Boston Acoustics Micro90 (1996–1997)
A satellite that fits in the palm of your hand - and, according to the reviewers who mattered, beat every other small-satellite home theater system they'd heard.
Overview
The Micro90 showed up just as home theater was splitting into two camps: people with a dedicated room, and people with a living room, a spouse, and a budget. Boston Acoustics built the Micro90 for the second group. The satellite is a die-cast aluminum housing that the company's own literature describes as small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. The aluminum enclosure is the engineering argument. A rigid metal box turns the drivers' energy into acoustic output instead of cabinet vibration, which is the problem that makes most tiny plastic satellites sound tinny and strained.
The tweeter is an anodized aluminum dome with AMD. Boston's documentation credits it with handling a lot of power while reproducing highs with virtually zero distortion. Each satellite sits on a swivel-mount pedestal, so shelf or wall mounting is easy. That counts for a lot when you're installing five speakers in a room.
The bass comes from a powered subwoofer built around an 8-inch DCD bass unit driven by a clean 75-watt amplifier. Boston's own comparison charts from late 1996 put that 8-inch/75-watt combination up against a Cambridge SoundWorks system with a 12-inch woofer and 140 watts, a Polk setup with a 10-inch and 125 watts, and a Klipsch system with a 6.5-inch and 50 watts. The Micro90 system was listed at $1,399 in that same chart, in the middle of the pack: above the $1,299 Cambridge SoundWorks package, below the $1,499 Polk setup. Buyers wanted to know whether the smaller woofer gave up anything in the low end. The period press apparently said no.
What sets the Micro90 apart from the dozens of forgettable satellite packages of the mid-nineties is the reception. Audio (October 1997, p.23) carried the verdict that the Micro90t system was, by a wide and clearly audible margin, the best small-satellite home theater speaker system the reviewer had ever heard. Boston's own advertising pointed out that this reviewer listened to literally hundreds of home theater speakers each year. Boston then printed the quote everywhere. The line turns up in Audio (October 1997, p.23), again in HiFi-Stereo (September 1997, p.33) and in HiFi-Stereo (January 1998, p.33), usually right above the "Micro Reference - Big theater sound from small, sculpted satellites" tagline. Those appearances are Boston's advertising quoting a real review.
The system was sold as the Micro90t package: two Micro90 satellites, a sonically matched Micro90 center channel, the powered subwoofer, and a pair of VRS Micro diffuse-field surrounds available separately. Boston also offered direct-field surrounds as an alternative to the diffuse-field VRS Micro. The choice was between a more pinpoint rear image and the more enveloping, room-filling presentation that diffuse surrounds are designed to produce. The center channel is tonally matched to the satellites.
The Micro90 is interesting to a modern collector for the same reason it was in 1997. The satellites are small, the subwoofer is modest, and the whole system was engineered to disappear into a room. That's the opposite of what most vintage audio collecting rewards. Nobody buys a Micro90 for imposing towers. They buy it because a five-piece system that fits on bookshelves and still delivers a coherent surround field is useful, and because the aluminum satellites have held up better than the plastic alternatives that sat next to them on dealer shelves. The die-cast housings don't yellow, don't craze, and don't flex.
Inspect the subwoofer carefully on a used example. A 75-watt amplifier from the mid-nineties is old enough that the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply are past their prime. Powered subs of this era commonly need a recap or an amp-board service before they deliver the tight, deep bass the original documentation promised. The 8-inch DCD driver itself is generally sound, but foam surrounds of this vintage should be checked for deterioration before purchase. A refoam is straightforward, and it's leverage on price. The satellites are the low-risk part: aluminum enclosures, anodized tweeters, and swivel pedestals that either work or don't.
Complete systems with the center channel and the VRS Micro surrounds are more desirable than a pair of satellites alone, since the center is tonally matched and hard to replace with a generic substitute. Buyers should confirm which surround variant is included. The diffuse-field VRS Micro and the direct-field alternative suit different rooms and different tastes, and the diffuse version matches the system's original intent. Documentation is thin on production dates beyond the 1996 and 1997 window in which the system was advertised and reviewed. Dating a specific example means looking at the serial plate and the connector style rather than any published timeline.
It is not a system for someone chasing scale or dynamics at reference levels. It suits someone who wants a small, coherent surround package that a reviewer with no stake in the outcome once called the best of its kind, and who is willing to spend an afternoon with a soldering iron on a twenty-five-year-old subwoofer amp.
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