Another industry pioneer passes

  Amar Bose died July 12th at 83. He founded the Bose Corporation, and made his billion-dollar fortune transforming the experience of listening to music by attempting to bring concert hall-quality audio into people’s living rooms. Say what you may about him, he was a brilliant man and a marketing genius.

   I say "attempting" because probably no company has been more discriminated against by purist audiophiles and naysayers, some of them who might even admit to owning a Wave radio. I will admit my own mother has one and would never part with it. It is on probably ten hours a day, tuned to the local classical station. 

His earlier products made a splash in my selling days, and the competition (The Sound Chamber) knew how to demonstrate them. 901s in a room by themselves, no A/B comparisons, and their huge over-equalised sound with great slamming bass practically loaded them in customers trunks themselves! The 301, 501, and 601s followed, still reflecting a large portion of the sound but a more conventional design that did not require an equaliser.

 Interesting tidbit- he had a 14-year battle with Consumers Union, the group that publishes Consumer Reports, over a bad  review of his model 901 speaker that he felt was based on bad science. Bose Corporation became the first company to beat CU in court, but the decision was reversed on appeal. Bose then took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.Over the years Bose Corporation earned a reputation as an aggressive litigator; other targets included JBL, Infinity Systems, Thiel Audio , and the CEDIA organisation. 

       

                                                                         901

                                                                       301



                                            
                                                                         501

601

Bose based his speaker technology on the premise that 80 per cent of the sound in a concert hall reaches listeners indirectly, bouncing off walls and ceilings. 

He  founded his company in 1964. Twenty years later it launched the Wave Radio, which produced a big, rich bass sound from only two tiny speakers.

                                                                     Wave Radio

   Later came the Wave music system, a larger version, attempting to simply peoples lives with no wires.

                                                                    Wave Music System

  Bose also has a professional sound reinforcement division, of which the 802 was one of their first products.

                                     

                                                                            802

Enrolling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, Bose earned three degrees in Electrical Engineering, including a doctorate. In 1956, invited to join the teaching staff, he accepted with the intention of staying for two years at most. In the event he remained a faculty member until 2001.

In the late 1970s, having established his reputation with audio speakers for home systems, He became intrigued by the challenge of making the inside of a car sound as good as the experience of listening at home. By 2010, Bose technology is in eight out of every 10 new cars offering  premium sound systems (including my own Cadillac CTS).

Bose’s decision to keep the company off the stock market allowed him and his workforce to focus 100% on long-term R&D projects without interference or questions about commercial viability.