How to connect old 901 Bose equilizer to amp/receiver

If you plan to use them with a home theater, you will need a seperate amplifier, as most a/v receivers don't have tape monitors. With an integrated amp hook rec out to the input on eq hook output on eq to playback on tape mon. with seperates hook pre amp out to input on eq, output on eq to power amp input.

The use of 901's in any digital AV receiver setup for anything EXCEPT STEREO listening through the 901's alone requires you to have a separate amplifier for them and to avoid having to use a Tape Monitor.

That is because if you activate any Tape Monitor circuit at all, you will kill any digital sources. That is a function of AV receivers in general, nothing to do with 901's. However, you can still draw the Front Left and Right signals out of any Pre-Out (with a Y-cable set, looping the Pre Out directly back to the Main In) or Tape Out jacks (remembering to NEVER activate that monitor on the receiver), go into the Active EQ's Amplifier Connections; then Out of the EQ's Amplifier Connection to a separate amp and attach the 901's to that amp. This way you won't introduce proprietary and potentially damaging Active Equalization back into anything in the AV Receiver with its conventional speakers.

Get yourself a nice separate amp, draw the Front L&R pre-out signals from wherever you can find them. On many, there is a pre-amp out for every channel in case you want to run external amps for any channels. That is how my old Pioneer VSX-36TX is equipped. For others, you may have to borrow the signals from a typical Tape- or Adapter-Out RCA pair. Just remember, AV receivers disable digital inputs as soon as you switch in a Tape Monitor, so choose one you won't have to switch IN. The signal Out is always there regardless of the monitor state.

The AV Receiver can still drive the Center, Surrounds and the Sub(s) as it is designed. This is how mine is wired.

Come to think of it, you could still have conventional Front L&R speakers on the AV Receiver, but why? Maybe one would prefer the 901's for music and some other speakers for surround. Level matching with the 901's to conventional front speakers would only be possible if the separate amp has its own volume, but it would work. Maybe I'll try it someday. None of my current amps has volume.