Bose

Bose Corporation is an American manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. The company was established by Amar Bose in 1964 and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise-canceling headphones, professional audio products, and automobile sound systems. Bose has a reputation for being particularly protective of its patents, trademarks, and brands. The majority owner of Bose Corporation is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Non-voting shares were donated to MIT by founder Amar Bose and receive cash dividends. According to the company's annual report for the 2021 financial year, Bose Corporation's yearly sales were $3.2 billion, and the company employed approximately 7,000 people. The company was founded in Massachusetts in 1964 by Amar Bose with angel investor funding, including Amar's thesis advisor and professor, Y. W. Lee. Bose's interest in speaker systems had begun in 1956 when he purchased an audio system and was disappointed with its performance. The purpose of the company was to develop speaker systems which used multiple speakers aimed at the surrounding walls to reflect the sound and replicate the sound of a concert hall. In 1966, the Bose 2201 was the first product sold by the company. It was an unusual design consisting of 22 speakers, with many of them facing away from the listener. The 2201 was designed to be located in the corner of a room, using reflections off the walls to increase the apparent size of the room. The 2201 failed in the marketplace and was discontinued after three or four years. After this experience, Bose concluded that the audio system measurement techniques of the time (such as measuring distortion and frequency response) were ineffective ways to evaluate the goal of natural sound reproduction. Bose argued that the listener's perception was the best measure of audio quality. Also in 1968, the company introduced the Bose 901 stereo speaker system, which used eight mid-range drivers pointing towards the wall behind the speaker, and a ninth driver towards the listener. This design aimed to achieve a dominance of reflected over direct sound in home listening spaces. The design used in the 901 was unconventional compared with most systems, where mid-range and high-frequency speakers directly face the listener. The 901 was an immediate commercial success. Bose Corporation manufactures and distributes electronic products. The company produces compact disk players, radios, headphones, home theater, speakers, and professional sound systems for auditoriums, hotels, performance centers, and stadiums. Ranking 220th on Fortune's Private 500 list, Bose Corporation is engaged in the development, manufacture, and marketing of loudspeakers, consumer and professional audio systems, automobile sound systems, noise cancellation technology for the aviation industry, and computer simulation software to analyze auditorium acoustics.