Founder of Bose dies

I am posting this, not because I like their products, but because I found his bequest interesting and the admiration mentioned for his life of being a teacher

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/obit-amar-bose-0712.html

Quite a giant in the industry and he obviously had great affection for his alma mater.

I knew a designer who studied under him at MIT. He said he absolutely disagreed with Bose's acoustic theories but never doubted the mans intelligence and technical abilities.

Most audiophiles hate him for producing products average people like the sound of, as if that's some kind of crime.

I wanted to add, a couple of years ago on eBay I saw two pair of the original Bose speakers for sale. If I had the space for them I dearly would have loved a pair as they are a strange piece of audio history. They were 1/8th spheres, with like 32 small 3 inch drivers arranged over the whole surface, with built in amps with EQ. You could put them in corners, or use two pair and make quarter spheres along a long wall. Apparently there were a lot of issues with driver reliability and just the ungainly size of the things. The 901's were what followed, and kind of took his idea and shrunk it down to a size and shape that would sell.

I know this is going to sound blasphemous, but I did hear a pair of 901s setup very well, with subs to remove the bass load from the small drivers, and these 901s sounded actually stunningly good. They had some quirks, an exaggerated image size, but then a lot of planers and dipoles do almost as much to exaggerate that. This guy obviously really spent a lot of time optimizing their room positions and EQ settings, drove them with decent separates and a lot of power with good home built subs. Goes to show you they are a lot like B&O speakers, the audiophiles poo poo them, but if you put as much effort into room positioning and such as with audiophile "approved" speakers you will get impressive results. The 901s setup like this guys were weren't perfect, but I've never heard a completely perfect speaker setup yet, and the sins were definitely liveable and listenable.

But don't get me started on the Acoustimess stuff.

Coincidently this week's daily newspaper's "lofi" section had an advert for Bose head phones that look conceptually similar to H3s ...

I do not like Bose sound ... I can usually detect it in restaurants and I know when I am not hearing it and then I look for the speakers which are usually wooden enclosures. Last year I was in a hotel which had outdoors Bose and indoors B&O and the BL4000s were clear winners.

But I do envy Bose's marketing tactics and product positioning skills. I wish B&O had been more open minded these past ~10 years

I'm no fan of BOSE speakers or equipment, but one can't argue with His success. 

bose loudspeakers 901/301 are very good loudspeakers.

 

Well, we could go on all day with our comments on the shortcomings of Bose products, real or perceived, but I for one don't feel like doing it on a thread about Dr. Bose's passing. He was a brilliant man, who built a huge and profitable empire making audio that met the needs of a lot of people, and was generous with MIT. I'm sure generations of MIT students will benefit from his largesse an concern for his school. It's a sad day as one of the giants, a huge personality in audio, has passed and there are few like him left. Gone are the Paul Klipsch, Amar Bose, Henry Kloss types and most of what replaced them were corporate groups of faceless engineers that are more or less interchangeable. We are the poorer whenever any of these men passes away.

Well said Jeff ... And not to forget the two great pioneers of Sven and Peter; and the pleasure of knowing that family of the original founders is still involved in B&O - as are no doubt many generations of the original workers in Struer ... Another good legacy.

elephant:

Well said Jeff ... And not to forget the two great pioneers of Sven and Peter; and the pleasure of knowing that family of the original founders is still involved in B&O - as are no doubt many generations of the original workers in Struer ... Another good legacy.

That is indeed true, and I hope that it will remain this way. Having both visited the factories in Struer, I'm sure you feel as me, the whole organization was very family like.

RIP Amar Bose, what a legend. I grew up listening to music on my Dad's 901s which I always thought sounded great.

and the Bose 203's are pretty special too

just connected a pair to my Beomaster 5005 amp, and what a lovely sounding combo, to my ears as good as my Penta MK1 speakers

Having worked for the company for 5 years I must say it was a sad day to hear the news. I had the pleasure to meet him first hand and share a round table luncheon with him. The values and ethics of the company are truly amazing and commendable despite how you feel on their products. The pride of the organization is nothing less than excellent as well. I'll never forget the first time I went into R&D at the mountain, it was the first time I had been in an anechoic  chamber underground. Amazing experience. 

My only Bose made equipment is the Wave Radio. Overpriced and a low quality plastic finish, but it really has a great sound from those plastic waveguides. Bought in the days when they only sold by mail order. The credit card sized remote still has its original battery despite daily use for countless years.

Graham

I've never owned a piece of Bose equipment, but did have occasion to use some of their professional aviation noise canceling headphones when I was working at the test range on one project. Had gel filled ear cushions, these were the large, aviation/helicopter pilot and crew type headsets, and they were quite frankly just amazing at cutting out engine and rotor noise. Huge improvement over the standard ear sets. These were not typical airline cabin noise environments either, standing under the rotors of an attack helicopter next to the engines is a bit more aggressive.

I use those headsets 90 hours a month at work and they are fantastic. They literally improve the working condition of the day they are so good.

Interestingly they have a mod which is a simple boom that clips onto the existing headphones used for music etc, and it turns them into an aviation headset but for half the price.

Every single pilot here that has a Bose headset, has a Bose sound dock at home.

Apart from me :-/

bayerische:

elephant:

Well said Jeff ... And not to forget the two great pioneers of Sven and Peter; and the pleasure of knowing that family of the original founders is still involved in B&O - as are no doubt many generations of the original workers in Struer ... Another good legacy.

That is indeed true, and I hope that it will remain this way. Having both visited the factories in Struer, I'm sure you feel as me, the whole organization was very family like.

I'm afraid that Tue will soon make an end to that... outsourcing more and more to low-cost countries like the Czech-republic  (It didn't save the audio range)
I'm afraid that B&O will end up with only administration in Denmark if Tue continues down this road.

Btw - I've just read an interesting article about improvement in productivity in the industry. Denmark has had the biggest improvement in productivity in Europe during the past 5 years international crisis... Some Companies are actually moving parts of their manufacturing back to Denmark...

Hello, Tue...