Bose Founder Discusses Audio Perfection and Digital Music

Amar G. Bose is a man with a mission: to replicate, as clearly as possible, the sound of live music through technology.

Playing the violin as a child tuned his ear to live music. Dismayed at the poor quality of the average audio speaker during the “hi-fi” era of the 1950s and 1960s, Bose dove into the study of psychoacoustics, or how humans perceive sound. Then, armed with a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT and a passion for classical music, he formed the Bose Corporation in 1964.

Bose’s first speaker, the 901 Direct/Reflecting system, hit the market in 1968. His patented technologies are now found in high-end speakers, headphones, automotive sound systems, large and small home systems and, most recently, computer speakers such as the Bose Computer MusicMonitor. Today, Bose is a privately held company with annual sales of $2 billion.

Etched in a wall outside Bose’s large but not ostentatious office in Framingham, Massachusetts, is an engraved quote from Maurice Maeterlinck, who won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature: “At every crossroad on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.”

Read full article (Wired, October 1, 2007)

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