I was looking on another forum and someone put wood glue on their 901's paper cones and said it made them sound a lot better.
http://www.avguide.com/forums/new-break-through-bose-901-owners-wow

jdmccall56 wrote:

In my basement man-cave, which admittedly has been a difficult room to get satisfactory sound in, I have had klipschorns and B&W 703's.  My 901's blow them both right out of the room.  Not even close.  I also have a pair of RBH MC6CT's in the adjoining family room, which happens to be an easy room to get good sound in.  Although I haven't A/B'd the speakers directly against each other in the same room, when I listen to the RBH speakers (Onkyo A9555 amp and DX7555 CD player) in the family room, and then immediately listen to the same music in the man-cave on the 901's (Adcom GFA-5500 amp, NAD C165 pre, Pioneer Elite DV47 DVD player), the Bose rig makes the RBH sound like a good boom box.  The 901's simply sound more like live music and less like hi-fi.  Music sounds life-sized and packs a visceral wallop most affordable systems lack.  And the bass is nothing short of amazing, particularly in light of the 901's relatively small size and price.  This experience is why I get so tired of all the Bose-bashing.  I'm not saying they make the best speakers in the world, but if you want life-like sound, not necessarily studio monitor sound, and you prefer smaller, affordable speakers, Bose is hard to beat, imo.

I also have an opinion about why you don't see much pro-Bose talk on the internet forums, too.  This thread, for example.  The OP just asked about a new version of the 901, and it immediately turned into a Bose-bashing festival.  I think most of us soon learn to keep our heads down.  Me, I'm just a glutton for punishment.

 

I agree these 901's do sound very life-like.

I done some changes to my 901's since I first got them awhile back. I did do the glue tweak on the speaker cones and I also did the wood stain tweak on the speaker cones too.

I started by taking some very fine sandpaper and going round all the paper cones so the Elmer's carpenter wood glue would stick to the paper cones a lot better. I put very thin coat of glue around each paper cone with a very small art brush. You have to be very careful not get any glue on the cloth surrounds and the plastic dust caps. I let dry good for 48 hours before playing any music. I waited about three months before doing the wood stain tweak to the speaker cones. I used some Minwax wood stain for this tweak. With this tweak I put the wood stain around all the paper cones and I also put on the plastic dust caps and I also put it on the back side of the speakers and the voice coils wires too. I let this dry good for 48 hours before playing any music. Now this took over a year for the speakers to loosen up good and sound better. I then fine tuned the speakers to get the sound to suit my taste better. It took another three coats of wood stain on the front side only of the speaker cones and plastic dust caps before I really loved the sound. These speakers sound nothing like they did before and I found they sound best turned around backwards now. I will never replace these speakers for the rest of my life if they last that long. I almost forgot they sound better without those speaker binding posts too.

Catch22 wrote:

"These speakers sound nothing like they did before and I found they sound best turned around backwards..."

You know how some say these 901's have no highs or lows, well you can't say that about the 901's I have now. Before I did these tweaks to my 901's I did not like sound of these 901's when turned around backwards but now I just love them that way. Now I have the latest 901's series 6 mk2's and these 901's have different speaker cones and they now have plastic dust caps and they went back to using cloth surrounds again. I have no idea what the older series 901's would sound like with these tweaks because they are so different from these new 901's.

Catch22 wrote:

You have to admit, that's a funny statement to make about a loudspeaker. It just cracked me up, that's all.

It is kind of funny when you think about it like that but these 901's sound much better with these tweaks and turned around backwards with most of the speaker drivers facing you. When most the speaker drivers were facing the walls they were not nearly as enjoyable. You could not do that before I did these tweaks to my 901's, they sounded very bad that way but now I can and I'm really enjoying these 901's turned around backwards now.