The Start of an Audio Revolution
Bose
In The
1960s
The Start of an Audio Revolution
Dr. Bose's innovative research transformed the audio industry.
The 60s were a time of significant cultural change. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones took the world by storm, NASA launched the first successful mission to Mars, civil rights and counterculture movements shaped the zeitgeist, and recorded sound was experienced through vinyl records or the radio.The audio industry was in its infancy, rife with problems to be solved. All it needed was someone diligent enough to dream.
The company’s first office at 17 Erie Drive in Natick, Massachusetts.
In 1964, Amar Bose founds Bose Corporation. The company’s first office was located in the East Natick Industrial Park. In the early days, there were two full-time employees — Sherwin Greenblatt and Tom Froeschle. Both men had been at MIT with Dr. Bose. By day, Bose Corporation handles contract work for the Military, NASA, and other governmental agencies. Dr. Bose teaches at MIT, goes home for dinner, takes a short nap, and then joins his colleagues to work in the tiny office space in Natick at night.
1960s
A Teaching Career Begins
Dr. Bose teaching at MIT. | Sherwin Greenblatt, first employee Dr. Amar G. Bose. | Tom Froeschle, second employee.
Shortly after graduating with his PhD, Dr. Bose becomes a professor at MIT… almost by accident. He has no idea how it happened, and he has no desire to teach. In fact, he had been determined to stay away from teaching because he was concerned that it would interfere with his ability to do research. Bose reluctantly decided to give teaching a try for two years and then return full time to research. He ended up teaching at MIT for almost 45 years.
1966
The 2201: Bose’s First Consumer Product
Patent drawing for the 2201. | Cover of the 2201 user manual. | Manual drawing showing speaker placement in a room.
Bose launches the Bose 2201, named as such because of its 22 transducers. The loudspeaker is unconventional, but a technical tour de force, and a commercial failure. The speaker’s key design flaw is that in order to work properly, it requires two empty corners in the listening room — something that few consumers are willing to accommodate. Less than 50 speakers are ever built, all by hand.
“The 2201 was based on an extraordinary set of psychoacoustic experiments that Dr. Bose and
his team conducted over a 12-year span at MIT. They set a multiplicity of transducers on an
eighth of a sphere. When they put that sphere into the corner of a room, it would approximate a
full sphere, because of the images created by the walls and the floor of the room. So they tested
this sphere and found that it was psychoacoustically indistinguishable from a perfect pulsating
sphere, which was thought to be the ideal loudspeaker source. So we wanted to make a product
out of it. Who wouldn’t?”
Sherwin Greenblatt — Bose President 1985-2001, Retired
One of the first Bose Research Engineers
1966
Psychoacoustics Research at Tanglewood
Dr. Bose conducted experiments while he Boston Symphony Orchestra were playing. Dr. Bose constructed "Morgan," a dummy head with microphones where an audience member's ears would be, which he placed in the audience, recording what the dummy "heard."
Priority number one? Research. Always. Inspired by a disappointing hi-fi experience, Dr. Bose and the team go to Tanglewood to work on a better way to record instruments with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They make binaural recordings of the orchestra using two microphones in the ear of a specialized mannequin to approximate the way sound is experienced by an audience member. They then compare the sound reproduced binaurally through the headphones with a monauralized signal play through the same headphones. Their findings eventually lead to the revolutionary Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting loudspeaker.
1968
Revolutionary 901 Speaker Changes How People Listen to Music
Dr. Bose with the 901.
The Bose 901 speaker system launches, featuring innovative technology that uses a combination of direct and reflected sound to create a more lifelike audio experience. Based on extensive research, the 901 speaker wins immediate acclaim for its extraordinary ability to more closely approximate the essence and emotional impact of a live concert. A new focus on product demonstration at retail helps to propel the speaker to becoming a major commercial success. The 901 Speaker establishes Bose as a significant player in the audio equipment industry.
“What made the 901 so different was that the sound was not aimed at you, but away from you, toward the walls. It was then reflected by the wall, which provided this very large sound stage. The first time I listened to the 901, it blew me away. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’d never heard anything like this before. Before, I’d always heard these two boxes in front of me, with the vsound trapped between the two boxes. Suddenly, it was like the sound extended beyond the size of the room.”
John Wawrzonek
Bose Research Engineer, Retired
