotech 2400 amp and have at it.

Mike Monte
Hi guys not sure why you find the Bose 802 mk 2 hard work I run 2 aside on a Crown K2 amp every week at outside wedding venue with no issues don’t even bother adding Base bins any more have them contacted with normal Bose controller have digital one but the sound crap with this they are analog speakers never have to push them more than third volume this is a open area with no reverb just need the power to drive them at 4 ohms it delivers nearly 600 watts aside we normally have between 250 to 400 people at the venue
 
Hi guys not sure why you find the Bose 802 mk 2 hard work I run 2 aside on a Crown K2 amp every week at outside wedding venue with no issues don’t even bother adding Base bins any more have them contacted with normal Bose controller have digital one but the sound crap with this they are analog speakers never have to push them more than third volume this is a open area with no reverb just need the power to drive them at 4 ohms it delivers nearly 600 watts aside we normally have between 250 to 400 people at the venue
Here's your welcome wagon greeting: really, a reply to a 7 year old thread? And without punctuation to make it readable?
 
Hi guys not sure why you find the Bose 802 mk 2 hard work I run 2 aside on a Crown K2 amp every week at outside wedding venue with no issues don’t even bother adding Base bins any more have them contacted with normal Bose controller have digital one but the sound crap with this they are analog speakers never have to push them more than third volume this is a open area with no reverb just need the power to drive them at 4 ohms it delivers nearly 600 watts aside we normally have between 250 to 400 people at the venue
Poor syntax aside, I still use my 802II's with the 802C controller. I was recently booked to tech a wedding band for a tented reception during the first weekend in October. There are to be 80 guests and the mother-of-the-bride (the one writing the check) has contacted the band several times reminding them to not be loud.
I will be bringing my 802/502 rig (which I have used with this band in the past). For many years I used a K1 on the 802's (one per side) and a K2 (one per side) on the subs. This is an excellent combination.
More recently to "lighten the load" I have switched the amps out to an: XLS1502 on the 802's and XS1200 on the subs.
This also works well....
 
I had forgotten the abuse Bose 802s used to get. I had some and found them a marmite product. The only opinions are strongly fo0r or strongly against - no sitting on the fence. In 94 I had a rig with lots of flown 802s as monitors for a UK band popular at the time. No wedges on the floor, just two each of 802s, no 302 subs, at around 10-12ft. They died, regularly. We got through dozens. The band leader asked one day in the wings why we got through so many. I pointed at the amp rack - "you see all those red lights?" yes he said - "well, they should all be green!"

I liked the sound. Oddly I'm now running JBL VRX and that generates the marmite effect too!