Bose sub

Hay has anyone used a non bose sub with A set of 802 loud speaker?I need to move some air around but they what over a 1000 dollars for 1 502 bose sub.

Hi Wayne,

I’ll give you a proper answer.

In the mid 80’s I brought a complete Bose system second hand for my mobile disco, here in the UK. This was made up of two pairs of 802’s, two 502 sub’s, and the system controller. At the time, compared to every thing else on the market at the time, they sound fantastic – Smooth with good dispersion and good bass.

For those that diss the 802’s, they must be used with the system controller. This basically boosts the bass and top and has a low cut filter so that they aren’t driven below their lowest frequency (around 60Hz?). Without the controller, yes they sound {censored}!

By the early 90’s I was doing 99.9% nightclub work, and decided to sell most of my mobile gear, such as the lights and the speaker system. But I decided to keep back one of the pairs of 802’s and controller as they sounded so good, even without the sub’s. (They buyer of the other pair and sub’s already had a controller.)

The only problem is that without the sub’s, the bass boost of the controller eats into the head room on the amp. Combined with their low efficiency, it makes it hard to get any real volume without a sub. So on the occasional mobile gig I did (about once a year) I would hire a couple of subs. So over the past decade I have used a lot of different subs with them. Some had built in passive crossovers. With others I would hire an active crossover and amp.

All of them have sounded good, and most of them have sounded better than I remember the 505 sub’s sounding. I don’t think that the 502 sub’s actually went any deeper than the 802’s. (They were just more efficient at the low end, so the controller didn’t have to boost the bass so much, giving more headroom for higher volume.)

Nowadays I’m doing around 10 mobile gigs a year, so 6 moths ago I decided to buy my own subs. I took my 802’s round many dealers and tried them with a few different subs.

I ended buying Martin Audio ICS300 subs. They are flat down to 40Hz, and usable down to 35Hz. (I think the 502’s are flat to around 60Hz.) They have 100dB/W/M efficiency compared with around 96dB/W/M on the 502’s, but handle about the same power. Best of all they are just under half the size of the 502’s and cost a lot less. (As factory re-coned units they cost me £600 (around $850) for the pair. Martin Audio are a UK manufacturer, so they would probably be less competitive for you in the States. I also remember being impressed with the Cerwin Vega subs, but can’t remember which model now.

Although the Bose were good in the 80’s, speaker design has moved on since then and if buying new today would go for something else. But I wouldn’t find anything better than my 802’s for their present second hand value. Also after over 15 years and over 1000 gigs they work as well as they ever did.

Cheers,

Rob

I found the old Bose owner's manual today. It reminded me that the subs I had were 302's - not 502's.

Out of interest the sensitivity are:

802's:

99dB (1W/1M 300Hz-3KHz)

92dB (1W/1M 50Hz-16KHz)

302 sub's

96dB (1W/1M 55Hz-180Hz)

He's got it.