Bose is well known for making great products with a high build quality and great sound. The research that has gone into the Bose 201v is apparant at first listen. Bose borrows technology from their higher ranking 501-series and this speaker sees the benefits of Bose's Direct/Reflect design technology which allows your sound to be adjusted in very dynamic ways by re-orienting the speaker instead of moving it somewhere else in the room. The design also has a feature that nearly eliminates "port noise", which is often easy to hear in small and bookshelf speakers when excessive bass or high volumes are played through ported speakers. Bose also uses a bigger stereo dispersion tweeter at 2-inches compared with JBL's 3/4-inch tweeter. This allows the Bose 201v to more accurately recreate the midrange in medium to loud levels at the tweeter level instead of at the woofer level, which means that you'll get more bass and depth at medium to loud volumes than the JBL will.

The JBL ARENA is a great monitor and addition to reinforce sound that is already in place. Some excellent uses are as a nearfield computer, studio, or home theater monitor. JBL's ARENA, unlike the Bose 201v is magnetically shielded which allows for more positioning options and can reduce the "signal clutter" of a room by reducing interference caused by the magnet in the speaker. The JBL ARENA also sports more power handling ability than the Bose 201v with 10 more watts of continuous power handling and a peak rating that is 160-watts higher, which is significant for home theater owners since those systems are more likely to encounter sound passages that can go from quiet to extremely loud very quickly.

In selecting a speaker, the primary consideration is it's intended use. The Bose 201v is a great sounding all purpose speaker with a nice and functional design and great build quality, it has multi purpose use and can be used as the main speakers in a small to medium room and in a home theater room, that is as long as the speakers are not close to a monitor, TV or any other sensitive electronic items. The JBL ARENA offers more flexibility in its use and placement but comes as a trade for sound quality at medium-high and high volume levels. The better function for the JBL ARENA is for close reference listening and surround support.