The mysterious, elusive, and admittedly obsessive Dr. Amar Bose, founder and namesake of the Bose Corporation, made a rare appearance Tuesday to a select group of journalists. The occasion was the launch of their new Bose Computer MusicMonitor speakers, but the real treat was hearing the good doctor dish out secrets about the history of Bose, why they almost went bankrupt, and why they never, ever publish specifications for any of their products. As he put it, he spoke to us about “things never discussed outside the company, things that only people involved in the beginning know.”
Some of the words may be paraphrased a bit (I wrote this quickly as he spoke), and I cut out some of the fat, but for the most part, the following is straight from the mouth of Dr. Bose.
THE ORIGIN STORY: AN OBSESSION IS BORN
“I was doing my doctorate at M.I.T. I was a disciplined student. I only allowed myself to listen to classical music. Then I started writing pieces and I didn’t need as much concentration, so I thought I could go out and buy a HiFi sound system.
I went and checked the specifications. Like all engineers, I thought specifications meant everything. I believed that thoroughly. I had been brainwashed for years…
His story continues after the jump…
I went to Radioshack. There were only two of them around at the time. I wasn’t interested in listening. I thought specifications were dominant, so I bought the system with the best specifications. I brought the system home to my room. I brought records home and I never was able to play more than three or four minutes of a record to the people there. I looked at the faces around at me as I played it, especially those who studied opera, and they had their own reactions. Oh my god it was embarassing! Something had gone wrong!
I went back to Radioshack and returned the system. I could hardly finish writing my doctorate thesis on mathematician Norbert Weiner.
Skipping ahead a little bit. I decided I woud like to test loudspeakers in our chamber. At that time, I had no interest in acoustics. My field was a different field at the time. But this became a problem that began to obsess me: How could something measure so well and not sound good?
I made a relationship with the Vice President of Radioshack. I said: “Look. At M.I.T. We would like to test different speakers. Could I make an arrangement with you where I borrow different speakers and test them and you can have the results?”
Anyway, much to my shock, none of the loudspeakers had close to what was published. College kids today think that industry is big and bad and money is the only thing that counts. I’m afraid that may be true. I thought it was just industry that was causing all these problems. So I began to contact people in the industry, and asked why the measurements weren’t the same as what was published. I got back a statement saying the measuring was wrong….
So then the question was: What to do? I realized specifications A) weren’t correct as printed, and B) if you met them, the sound wasn’t improved.
I brought students and asked them which speakers they thought were best. Then I brought in the same students six months later, and found the results were totally random, and not the same. So I figured we needed to bring in musicians. So we brought in musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We found the same thing: The results were random.
That really threw us back. We just about bailed on research. If you can’t have musicians know which sound was better than another sound, how can you design a system? If a person can’t tell, what can you do? So we launched an enormous program at M.I.T., and slowly learned more about it.
A COMPANY IS BORN
The company was formed in 1964. There were problems dealing with different spaces and different rooms. In the first Bose product, for the first time there was active equalization. Back then, the speaker was a sacred thing: You didn’t mess with the sound before it entered the loudspeaker.
When we came out with our first speaker, the 901, we lost the first president of the company, a longtime friend of mine. He said: You ‘re going to introduce this thing, I don’t care if it’s better than anything on the the market. Nobody is going to buy this. It’s got no woofer, no tweeters. Just full range loudspekaers. He said he would leave if we released it, and he did.
When we launched that one it caused quite a stir in the industry because it had no woofers and no tweeters and worse yet, eight of the those full-range drivers were facing back agains the wall, with one facing forward. Imagine this in a community of people who still believe in measurements. They didn’t know how to measure it. They measured it in a chamber with a microphone in front, so 80 percent of the sound went away from the microphone!
BANKRUPTCY
It had some really interesting reviews. One magazine in the United States, a really credible magazine, had one reviewer named Norman Eisenburg who really knew his music. In those days I used to take the loudspeaker to the reviewer. I packed my son and loudspeaker in the car and went off. I put this little thing on top of the big speakers he had, turned it on, and within five minutes he said: “I don’t care if this is made of green cheese, it’s the best sound, most accurate sound, I’ve ever heard.”
He came out with a review titled “Surround and Conquer.” He was not known to do things like that. Everybody in the press knew he knew music, and it resulted in rave reviews one after another, and we were able to survive.
Then came one devastating review from a leading magazine. [WRITERS NOTE: He is likely referring to Consumer REports]. I’m talking 1960s, 1970s. It claimed that the Bose loudspekaer, the 901, caused violins to wander about the living room, and said a few other devastating things… They said it was outperformed by a $27.50 Japanese speaker sold at Radioshack. They said if you must buy this Bose speaker, buy the little Japanese speaker and use it as a tweeter.
So that bankrupted us. [Writer's note: I just got a note from Bose PR informing me that they never, in fact, went bankrupt. Either Dr. Bose misspoke or I misheard him.]
We had 37 people at the time. I gathered them in one room and said: “If we don’t do anything, it will probably kill us. But if we do something, we have no credibility since we’re just a small company and we can’t do anything against this.” I said I think we oughtta do something. I wanted a vote. It was unanimous in favor of taking action. Little did we know it would take 14 years to go through the legal process. The first federal court we won. The appelate level we lost. The Supreme Court level vote was 5-4 against us, but said in there that everything stated in the magazine about the product was false. However, freedom of speech protects that.
However, in that process of 14 years, as troublesome and many headaches as it generated, we made it known to the public that this thing was going on. That they should come hear the product and see the sound ‘wander’ through the room. A judge asked “Where did the violins wander to?” Said: “Right over the wall and over the ceilling?” The judge was an Italian judge and he really knew music. That might have contributed to winning the first level of the case.
BACKLASH
We went through all that and finally put the speaker, the 901, on the market. Then bumped into another problem. If I hadn’t been so naïve about what goes on in business, I would have expected this. There were five companies that were major in the speaker business at the time. They had a meeting to figure out: What can we do to stop Bose? We know this because later on we hired a person who was very bright person who was hired by the companies and sent to this meeting.
As a result of the meeting, they come out with a white paper on the Bose 901 and what was wrong with it. Out of the five companies, in the first year we got four of the papers. The fifth one was so liable that the rep held onto the paper while reading it to dealers. We never got it, but got the content from dealers.
These are all things that, for an academic person, were shocking. I thought: “I brought top notch engineers into the company and I brought them into a sewer.”
WHY THEY NEVER PUBLISH SPECS
I decided on a philosophy at the time. We would cut out specifications because of two reasons. We decided to make each product that came out superior to what was out at the time. If it was superior, the public would appreciate it. That’s why we don’t give any measurements on any product today.
There are two reasons we cut out the specifications:
1) We don’t know of any measurements that actually determine anything about a product, and 2) Measurements are phony, in general, as they are printed.
Right, and by having retails stores and forcing customers to go in and hear the speakers you bring them one step closer to the purchase.
Interesting story, but hardly the full reasoning behind not publishing specs.
good point about spec’s but that still doesn’t explain the over the top high prices
I disagree…that was not a good point about why they don’t publish the specs. I’m not a Bose hater, and at one point actually considered purchasing a set; they can sound pretty decent in a perfectly calibrated room with ideal acoustic treatments, but in every home I’ve been to that had a Bose surround sound setup, I’ve never been impressed even after calibration.
after getting triports I stopped asking about specs. To me they sound so much better than anything that I have had (even in the same price range) that i dont care. The only spec I want to see is a Sound quality Spec. I did call up bose and ask them specs about their drivers, and they declined, much to my surprise at the time – which in turn made me get other – inferior – headphones.
No Highs, No Lows…Must be Bose.
Look Bose is like McDonald’s. McDonald’s sells the most Hamburgers. Just not the best.
Their hocuspocus with phycoacoustics is what makes people think they sound good. Get rid of the processing, and Bose has nothing.
you’re retarded.
Um on psychoacoustics…..if it makes me think it sounds good, then, it sounds good. Period. My ears don’t care what anybdy else thinks. My money is with Bose.
Your comment is psychohocus-pocus. Suppose u can invent a better speaker einstein!
I think that Dr.Bose is making a great effort in sound improvement…
The speakers sounds great in comparison of other brands…
I think that buy a Bose item is like buy a Mercedes Benz of the speakers…
Good stuff for lot money…
He will not publish some details because all we know that chinesse or japanese copy industry…
If Bose were my bussines i will do the same…
You’re 1000% in my opinion.
At the other side, I’d like to reply to another comment made 4 days before “SoundGirl” did.
“if it makes me think it sounds good, then, it sounds good. “, as long as they invent sound-modules, which manipulate us – or even if they don’t – I mean, isn’t it all the same as long as they sound good?
Man, damn – I’m just waiting for something manipulating, since I know – in that case, it’ll has to sound good, right ? Jep.
Bose is overpricing, indeed.
But, wait – aren’t there much other companies, who work 10000% the same way ?
–
For example:
Microsoft Windows 7 will be released in Autumn 2009, guess how much it costs. Got it ?
I don’t think so. It’ll be priced at $700.
You know why ? Because Microsoft thinks, their OS is worth it – I think so, indeed – but compare it to Bose.
Even if they haven’t ever constructed an own system, and even if they used an army of lawyers to get their technologies “patented”, in my opinion, it worth every of my cents, I spent in them.
Truly, I think, I’ll get called a “wannabe” or a “somewhat like a dumb newbie” by someone here – but, it’s also worth it to spread my mind.
I have a BOSE system installed in my Nissan SUV where a friend had a generic system installed in their Ford suv and let me tell you there is a substantial difference, windows up or down.
Similarly, with surround systems and their headphones; Had numerous products from competitors and had the same results. Bose produced clarity with deep rich sound.
Take my word, if you’re observant individual and you’ve used different products in the same environment in the past you’re likely to hear the difference (home,car, or elsewhere). On that note, if you think every glass of red wine taste the same, then just purchase the first item nearest the entrance or the most economic because you won’t be able to tell the difference.
E
Honey was not ment for donkeys, you live in a countrie were you can buy and return things if you had them for less then a month, take the test your selves, hear stuff like ‘dead can dance’ or ‘tool’, bands with lots of FX sounds trust your ears and you will just end up hearing things that you never heard before on songs you have heard over and over again, Bose is about a clear crisp great quality sound, not monster senceless loud, and its a matter of taste too, like you either like fender or gibson, never both. not all bose products are good but the latest ones are great! no highs no lows? put a pair of 901’s in front of what ever your high end speakers and hear what a diference these make, take them to the test. what can you loose anyway?
First, Dr. Bose was disappointed by speakers he bought from Radio Shack. Is that really a surprise? From the way this article reads, he designed a product to outperform a Radio Shack (Realistic) system. That’s setting the bar pretty low.
People have done their own assessments of the Bose cube speakers frequency response curves, and the bottom end of the acoustimass module is somewhere around 160 Hz, but, because the cubes themselves can’t get down very low, they force the acoustimass module to go up to somewhere around 320 Hz. Then, there’s a big gap between the top end of the acoustimass and the bottom end of cubes. I think it’s something around 80 Hz that are missing, and finally, the cubes top out at around 10,000 Hz.
For some perspective on these numbers: typical healthy human hearing ranges (in someone around 20 years old) from roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. So the Bose speakers don’t come close to covering the entire range of human hearing.
There are other psychoacoustic issues that are problems with Bose speakers. For instance, because the cubes can’t get down deep enough to cover most of the range of men’s voices, they leave the reproduction of men’s voices up to the acoustimass module. But, because these frequencies are as high as they are, they’re localizable, meaning that you’ll hear all the men’s voices in a movie coming from the direction of the acoustimass module.
You can find home theaters in a box that include 5.1 speakers (the .1 being the subwoofer), a DVD player, and a receiver for substantially less than a comparable Bose system, but this system will outperform the Bose system hands down.
Next time you’re at a store that sells Bose, ask to do an A/B comparison. They won’t be able to accommodate your request because Bose won’t let them put their speakers anywhere near a competitor’s product. They don’t want you to hear the difference.
Many of you may not remember the old days of sound reproduction. Radio Shack used to be an industry standard until they sold out a few times. Check out vintage stereo on Ebay. The reason people are ditching older big systems is other things become a higher priority such as space “my wife says I need to clear this stuff out” not disperaging the wife…just a fact of life sometimes. Dr Bose set a new standard in the ‘60 with the 901 technology. There is no such thing as psycoacoustics. It’s just a term for someone who wants to spend time bashing something they don’t like. The design of the 901s re-creates the musical imagery of a live performance. Not all instruments send sound directly toward the listener. If that was true then someone goofed with the french horn. Dr. Bose’ comments are based on the 901 development only. If you don’t like them, dont buy them. Don’t insult others because they were born with different ears. THe fact is, no matter what anyone else says negatively about Bose, if people didnt think they sounded good, they would have been bankrupt a long time ago. I have 2 sets of 901s and a 901 Spatial Control Receiver. I can give you strong enough low thuds to make A cup boobs jiggle. I can reproduce highs to make dogs howl. But my purpose is my own for listening to them. I like them and it’s no body elses business that I do. I don’t bash other products I dont like. I just dont use them. If they are faulty, I take them back. Everyone has opinions and butts…in both cases some just produce more crap.
Amazing post. I can tell you did your research.