Sound Engineer and Entrepreneur Amar Bose Dead At 83 129
countach44 writes with the news that Amar Bose, founder of the electronics company that bears his name, has died at age 83. "Dr. Bose founded Bose Corporation almost 50 years ago with a set of guiding principles centered on research and innovation. That focus has never changed, and never will," said Bob Maresca, president of Bose Corporation. "Bose Corporation will remain privately held, and stay true to Dr. Bose's ideals. We are as committed to this as he was to us. Today and every day going forward, our hearts are with Dr. Bose; and we will do everything we can to make him proud of the company he built." The slideshow that accompanies the MIT posting shows some of his sound-related inventions over the years.
took his class at MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
Long time ago (Acoustics). It was by far the best class I took as a grad student. He genuinely was not only a great engineer but a great teacher. He showed he movie Stand By Me to the class, and hosted the entire class to a tour of Bose. Most importantly, he was the only professor to really stress that common principles in engineering (lumped parameter model) exist throughout multiple domains, whether electrical, mechanical, or acoustic.
I really hated my experience at MIT for the most part, but his class was one of the few bright moments and I would like to think I am a better engineer because of him.
Re:took his class at MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
The two notable things (other than the quality of teaching) about his class: infinite time is given to take exams (exams started at 7pm and a teaching assistant would stay until the last student left - the record during my tenure was 5:00am, or so I heard) and he provide free Tosci's ice cream during the exam.
During the Bose factory tours, he showed off Project Sound [thecarconnection.com] a decade before it was revealed to the press. And inevitably a student would challenge some of the concepts the Bose company popularized (direct/reflecting, lack of tone controls, etc) and Dr. Bose would gently, but convincingly slap down the student using a blizzard of engineering arguments (rumor has it that Ken Kantor was the only student that could successfully go toe-to-toe with Dr. Bose).
RIP Dr. Bose.
The man was an engineer (Score:5, Interesting)
The man was an engineer and a good one at that. It's a shame his company was centred around art. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I have a Bang and Olufsen system here for the simple reason that it sounds ok but looks damn spectacular. The biggest problem with Bose the company was their slogan "Better Sound Through Research." The reality is all of their designs sacrificed good sound in the name of artistic design.
Nothing really innovative has come from the company. The double cube speakers effectively ensure that the room acoustics and design completely wreak any hope of having a proper soundstage, their Accoustimass module is nothing more than a cheap papercone subwoofer which is horn loaded and again prioritises being small over producing good bass, and they seem to be the last to the market with these sound bars which they are trying to sell these days.
They do have a great set of noise cancelling headphones. They do a better job than any other I have worn. It's just a shame their sound isn't up to scratch and their cost is insane (I can get a set of Sennheiser Reference series headphones for cheaper, and I did).
None the less Bose the person and his company have done great things. I credit the popularity of his products to the change in style in sound equipment over the past 10 years. HiFi's used to be something we'd hide in cupboards, heat permitting, yet they have now become the centrepiece of many living rooms.
Re:Eh (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yay, all of the audiophiles will be squirming out of the woodwork on this one :D
I really like my triport headphones, and despite having a bunch of other gear, the little Companion II speakers keep migrating around the house after my wife's laptop or one of the tablets. Now I didn't pay actual money for them, I got them both from trading in rewards points on credit cards or from work or crap like that back before I figured out how to redeem them for gift cards or something more liquid. But they are noticeably better than most of the other junk headphones / earbuds / speakers I have. I can pick out more details in my music, and bass seldom hits the weary resonant monotone drone that comes out of most other speakers I've played with.
The headphones are comfortable since they cup your skull around your earlobes. The speakers are relatively compact for the sound that comes out of them and have 2 sets of RCA inputs. They start to sound a bit muddy when you turn them all the way up, but we never really need to.
Yes, Bose crap is probably overpriced, but it certainly seems as if some science and engineering and testing went into them, compared to other crap.
Yeah, I'm not an audiophile. And I don't really want to become one either.
Re:took his class at MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:took his class at MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
The two notable things (other than the quality of teaching) about his class: infinite time is given to take exams (exams started at 7pm and a teaching assistant would stay until the last student left - the record during my tenure was 5:00am, or so I heard) and he provide free Tosci's ice cream during the exam.
During the Bose factory tours, he showed off Project Sound [thecarconnection.com] a decade before it was revealed to the press. And inevitably a student would challenge some of the concepts the Bose company popularized (direct/reflecting, lack of tone controls, etc) and Dr. Bose would gently, but convincingly slap down the student using a blizzard of engineering arguments (rumor has it that Ken Kantor was the only student that could successfully go toe-to-toe with Dr. Bose).
RIP Dr. Bose.
I'm not going to argue with you on how intelligent or unintelligent Dr. Bose was (undoubtedly he was pretty smart).
Unfortunately, the products of his company are overpriced shite.
Bose makes marketing agreements with their retail partners. Notice how Bose has its own exclusive section in any retail electronics store? That's because it's so good, right? Nope, that's because it's part of the agreement Bose reaches with the big box stores like Best Buy in order to limit the customers' ability to compare other equipment with Bose. Bose understood early on that a combination of clever marketing and a slick exterior form-factor would allow the company to charge significantly more than their competitors in the home-theater market.
Re:took his class at MIT (Score:2, Interesting)
Bose understood early on that a combination of clever marketing and a slick exterior form-factor would allow the company to charge significantly more than their competitors in the home-theater market.
Bose understood that men often want a nice sound system but their wives don't want big hulking speakers in their living room. Bose offers a compromise: a decent (ok, that is questionable too) sound system in a package the wife will accept. They figured out that they could charge big time for that last part.
They have a new wave TV. The sound quality is obviously not nearly as good as real speakers but it has one A++ benefit: no external speakers. That makes it an easy sell to a wife. And it's still better than using normal TV speakers.
I'm not a Bose defender, usually, but their products do have a market--people don't buy them just because they think they are best.
Re:RIP(-off artists) (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me the poor reputation is because they charge near-audiophile prices for cheap mass-market gear. You don't see companies like Panasonic getting a bad reputation this way, because they don't do this: they sell cheap mass-market gear, at cheap mass-market prices. It's hard to fault someone for paying low-end prices for a low-end product, as that might be all they can afford, and a lot of mass-market stuff really isn't that bad these days (it has a lot of "bang for your buck").
It's like paying Aston-Martin prices for a Ford. Car snobs who own Ferraris aren't going to bash people for buying a Kia or a Ford Fiesta, because they know not everyone can afford a Ferrari like them. But if someone somehow convinced a bunch of people to pay Ferrari prices for a car no better than a Fiesta, a lot of people would be bashing that company for that.
Their aviation (pilot) headphones are great (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never been a fan of Bose home audio equipment: the whole mall-store marketing schtick and, well, um, the actual sound, were enough to put me off.
But they launched the first practical and useful noise-cancelling pilot headphones to the civilian population in 1998, after almost 10 years of military sales, and they quickly dominated the market, even at the then-lofty price of $999. They just plain worked, and worked well. Other manufacturers followed, and sometimes beat Bose's performance in later years, usually at about half the price, but there's no denying that they did pioneering, real audio engineering work in this space.
They were also smart in offering a "panel install" of their proprietary connector into aircraft. If you've owned an aircraft, you'll know that installing anything permamently is (a) expensive and (b) requires a pile of paperwork and (c) you'll never rip it out. The connector eliminated the need for the little battery pack you had to carry around, and provided additional lock-in. Clever. Sucky, but clever.
The Wave radio that "fills the room with sound" on the other hand. Meh.
Re:Eh (Score:3, Interesting)