12 ms·

Bose founder, Amar Bose, has died at 83

368 points by jefftchan 13y ago

sunnybythesea 13y ago
His last lecture here for those interested http://video.mit.edu/watch/dr-amar-g-bose-last-lecture-of-fall-96-acoustics-course-6698/ http://video.mit.edu/watch/dr-amar-g-bose-last-lecture-of-fa...
pud 13y ago
Bose got a bad rap. In the 80's, everyone agreed Bose products were pretty but overpriced. Unfortunately that reputation stuck. These days, we all gladly pay extra for good aesthetic design (see: Apple, and almost every electronic gizmo on Kickstarter). Bose was ahead of their time.
- swinnipeg 13y ago
  Don't overlook the Braun Atelier systems. Those products are art.
- lotso 13y ago
  >all electronics, except Bose, were ugly. Except for Braun, Sony, B&O, and other high-end electronic manufacturers...
  - calinet6 13y ago
    ADS [drool]
- batbomb 13y ago
  1. Bose products in the 80s were ugly too. 2. Not all electronics were ugly in the 80s. Bang & Olufsen and Quad would completely blew Bose away as far as style.
- mrkmcknz 13y ago
  Not sure of the reputation of Bose in the US but over here in the UK 8/10 people would know Bose as a high end, high quality audio company. I'm not sure any other audio company could make such a claim in the UK. Every electronics megastore has an elegant Bose section showcasing the hardware in an Apple-esque way.
  - stonemetal 13y ago
    Same rep in the US. It is just the audiophile hipsters who can't wait to show how much they know by bashing Bose.
    - lotso 13y ago
      >It is just the audiophile hipsters who can't wait to show how much they know by bashing Bose. Are you implying that Bose headphones and speakers are a great value and quality? Otherwise you are basically trying to paint a group of people as hipsters for what is seemingly an illogical reason.
      - product50 13y ago
        Are you saying it is not?
        eikenberry 13y ago
        I would. At least not as good as their price point would indicate. In general you can get superior products for less money for most of what they sell.
        dsrguru 13y ago
        Could you please list those better quality and less expensive alternatives for my edification? :) Especially active noise-cancelling headphones that are better quality and cheaper than QuietComfort. The Audio Technica ATH-M50s mentioned in this thread look like a pretty good less expensive alternative if you don't need low-frequency cancellation, but I'd love an affordable pair of active cancellors for flights.
- rdl 13y ago
  Bose Pro Audio (where I worked for a summer at MIT) was always awesome -- we were doing audio radiosity calculations to simulate audio systems in CAD mockups of existing or planned buildings (stadiums, etc.) with various speaker placement, from arbitrary listener positions. Their speaker arrays were rugged, well engineered, etc. -- no one worries about "audiophile" stuff for venue audio or PA. They also have a great reputation for car audio, where everything is essentially custom designed to the vehicle.
  - ioquatix 13y ago
    I for one, WISH, people would worry about audiophile stuff for "venue audio or PA". Man, some of the s* setups I have heard in my time.
    - gareim 13y ago
      I wish some of these "DJs" at colleges these days understood what distortion is. And what is with the trend where volume has to always be at 100% even when you're playing in a small room? It's nuts out there.
    - rdl 13y ago
      There's a difference between "caring about sound quality" and "audiophile 0.001% improvement". The first priority of pro audio is mechanical stuff and reliability, then sufficient coverage with adequate quality, then it becomes a tradeoff of budget (and hassle) vs. improvements in audio quality. I don't think anyone would really have a problem with "normal mid-range (~$500-1000?) home system quality sound" at a sports stadium as an upper bound of quality, which is hard to achieve for every seat. (the other funny thing about the pro group is we all had sennheiser or beyerdynamic or grado headphones at our desks, and mostly stuff like Martin Logan/Paradigm/PSB/NHT/Magnepan or (for me, since I was a poor college student) a reuse (mit dumpster-diving equivalent) Klipsch La Scala from the 1970s setup at home.) Bose Aviation headsets also rock; I like the Dave Clark for the military standardness but the Bose were the first ANC I think.
      - starky 13y ago
- gamble 13y ago
  What? Bose has long been notoriously low-quality for the price. They were the Beats by Dr. Dre of the 1980s, not Apple.
  - Nav_Panel 13y ago
    So goes the old saying: "No highs? No lows? Must be Bose!" While that saying might be a tad unjustified, I find that their products are often purchased by people who don't do adequate research into other headphones that might suit them better. I often see people wearing the "QuietComfort" brand headphones in situations where they gain no benefit from active noise cancelling, although for all I know they could be heavy travelers and only own a single pair of headphones. But honestly, a comparable pair from another brand would run them $200 less...
    - snom380 13y ago
      What would you recommend as an alternative? I tried some Sony ones but the electronics added some other noise.
      - Nav_Panel 13y ago
        No clue regarding active noise cancellation. If you're okay with passive (aka, they go on your head and keep sound out just by virtue of surrounding your ear), a few popular low-cost options include the Audio Technica ATH-M50s and Sennheiser HD280Pros. Everyone in the audio world has their own opinions on this sort of stuff, but I've owned a pair of each of those and, despite their small flaws, both are decent pairs of cans. The only time you really want the active stuff is when you're traveling and there exists a lot of low-frequency noise, such as on a train or airplane. Looking around on Hydrogenaudio confirms that the QC are okay if that's all you need, and also that alternatives exist, such as IEMs, which might have a wider range of use as they simply have very heavy passive isolation.
        jordanthoms 13y ago
        I brought a pair of Sennheiser PXC-450s - they are nice in that you can turn off the noise cancellation and use them without batteries (and get a boost to the sound quality by doing so), but if you are on a plane or just have loud neighbors in the office I can turn it on and cut down on the outside noise. The cancellation itself isn't quite as good as the QuietComfort ones but it's close enough.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  With all due respect to Dr. Bose, that reputation stuck because it stayed true. To be fair though, Bose gets away with their premium cost because they fill a very important market hole in home audio: they produce top-notch products backed by good design and actual science. There are a slew of companies slinging absolute crap, and a bunch of other companies selling pseudoscientific nonsense. Audio is a very difficult field for untrained people to judge product quality on the showroom floor--and in this sense, it's somewhat different from Apple's marketing task. I don't own any Bose products, but hats off to Dr. Bose for blazing his own trail, haters be damned.
- beloch 13y ago
  Nothing epitomizes Bose so well as their minicube home-theater-in-a-box systems. Somewhat expensive. Tiny and easy to live with (I believe the audiophile term is "wife-friendly"). Not very good sound quality. Good audio requires some tradeoffs. A tiny box with tiny drivers and not a lot of power simply can't reproduce lower frequencies well. There just isn't enough cone displacement. Likewise, putting those little cubes in places that are convenient to live around rarely results in placement that makes the most of what little you have! Well placed speakers are usually in the way. These minicube systems were designed for people who consider sound quality to be of secondary importance to unobtrusiveness, and they serve that market well. Bose realized that not everyone is an audiophile. Some people want to have sound that's "good enough" without huge tower speakers placed several feet away from their walls waiting for children to tip them over. Of course, these people don't want to feel like they're compromising. If you sell them cheap cubes that are marketed as being "good enough", they'll stay away in droves! If you market those "good enough" speakers as audiophile grade and charge a proportionate amount for them, people will buy them. Even more amazingly, they'll be happy with them. Audio is one of those rare sectors in which you can actually make people more satisfied by overcharging them. Bose realized this. Prioritizing convenience over sound quality and charging premium audiophile prices for compromise-making products is something Bose does indeed have in common with Apple. Mp3's are in no way a step up in sound-quality over CD's, but mp3 players were a tremendous improvement in convenience over portable CD players. There were mp3 players before the iPod, but the iPod was the first "premium" mp3 player. The first iPod's and their crappy buds cost more than a top of the line Sony discman with some rather nice cans, and people bought them in droves! So, I agree that Apple has taken a page out of Bose's playbook, but I disagree with your statement than Bose was ahead of his time. Bose's timing was perfect and his company was wildly successful as a result.
  - imissmyjuno 13y ago
    I generally agree but the iPod argument really downplays the effort apple puts into industrial design and UX. At the time of the 3rd gen iPod and being a high school studeny I could only afford one of the few of its competitors, the HDD-powered Creative Nomad, and its infuriatingly unintuitive and inconsistent UI. I'm not even talking some kind of "attractive" UI like the rather useless cover flow view introduced later. The Nomad was literally a pain to use where a little wheel had to be rotated to scroll between the many albums. in hindsight, the clickwheel UI would've been worth more than a few extra gigs of space.
- amerika 13y ago
  Funny you compare them to Apple. Their main product of the 1980s seemed to be a compact stereo that sounded like a really good boom box, but was weak on sound quality at volume.
- tossmeup 13y ago
  That rap was accurate. Better sound through marketing and douche-baggery IP / anti-competitive behavior. Bose implementations used cheap parts and cut corners, but charged premium prices by being the original MonsterCable. Bose stifled competition and innovation with pre-existing art IP. He also dicked people around with trademark because he was an asshat. He was only one step better than a patent-troll in terms of his effects on the industry (because he actually did deliver a product). Fuck him and his Beats by Dre bullshit sucker-identifying crap. Bose was drowning start-ups in the bathtub, let alone badgering any real competition. It's an affront to HN for his death to be atop the list without him being pilloried as a pariah.
  - rallison 13y ago
    Indeed. Let's not forget that Bose sued Consumer Reports in 1971 for publishing a review that described a Bose system as one that "tended to wander about the room" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports#Bose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports#Bose
- fakeer 13y ago
  Few things I would like to add. BOSE products are actually overpriced. If there would be an overpricing scale then those will be a lot more overprices than Apple products which are themselves very much overpriced. If I take the sound quality and compare with other brands like it becomes even more pronounced. Having said that, the design aesthetic BOSE brought into its products long time ago is considered hip and innovation toady.
- steveh73 13y ago
  Bose aviation headsets are amazing.
Anechoic 13y ago
It's not well known, but Dr. Bose had a stroke a few years ago. I was an officer of a local Acoustical Society of America chapter in Boston. Dr. Bose had been awarded a plaque at the national ASA conference in the summer of 2011, but he wasn't well enough to travel to accept the reward, so we volunteered to host a reception in Cambridge to give him the award and recognize other prominent acousticians. At that point, none of us knew what had happened to prevent him from traveling (I figured he was just really busy), but we were informed shortly before the reception. When he arrived he was clearly still recovering (he had difficult walking and needed time to collect his thoughts before speaking), but he was still able to make a barn-burner of an acceptance speech. Afterwords, he took the time to speak to anyone who wanted to talk to him, including me. I know audiophiles and enthusiasts have a low opinion of Bose products and their litigation strategies (some of which I share), but I had Dr. Bose as a professor in college and he was a fantastic instructor (even without the free ice cream during tests!). Students would often challenge him based on audiophile beliefs, and he would always use sound engineering arguments to refute them. And he was the only MIT prof I have saw who regularly ate meals at the Lobdell Food Court. RIP Dr. Bose. camera-phone picture of James Barger, Dr. Bose, Christopher Jaffe and Eric Unger at the aforementioned reception: http://twitpic.com/d2amd3 http://twitpic.com/d2amd3 edit: bose.com has a memorial up: http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html
- jpdoctor 13y ago
  Well put. One addendum: > but I had Dr. Bose as a professor in college and he was a fantastic instructor Most folks knew him from the audio course. Less known was how long his history of teaching, eg his network theory book in the late sixties. That book was how I learned some of the more exotic transformations. (Most folks know parallel and series. It turns out that there are things like pi-delta/wye-delta and friends.) RIP.
  - _pmf_ 13y ago
    Do you have any links to lecture notes or the like?
    - 13y ago
mrkmcknz 13y ago
Bose.com have a pretty nice tribute running right now: http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html
savrajsingh 13y ago
Sorry to hear. One of Bose's greatest contributions may be the Bose Suspension, which (to my knowledge) hasn't been put into production yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw
- rdl 13y ago
  That's like the tank cannon stabilization system on modern MBTs, applied to an entire vehicle. Wow.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  That's amazing. Upvoted.
- OGC 13y ago
  It has been put into production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=940wGYCeQ68 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=940wGYCeQ68
  - savrajsingh 13y ago
    I hadn't seen that, very cool. Though I'm not sure this is a licensed version of the Bose system or an all-new system. It looks like the Mercedes system uses computer vision -- no mention of cameras or CV on the Bose website.
    - rgbrenner 13y ago
      right.. notice the video says "active" (not "bose active suspension").. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension And in this article, Bose says they won't license the tech: Bose is seeking a partner to help in these areas and take the product to market, but the company doesn't want to just license its technology to a suspension supplier or car company. Bose wants to stay in this business for the long term as the supplier of its system. http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/a-surprising-new-active-suspension http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/a-surprising-new-active-...
pdevr 13y ago
RIP. Are there any other faculty members (not necessarily at MIT) who have managed to start their own companies which became successful, and yet have stayed on as a faculty member? That itself seems to be a rare achievement.
- rdl 13y ago
  Ron Rivest (RSA Security) would be a great example of that, although he wasn't CEO of RSA (for long, I think).
- anusinha 13y ago
  Prof. Phil Sharp [1] received the Nobel Prize and founded Biogen, one of the earliest biotech companies. He remains on the faculty at MIT as an Institute Professor, the highest distinction awarded to MIT faculty. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Allen_Sharp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Allen_Sharp
- wheels 13y ago
  Let's see. There's one called "Y Combinator". I think they have a website, but I can't find it at the moment.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Barry Nalebuff of Honest Tea is a professor at Yale. I didn't really know anything about him or his company until I saw him speak yesterday, but both are quite impressive!
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Barry is a Professor at the Yale School of Management. He seems to be one of the few business school faculty (i.e. not a technologist) to have founded a successful product company. As opposed to a consulting company, of which there are many examples. I remember when CK Prahalad took a leave from Michigan to start Praja, but I don't think it was very successful.
- Erwin 13y ago
  MIPS was started by Stanford people including Hennessy whose CPU architecture book (Computer Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface) is famous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hennessy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hennessy -- since then he returned, and is now Stanford's president.
rb2e 13y ago
As a ex sound engineer and now self described audiophile, I deeply admire and respect Bose products. Though expensive, I loved my Bose speakers till they fell off my computer desk onto the floor. The small cube satellite design with the sub on the floor, filled the room considering there such small size. They were good enough for me to mix and master with for my friends projects. RIP Dr. Bose
- nawitus 13y ago
  Nobody in audio respects Bose products, though. They're overpriced and low-quality.
  - LaunoRagnheiour 13y ago
    What about the sound engineer you just replied to?
    - tossmeup 13y ago
      Being a sound engineer doesn't mean you have good ears or produce good work, etc. It means someone is paying you to do a job. I post on HN because I'm a founder. I've founded 3 companies. None of which lasted more than 2 years. I use BIC ballpoint pens. Their clear plastic never failed me.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - LaunoRagnheiour 13y ago
        If you're going to argue by appeal to an unnamed authority like "everyone" it's just as easy to refute your argument using the inverse appeal. So basically all your words are meaningless.
    - nawitus 13y ago
      Well, the 'sound engineer' should take a look at some frequency response charts.
curiousDog 13y ago
"In 2011, to fulfill his lifelong dream to support MIT education, Dr. Bose gave to MIT the majority of the stock of Bose Corporation in the form of nonvoting shares. Under the terms of the gift, dividends from those shares will be used by MIT to sustain and advance MIT’s education and research mission. MIT cannot sell its Bose shares, and does not participate in the management or governance of the company." Wow. Respect.
robg 13y ago
Never took venture capital or IPO'd; gave his company to MIT.
b1daly 13y ago
He obviously was a tremendous achiever, but the current Bose products I have heard are terrible sounding. The signal processing they add to create the "spacy"effect destroys the mix, the balances of the instruments, the placement, it's all lost in a hazy phase fog of sound. I don't get it. To my ear, even many of the cheap desktop systems from companies like Logictech sound better. If you're looking for decent sound at a low price, there are many low cost powered studio monitors that sound pretty good, like these from M-Audio: http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=studiomonitors http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=studi... I don't think they are good as professional monitors, but for everyday listening pretty damn nice.
AlexPandian 13y ago
Bell, Morse, Land, Kurzweil, Bose, ... the list of Boston associated inventors is never ending. Then again Polaroid or Bose corporation can't compete with the limelight of the web world. Most audiophiles buy stuff very few people have heard off, and Bose products themselves are on the fence of trying to be audiophile, yet popular ... a tricky space to be in.
deadreturns 13y ago
Goodbye old man, you made shitty overpriced products.
- jellyfish 13y ago
  Exactly, his company’s tactics go directly against the ‘making the world a better place’ hacker ethos.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Bose does not have a monopoly, yet people willingly pay for their stuff. Not everyone need observe your definition of "better place."
    - Pavan_ 13y ago
      Agreed, Bose always make good products and all awesome product comes with a price tag.
paul9290 13y ago
Any audiophiles here know if we'll ever witness Bose or Sonos type speakers(sound) built into our mobile devices? Full disclosure - We created a web app that plays audio in sync across multiple Internet devices (http://SpeakerBlast.com http://SpeakerBlast.com) & are curious about the advances being made in this field. Could our IP devices used alone or in harmony ever produce the same sound quality of a Bose or Sonos speaker?
tapsboy 13y ago
The Bose trio is an inspiration to many in India 1) Jagadish Chandra Bose 2) Satyendra Nath Bose 3) Amar Bose
- niels_olson 13y ago
  Now, see, that's a useful comment. I learned!
- swatkat 13y ago
  Subhas Chandra Bose too; albeit not in sci/tech context.
pvdm 13y ago
He was an inspiring speaker but I avoided his company's products. Due to no fault of his own, the company that bears his name turned into a marketing driven company rather than engineering driven.
rblion 13y ago
My name is Amar too. A sad day for innovators named Amar. Shine On buddy, thank you for the contributions to audio technology that has enriched millions of lives. :)
cmbaus 13y ago
I'm glad to see this article at the top of Hacker News. It is easy to not realize how big audio was in consumer electronics all the way up until the early 80s. Many of the great engineers of their day worked in audio, and I find myself continually attracted to their creations. Many who work in software today, may have been building amplifiers and speakers in the 60s.
chiph 13y ago
I had a set of Bose 901 speakers in the 1980s. They were a really innovative design, and certainly not "wife-friendly" with their requirement that the wall behind them be a certain size and distance away. It had 8 smaller drivers facing towards the wall, angled to reflect off it and produce a more ambient sound. And one driver facing towards the listener to provide the direct sound needed for vocals. The speakers (heavy, heavy speakers, btw) had an earlier version of their waveguide technology, which channeled the back pressure of all the small drivers and combined them to provide the bass that a larger driver would have produced. In order to correct some of the bad behavior of the small drivers & enclosure, there was an external electronics box that you inserted between your preamp and amp, or in a tape loop if you had a receiver (it had pass-thru capability) to get the speakers to sound right. Once DSPs became affordable, they changed over to them, instead of the analog components the series of 901 that I had used. I think I paid $1300 at the military exchange for the pair, and the (essentially required) Bose stands were another $200 or so. Which was a lot of money at the time (CD players were still $500). But I had bragging rights until I got written-up by playing them too loudly. The 901s definitely preferred a high-current amp -- I used a Hafler 200 watt MOSFET amp. A Sony integrated-circuit based receiver went into shutdown trying to drive them.
aarondf 13y ago
I remember being blown away by Bose active suspension, and wondering why Bose was doing it. Seems like a Google play in a way: make a bunch of money in one area (audio/ads) and do awesome stuff in another (active suspension / cars, glass). Video of active suspension: http://youtu.be/q8sVDenpPOE http://youtu.be/q8sVDenpPOE Incredible company. He'll be missed.
bzelip 13y ago
damn, i loved my dad's 380ZX soundsystem. its what turned me onto hi fidelity. neat to know it was named after someone and that he went to MIT. peace
jpswade 13y ago
This is a great loss, a man that I only recently learned about through reading "Autobiography of a Yogi", which mentions his great achievement as an eastern scientist, breaking out into a western world. I hope Hacker News black lines today out of respect for this man.
peterarmstrong 13y ago
Wow, someone dies and there's so much negativity about headphones. -- I should leave it there, but since everyone is talking about headphones, I'll play too... I love the QuietComfort headphones. This is true, even though they are expensive and I've broken a number of them. They are simple, so my bluetooth Sennheiser headset remains on the shelf. They are light and comfortable: I often wear them for 12 hours in a day. They have good sound. They have contributed to so many coding and writing zones over the past ten years I've lost count. They're probably the single most important productivity tool I own. They don't leak sound (unlike open headphones -- I had a pair of really great Sennheiser headphones that made my cubicle neighbours crazy years ago, as Portishead apparently sounds like torturing cats when listened to on open headphones). They are great for air travel. Hell, when you combine them with earplugs they even make float plane trips passable. So, thanks Dr. Bose for one of your company's products.
gprasanth 13y ago
Silence.
shiven 13y ago
Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, you will always be remembered. Thank you for the inspiration. R.I.P. A short biographical sketch: http://flic.kr/p/f8wZ6R http://flic.kr/p/f8wZ6R Another write-up: http://flic.kr/p/f8wZee http://flic.kr/p/f8wZee
tt 13y ago
His Acoustics class was arguably the best course I took at MIT. His numerous anecdotes about hard work, perseverance, and applying thought process to every challenge we face really stuck with me. The end-of-semester field trip left a long lasting impression. He made me a better person I am today. I'll really miss him.
nanospider 13y ago
Interesting that in the spirit of the usual startup discussions here on Hacker News, no one has mentioned that this is/was a single founder company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation Kudos to Dr. Bose.

368 points by jefftchan 13y ago

His last lecture here for those interested http://video.mit.edu/watch/dr-amar-g-bose-last-lecture-of-fall-96-acoustics-course-6698/ http://video.mit.edu/watch/dr-amar-g-bose-last-lecture-of-fa...

pud 13y ago

Bose got a bad rap. In the 80's, everyone agreed Bose products were pretty but overpriced. Unfortunately that reputation stuck. These days, we all gladly pay extra for good aesthetic design (see: Apple, and almost every electronic gizmo on Kickstarter). Bose was ahead of their time.

swinnipeg 13y ago
Don't overlook the Braun Atelier systems. Those products are art.
lotso 13y ago
>all electronics, except Bose, were ugly. Except for Braun, Sony, B&O, and other high-end electronic manufacturers...
- calinet6 13y ago
  ADS [drool]
batbomb 13y ago
1. Bose products in the 80s were ugly too. 2. Not all electronics were ugly in the 80s. Bang & Olufsen and Quad would completely blew Bose away as far as style.
mrkmcknz 13y ago
Not sure of the reputation of Bose in the US but over here in the UK 8/10 people would know Bose as a high end, high quality audio company. I'm not sure any other audio company could make such a claim in the UK. Every electronics megastore has an elegant Bose section showcasing the hardware in an Apple-esque way.
- stonemetal 13y ago
  Same rep in the US. It is just the audiophile hipsters who can't wait to show how much they know by bashing Bose.
  - lotso 13y ago
    >It is just the audiophile hipsters who can't wait to show how much they know by bashing Bose. Are you implying that Bose headphones and speakers are a great value and quality? Otherwise you are basically trying to paint a group of people as hipsters for what is seemingly an illogical reason.
    - product50 13y ago
      Are you saying it is not?
      - eikenberry 13y ago
        I would. At least not as good as their price point would indicate. In general you can get superior products for less money for most of what they sell.
        dsrguru 13y ago
        Could you please list those better quality and less expensive alternatives for my edification? :) Especially active noise-cancelling headphones that are better quality and cheaper than QuietComfort. The Audio Technica ATH-M50s mentioned in this thread look like a pretty good less expensive alternative if you don't need low-frequency cancellation, but I'd love an affordable pair of active cancellors for flights.
rdl 13y ago
Bose Pro Audio (where I worked for a summer at MIT) was always awesome -- we were doing audio radiosity calculations to simulate audio systems in CAD mockups of existing or planned buildings (stadiums, etc.) with various speaker placement, from arbitrary listener positions. Their speaker arrays were rugged, well engineered, etc. -- no one worries about "audiophile" stuff for venue audio or PA. They also have a great reputation for car audio, where everything is essentially custom designed to the vehicle.
- ioquatix 13y ago
  I for one, WISH, people would worry about audiophile stuff for "venue audio or PA". Man, some of the s* setups I have heard in my time.
  - gareim 13y ago
    I wish some of these "DJs" at colleges these days understood what distortion is. And what is with the trend where volume has to always be at 100% even when you're playing in a small room? It's nuts out there.
  - rdl 13y ago
    There's a difference between "caring about sound quality" and "audiophile 0.001% improvement". The first priority of pro audio is mechanical stuff and reliability, then sufficient coverage with adequate quality, then it becomes a tradeoff of budget (and hassle) vs. improvements in audio quality. I don't think anyone would really have a problem with "normal mid-range (~$500-1000?) home system quality sound" at a sports stadium as an upper bound of quality, which is hard to achieve for every seat. (the other funny thing about the pro group is we all had sennheiser or beyerdynamic or grado headphones at our desks, and mostly stuff like Martin Logan/Paradigm/PSB/NHT/Magnepan or (for me, since I was a poor college student) a reuse (mit dumpster-diving equivalent) Klipsch La Scala from the 1970s setup at home.) Bose Aviation headsets also rock; I like the Dave Clark for the military standardness but the Bose were the first ANC I think.
    - starky 13y ago
gamble 13y ago
What? Bose has long been notoriously low-quality for the price. They were the Beats by Dr. Dre of the 1980s, not Apple.
- Nav_Panel 13y ago
  So goes the old saying: "No highs? No lows? Must be Bose!" While that saying might be a tad unjustified, I find that their products are often purchased by people who don't do adequate research into other headphones that might suit them better. I often see people wearing the "QuietComfort" brand headphones in situations where they gain no benefit from active noise cancelling, although for all I know they could be heavy travelers and only own a single pair of headphones. But honestly, a comparable pair from another brand would run them $200 less...
  - snom380 13y ago
    What would you recommend as an alternative? I tried some Sony ones but the electronics added some other noise.
    - Nav_Panel 13y ago
      No clue regarding active noise cancellation. If you're okay with passive (aka, they go on your head and keep sound out just by virtue of surrounding your ear), a few popular low-cost options include the Audio Technica ATH-M50s and Sennheiser HD280Pros. Everyone in the audio world has their own opinions on this sort of stuff, but I've owned a pair of each of those and, despite their small flaws, both are decent pairs of cans. The only time you really want the active stuff is when you're traveling and there exists a lot of low-frequency noise, such as on a train or airplane. Looking around on Hydrogenaudio confirms that the QC are okay if that's all you need, and also that alternatives exist, such as IEMs, which might have a wider range of use as they simply have very heavy passive isolation.
      - jordanthoms 13y ago
        I brought a pair of Sennheiser PXC-450s - they are nice in that you can turn off the noise cancellation and use them without batteries (and get a boost to the sound quality by doing so), but if you are on a plane or just have loud neighbors in the office I can turn it on and cut down on the outside noise. The cancellation itself isn't quite as good as the QuietComfort ones but it's close enough.
acjohnson55 13y ago
With all due respect to Dr. Bose, that reputation stuck because it stayed true. To be fair though, Bose gets away with their premium cost because they fill a very important market hole in home audio: they produce top-notch products backed by good design and actual science. There are a slew of companies slinging absolute crap, and a bunch of other companies selling pseudoscientific nonsense. Audio is a very difficult field for untrained people to judge product quality on the showroom floor--and in this sense, it's somewhat different from Apple's marketing task. I don't own any Bose products, but hats off to Dr. Bose for blazing his own trail, haters be damned.
beloch 13y ago
Nothing epitomizes Bose so well as their minicube home-theater-in-a-box systems. Somewhat expensive. Tiny and easy to live with (I believe the audiophile term is "wife-friendly"). Not very good sound quality. Good audio requires some tradeoffs. A tiny box with tiny drivers and not a lot of power simply can't reproduce lower frequencies well. There just isn't enough cone displacement. Likewise, putting those little cubes in places that are convenient to live around rarely results in placement that makes the most of what little you have! Well placed speakers are usually in the way. These minicube systems were designed for people who consider sound quality to be of secondary importance to unobtrusiveness, and they serve that market well. Bose realized that not everyone is an audiophile. Some people want to have sound that's "good enough" without huge tower speakers placed several feet away from their walls waiting for children to tip them over. Of course, these people don't want to feel like they're compromising. If you sell them cheap cubes that are marketed as being "good enough", they'll stay away in droves! If you market those "good enough" speakers as audiophile grade and charge a proportionate amount for them, people will buy them. Even more amazingly, they'll be happy with them. Audio is one of those rare sectors in which you can actually make people more satisfied by overcharging them. Bose realized this. Prioritizing convenience over sound quality and charging premium audiophile prices for compromise-making products is something Bose does indeed have in common with Apple. Mp3's are in no way a step up in sound-quality over CD's, but mp3 players were a tremendous improvement in convenience over portable CD players. There were mp3 players before the iPod, but the iPod was the first "premium" mp3 player. The first iPod's and their crappy buds cost more than a top of the line Sony discman with some rather nice cans, and people bought them in droves! So, I agree that Apple has taken a page out of Bose's playbook, but I disagree with your statement than Bose was ahead of his time. Bose's timing was perfect and his company was wildly successful as a result.
- imissmyjuno 13y ago
  I generally agree but the iPod argument really downplays the effort apple puts into industrial design and UX. At the time of the 3rd gen iPod and being a high school studeny I could only afford one of the few of its competitors, the HDD-powered Creative Nomad, and its infuriatingly unintuitive and inconsistent UI. I'm not even talking some kind of "attractive" UI like the rather useless cover flow view introduced later. The Nomad was literally a pain to use where a little wheel had to be rotated to scroll between the many albums. in hindsight, the clickwheel UI would've been worth more than a few extra gigs of space.
amerika 13y ago
Funny you compare them to Apple. Their main product of the 1980s seemed to be a compact stereo that sounded like a really good boom box, but was weak on sound quality at volume.
tossmeup 13y ago
That rap was accurate. Better sound through marketing and douche-baggery IP / anti-competitive behavior. Bose implementations used cheap parts and cut corners, but charged premium prices by being the original MonsterCable. Bose stifled competition and innovation with pre-existing art IP. He also dicked people around with trademark because he was an asshat. He was only one step better than a patent-troll in terms of his effects on the industry (because he actually did deliver a product). Fuck him and his Beats by Dre bullshit sucker-identifying crap. Bose was drowning start-ups in the bathtub, let alone badgering any real competition. It's an affront to HN for his death to be atop the list without him being pilloried as a pariah.
- rallison 13y ago
  Indeed. Let's not forget that Bose sued Consumer Reports in 1971 for publishing a review that described a Bose system as one that "tended to wander about the room" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports#Bose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports#Bose
fakeer 13y ago
Few things I would like to add. BOSE products are actually overpriced. If there would be an overpricing scale then those will be a lot more overprices than Apple products which are themselves very much overpriced. If I take the sound quality and compare with other brands like it becomes even more pronounced. Having said that, the design aesthetic BOSE brought into its products long time ago is considered hip and innovation toady.
steveh73 13y ago
Bose aviation headsets are amazing.

Anechoic 13y ago

It's not well known, but Dr. Bose had a stroke a few years ago. I was an officer of a local Acoustical Society of America chapter in Boston. Dr. Bose had been awarded a plaque at the national ASA conference in the summer of 2011, but he wasn't well enough to travel to accept the reward, so we volunteered to host a reception in Cambridge to give him the award and recognize other prominent acousticians. At that point, none of us knew what had happened to prevent him from traveling (I figured he was just really busy), but we were informed shortly before the reception. When he arrived he was clearly still recovering (he had difficult walking and needed time to collect his thoughts before speaking), but he was still able to make a barn-burner of an acceptance speech. Afterwords, he took the time to speak to anyone who wanted to talk to him, including me. I know audiophiles and enthusiasts have a low opinion of Bose products and their litigation strategies (some of which I share), but I had Dr. Bose as a professor in college and he was a fantastic instructor (even without the free ice cream during tests!). Students would often challenge him based on audiophile beliefs, and he would always use sound engineering arguments to refute them. And he was the only MIT prof I have saw who regularly ate meals at the Lobdell Food Court. RIP Dr. Bose. camera-phone picture of James Barger, Dr. Bose, Christopher Jaffe and Eric Unger at the aforementioned reception: http://twitpic.com/d2amd3 http://twitpic.com/d2amd3 edit: bose.com has a memorial up: http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html

jpdoctor 13y ago
Well put. One addendum: > but I had Dr. Bose as a professor in college and he was a fantastic instructor Most folks knew him from the audio course. Less known was how long his history of teaching, eg his network theory book in the late sixties. That book was how I learned some of the more exotic transformations. (Most folks know parallel and series. It turns out that there are things like pi-delta/wye-delta and friends.) RIP.
- _pmf_ 13y ago
  Do you have any links to lecture notes or the like?
  - 13y ago

mrkmcknz 13y ago

Bose.com have a pretty nice tribute running right now: http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html http://www.bose.com/remember/index.html

savrajsingh 13y ago

Sorry to hear. One of Bose's greatest contributions may be the Bose Suspension, which (to my knowledge) hasn't been put into production yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSi6J-QK1lw

rdl 13y ago
That's like the tank cannon stabilization system on modern MBTs, applied to an entire vehicle. Wow.
Tloewald 13y ago
That's amazing. Upvoted.
OGC 13y ago
It has been put into production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=940wGYCeQ68 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=940wGYCeQ68
- savrajsingh 13y ago
  I hadn't seen that, very cool. Though I'm not sure this is a licensed version of the Bose system or an all-new system. It looks like the Mercedes system uses computer vision -- no mention of cameras or CV on the Bose website.
  - rgbrenner 13y ago
    right.. notice the video says "active" (not "bose active suspension").. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_suspension And in this article, Bose says they won't license the tech: Bose is seeking a partner to help in these areas and take the product to market, but the company doesn't want to just license its technology to a suspension supplier or car company. Bose wants to stay in this business for the long term as the supplier of its system. http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/a-surprising-new-active-suspension http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/a-surprising-new-active-...

pdevr 13y ago

RIP. Are there any other faculty members (not necessarily at MIT) who have managed to start their own companies which became successful, and yet have stayed on as a faculty member? That itself seems to be a rare achievement.

rdl 13y ago
Ron Rivest (RSA Security) would be a great example of that, although he wasn't CEO of RSA (for long, I think).
anusinha 13y ago
Prof. Phil Sharp [1] received the Nobel Prize and founded Biogen, one of the earliest biotech companies. He remains on the faculty at MIT as an Institute Professor, the highest distinction awarded to MIT faculty. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Allen_Sharp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Allen_Sharp
wheels 13y ago
Let's see. There's one called "Y Combinator". I think they have a website, but I can't find it at the moment.
acjohnson55 13y ago
Barry Nalebuff of Honest Tea is a professor at Yale. I didn't really know anything about him or his company until I saw him speak yesterday, but both are quite impressive!
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Barry is a Professor at the Yale School of Management. He seems to be one of the few business school faculty (i.e. not a technologist) to have founded a successful product company. As opposed to a consulting company, of which there are many examples. I remember when CK Prahalad took a leave from Michigan to start Praja, but I don't think it was very successful.
Erwin 13y ago
MIPS was started by Stanford people including Hennessy whose CPU architecture book (Computer Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface) is famous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hennessy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hennessy -- since then he returned, and is now Stanford's president.

rb2e 13y ago

As a ex sound engineer and now self described audiophile, I deeply admire and respect Bose products. Though expensive, I loved my Bose speakers till they fell off my computer desk onto the floor. The small cube satellite design with the sub on the floor, filled the room considering there such small size. They were good enough for me to mix and master with for my friends projects. RIP Dr. Bose

nawitus 13y ago
Nobody in audio respects Bose products, though. They're overpriced and low-quality.
- LaunoRagnheiour 13y ago
  What about the sound engineer you just replied to?
  - tossmeup 13y ago
    Being a sound engineer doesn't mean you have good ears or produce good work, etc. It means someone is paying you to do a job. I post on HN because I'm a founder. I've founded 3 companies. None of which lasted more than 2 years. I use BIC ballpoint pens. Their clear plastic never failed me.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - LaunoRagnheiour 13y ago
      If you're going to argue by appeal to an unnamed authority like "everyone" it's just as easy to refute your argument using the inverse appeal. So basically all your words are meaningless.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    Well, the 'sound engineer' should take a look at some frequency response charts.

curiousDog 13y ago

"In 2011, to fulfill his lifelong dream to support MIT education, Dr. Bose gave to MIT the majority of the stock of Bose Corporation in the form of nonvoting shares. Under the terms of the gift, dividends from those shares will be used by MIT to sustain and advance MIT’s education and research mission. MIT cannot sell its Bose shares, and does not participate in the management or governance of the company." Wow. Respect.

robg 13y ago

Never took venture capital or IPO'd; gave his company to MIT.

b1daly 13y ago

He obviously was a tremendous achiever, but the current Bose products I have heard are terrible sounding. The signal processing they add to create the "spacy"effect destroys the mix, the balances of the instruments, the placement, it's all lost in a hazy phase fog of sound. I don't get it. To my ear, even many of the cheap desktop systems from companies like Logictech sound better. If you're looking for decent sound at a low price, there are many low cost powered studio monitors that sound pretty good, like these from M-Audio: http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=studiomonitors http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=studi... I don't think they are good as professional monitors, but for everyday listening pretty damn nice.

AlexPandian 13y ago

Bell, Morse, Land, Kurzweil, Bose, ... the list of Boston associated inventors is never ending. Then again Polaroid or Bose corporation can't compete with the limelight of the web world. Most audiophiles buy stuff very few people have heard off, and Bose products themselves are on the fence of trying to be audiophile, yet popular ... a tricky space to be in.

deadreturns 13y ago

Goodbye old man, you made shitty overpriced products.

jellyfish 13y ago
Exactly, his company’s tactics go directly against the ‘making the world a better place’ hacker ethos.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Bose does not have a monopoly, yet people willingly pay for their stuff. Not everyone need observe your definition of "better place."
  - Pavan_ 13y ago
    Agreed, Bose always make good products and all awesome product comes with a price tag.

paul9290 13y ago

Any audiophiles here know if we'll ever witness Bose or Sonos type speakers(sound) built into our mobile devices? Full disclosure - We created a web app that plays audio in sync across multiple Internet devices (http://SpeakerBlast.com http://SpeakerBlast.com) & are curious about the advances being made in this field. Could our IP devices used alone or in harmony ever produce the same sound quality of a Bose or Sonos speaker?

tapsboy 13y ago

The Bose trio is an inspiration to many in India 1) Jagadish Chandra Bose 2) Satyendra Nath Bose 3) Amar Bose

niels_olson 13y ago
Now, see, that's a useful comment. I learned!
swatkat 13y ago
Subhas Chandra Bose too; albeit not in sci/tech context.

pvdm 13y ago

He was an inspiring speaker but I avoided his company's products. Due to no fault of his own, the company that bears his name turned into a marketing driven company rather than engineering driven.

rblion 13y ago

My name is Amar too. A sad day for innovators named Amar. Shine On buddy, thank you for the contributions to audio technology that has enriched millions of lives. :)

cmbaus 13y ago

I'm glad to see this article at the top of Hacker News. It is easy to not realize how big audio was in consumer electronics all the way up until the early 80s. Many of the great engineers of their day worked in audio, and I find myself continually attracted to their creations. Many who work in software today, may have been building amplifiers and speakers in the 60s.

chiph 13y ago

I had a set of Bose 901 speakers in the 1980s. They were a really innovative design, and certainly not "wife-friendly" with their requirement that the wall behind them be a certain size and distance away. It had 8 smaller drivers facing towards the wall, angled to reflect off it and produce a more ambient sound. And one driver facing towards the listener to provide the direct sound needed for vocals. The speakers (heavy, heavy speakers, btw) had an earlier version of their waveguide technology, which channeled the back pressure of all the small drivers and combined them to provide the bass that a larger driver would have produced. In order to correct some of the bad behavior of the small drivers & enclosure, there was an external electronics box that you inserted between your preamp and amp, or in a tape loop if you had a receiver (it had pass-thru capability) to get the speakers to sound right. Once DSPs became affordable, they changed over to them, instead of the analog components the series of 901 that I had used. I think I paid $1300 at the military exchange for the pair, and the (essentially required) Bose stands were another $200 or so. Which was a lot of money at the time (CD players were still $500). But I had bragging rights until I got written-up by playing them too loudly. The 901s definitely preferred a high-current amp -- I used a Hafler 200 watt MOSFET amp. A Sony integrated-circuit based receiver went into shutdown trying to drive them.

aarondf 13y ago

I remember being blown away by Bose active suspension, and wondering why Bose was doing it. Seems like a Google play in a way: make a bunch of money in one area (audio/ads) and do awesome stuff in another (active suspension / cars, glass). Video of active suspension: http://youtu.be/q8sVDenpPOE http://youtu.be/q8sVDenpPOE Incredible company. He'll be missed.

bzelip 13y ago

damn, i loved my dad's 380ZX soundsystem. its what turned me onto hi fidelity. neat to know it was named after someone and that he went to MIT. peace

jpswade 13y ago

This is a great loss, a man that I only recently learned about through reading "Autobiography of a Yogi", which mentions his great achievement as an eastern scientist, breaking out into a western world. I hope Hacker News black lines today out of respect for this man.

peterarmstrong 13y ago

Wow, someone dies and there's so much negativity about headphones. -- I should leave it there, but since everyone is talking about headphones, I'll play too... I love the QuietComfort headphones. This is true, even though they are expensive and I've broken a number of them. They are simple, so my bluetooth Sennheiser headset remains on the shelf. They are light and comfortable: I often wear them for 12 hours in a day. They have good sound. They have contributed to so many coding and writing zones over the past ten years I've lost count. They're probably the single most important productivity tool I own. They don't leak sound (unlike open headphones -- I had a pair of really great Sennheiser headphones that made my cubicle neighbours crazy years ago, as Portishead apparently sounds like torturing cats when listened to on open headphones). They are great for air travel. Hell, when you combine them with earplugs they even make float plane trips passable. So, thanks Dr. Bose for one of your company's products.

gprasanth 13y ago

Silence.

shiven 13y ago

Dr. Amar Gopal Bose, you will always be remembered. Thank you for the inspiration. R.I.P. A short biographical sketch: http://flic.kr/p/f8wZ6R http://flic.kr/p/f8wZ6R Another write-up: http://flic.kr/p/f8wZee http://flic.kr/p/f8wZee

tt 13y ago

His Acoustics class was arguably the best course I took at MIT. His numerous anecdotes about hard work, perseverance, and applying thought process to every challenge we face really stuck with me. The end-of-semester field trip left a long lasting impression. He made me a better person I am today. I'll really miss him.

nanospider 13y ago

Interesting that in the spirit of the usual startup discussions here on Hacker News, no one has mentioned that this is/was a single founder company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation Kudos to Dr. Bose.