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Friday, March 23, 2007

BOSE - sound of perfection

Bose develops and manufactures audio equipment including speakers, amplifiers, headphones, automotive sound systems for high-end cars, and most recently, automotive suspension systems and performing research into cold fusion. The company was founded in 1964 by Amar G. BOSE, a professor of eletrical engineering (retired in 2005) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. As of 2005, the company employed about 8,000 people worldwide (2,000 in Massachusetts) and had revenues of over $1.8 billion. Bose has contracts with the US military (Navy, Airforce & Army) and NASA for audio products, particualy high-end headphones. Amar Bose is still the Chairman and primary stockholder, and also holds the title of Technical Director.

History of Bose Corporation presidents

  1. William (Bill) Zackowitz (1964-66)
  2. Charles "Chuck" Hieken (1966-69)
  3. Frank E. Ferguson (1969-76)
  4. Amar G. Bose (1976-80)
  5. Sherwin Greenblatt (1980-2000)
  6. John Coleman (2000-2005)
  7. Bob Maresca (Since 2005)

The company spends at least $100 million a year in research and engineering, employing a 6500 square meter (70,000 sq. ft.) building in Framingham reserved for that purpose.[13] In 2004, Bose purchased an additional site from HP in Stow, Massachusetts to house growing automotive and marketing divisions.

Early years

In 1956, while a graduate student at MIT, Amar Bose purchased a high-end stereo system and was disappointed when it failed to meet his expectations. He later began extensive audio research aimed at fixing what he saw as key weaknesses plaguing such high-end systems. The principal weakness, as he saw it, was how the overall design of the loudspeakers and electronics failed to take into account psychoacoustics (the human perception of sound). Eight years later, he founded the company, charging it with a mission to achieve Better Sound Through Research (which is also the company's slogan).

Research history

During the company's first year in business Bose Corporation engaged in sponsored research. Its first loudspeaker product, the model 2201, dispersed 22 small mid-range speakers over an eighth of a sphere. It was designed to fit in the corner of a room, reflecting the speaker's sound as a mirror would for light in a corner cube and giving rise to an acoustical image of a sphere in a vastly larger room. Amar Bose used an electronic equailizer to adjust the acoustical output for flat total radiated power.

Although these speaker systems accurately emulated the characteristics of an ideal spherical membrane, the listening results were disappointing (some of the reasons for which are listed in a later publication from Bose's research department), leading Bose to further research into psychoacoustics that eventually clarified the importance of a dominance of reflected sound arriving at the head of the listener, a listening condition that is characteristic of live performances. This finding led to a revised speaker design in which eight of nine identical small mid-range drivers (with electronic equalization) were aimed at the wall behind the speaker while one driver was aimed forward, thus ensuring a dominance of reflected over direct sound in home listening spaces, replicating the dominant reflected sound fields listeners experience in live performances.

Before hearing his new design for the first time, although confident that his new design would produce a more faithful replication of the "live" listening experience, Amar Bose was unsure as to whether his new "direct/reflected" design would be a small audible improvement or a large one over his earlier design and the best commercially available loudspeakers. The new pentagonal design, named the Model 901, was a very unconventional design for speakers at the time (which were generally either full-size florstanding units or bookshelf type speakers accompanied by a subwoofer that handled only the very lowest frequencies). The Model 901 premiered in 1968 and was an immediate commercial success, and the Bose Corporation grew rapidly during the 1970s.

Amar Bose believes that our imperfect knowledge of psychoacoustics limits our ability to adequately characterize quantitatively any two arbitrary sounds that are perceived differently, and to adequately characterize and quantify all aspects of perceived quality. He believes, for example, that distortion is much over-rated as a factor in perceived quality in the complex sounds that comprise music, noting, for example, that a square wave (a hugely distorted sine wave) and a sine wave are audibly indistinguishable above 7 k Hz. Similarly, he does not find measurable relevance to perceived quality in other easily measured parameters of loudspeakers and electronics, and therefore does not publish those specifications for Bose products. The ultimate test, Bose insists, is your perception of audible quality (or lack of it) and your preferences. Unlike other major speaker manufacturers, Bose does not publish specifications relating to the measured electrical and objective acoustic performance of its products. This reluctance to publish information is due to Bose's rejection of these measurements in favour of "more meaningful measurement and evaluation procedures".

Additionally, the company researches portable audio within the fields of Circumaural and Supra-aural headphones, centering within the lines of Acoustic Noise Cancellation

Automotive Suspension System

Another area of research and development at Bose Corporation is two-state, non-linear power processing and conditioning. Several early patents were awarded to Amar Bose and other Bose engineers and this technology is one of the key elements in an innovative project that the company disclosed in 2004 after more than 20 years of research, an automobile suspension system that uses electomagnetic principles instead of the hydraulics that are common today. This system uses electromagnetic linear motors to raise or lower the wheels of an automobile in response to un-even bumps or potholes on the road. The wheels are raised when approaching a bump, or extended into a pothole, within milliseconds, thus keeping the vehicle steady. This technology is another application of Bose's active noise reduction technology for speakers and earphones. The unevenness of the road is sensed, processed much like a soundwave. A cancelling wave is generated, which is applied to the wheels through the linear motors. Amar Bose expects the system to be available commercially on high-end luxury cars by 2009. In a French interview Bose even shows off the car jumping over an obstacle.

Pro Speaker Systems

Pro speaker systems like the 102, 402, 802, 25SE, 32SE, 32, 8, 16, 3, and 6 are made for musicians and pro applications. See more on their website at pro.bose.com

Bose-Electroforce

In 2004 Bose acquired company assets related to the development, manufacture and sales of materials testing equipment, founding the ElectroForce System Group The ElectroForce Systems Group provides materials testing and durability simulation instruments to research institutions, universities, medical device companies and engineering organizations worldwide.

Lines of products

Proprietary technologies

  • Tri-Port Earcup Drivers
  • Acoustic Noise Cancellation
  • Acoustimass Technology
  • Acoustic Waveguide Technology
  • Direct/Reflecting Technology
  • Psychoacoustic Equalization
  • TrueSpace Technology
  • Electromagnetic Suspension System for Automobiles

Products

Multimedia systems

Speaker systems

Home entertainment systems

Aviation Headsets

This headset is used in the Space Shuttle (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0880451.html)

Live Music and DJ systems

Opinions about Bose

A market study published in March 2006 by the independent market research firm Forrester Research reported that Bose's brand name was among the most trusted (by the US population) of consumer-electronics or computer brand names.[25]


In 1968, Amar Bose presented a classic paper to the Audio Engineering Society entitled: "On the Design, Measurement and Evaluation of Loudspeakers" available from the AES at a small charge. (See: Audio Engineering Society site ). Following the logic in this paper, Bose Corporation has endeavored to strike an economic balance between cost and performance to provide high quality as judged by the average listener whose criteria of quality include faithful reproduction of the listener's experience in a live performance, i.e. a dominance of the reverberant sound field in the listening space, ie. a typical home enviornment. (see audiophile beleifs) Those whose main listening experience has been reproduced sound as opposed to live performances, i.e. loudspeaker-sound, often find the sound produced by Bose systems lacking, in particular in the directional high freqencies produced by many expensive speaker systems with tweeters mounted in forward-facing baffles that assure considerable directionality of the higher frequencies. For those listeners, Bose systems will not appeal and they should not, and largely do not, own them.

Bose is widely regarded as a producer of high-end audio systems . It has been reported by at least one reviewer, however, that some people do not hold the opinion that Bose is a producer of high-end audio systems, because in his opinion it dosn't fufill their expectations of what a high-end system should be.

Market share

In 2006 Bose ranked second in Home Audio retail, behind Sony (based on retail point-of-sale data for the period of January through October, 2006).[35]

Bose directly competes against the following companies in the consumer speaker and home theatre market:

Bose directly competes against the following companies in the consumer headphone market:

Locations

Headquarters

  • Framingham, MA

Automotive division

  • Stow, MA

Plants

  • Framingham, MA
  • Carrickmacross, Republic of Ireland
  • Columbia, SC
  • San Luis, Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico
  • Tijuana B.C., Mexico
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First generation (8L): 1996–2003

The original A3 (or Typ 8L) was introduced in the European market in 1996, marking Audi's return to the lower market segments since the demise of the Audi 50,.This was the first model to use the PQ34 or "A4" platform, bearing a natural close resemblance to its contemporary, the Golf Mk. IV. The car was initially available only with a three-door Hatchback body, in order to present a more sporty image than the Golf, in both front- and four-wheel drive. All engines had a four-cylinder configuration and were transversally mounted. After the A4, the Audi A3 was the second model in the Audi lineup to use five valves per cylinder.


In 1999, Audi expanded the range with the introduction of an entry level model (1.6 L), a sporty version (1.8 Turbo with 180 PS (132 kW)) and a more powerful Diesel (1.9 TDI with pumpe-düse technology and variable geometry turbocharger). The four-wheel-drive A3 1.8T Quattro used either the 150 hp (110 kW) and 180 PS (132 kW) and the same Haldex-based all-wheel drive system as the Audi S3 and the original Audi TT, 1999 was also the year Audi was forced to bow to market demands and introduced a hastily conceived five-door body, that the company had never intended to produce.

In late 2000, the A3 range was revised with new light clusters, an improved interior, and the introduction of a six-speed manual gearbox, on the 180 PS 1.8 Turbo and the brand new 130 PS (96 kW) 1.9 TDI. Audi's ESP (Electronic Stability Program) traction-control and brakeforce distribution computer became standard equipment.

Although the Audi A3 was replaced in Europe during 2003, the first generation model continues to be sold in developing countries. After production of the first generation model stopped in Brazil, the retail price increased from R$60,000(US$30,000) to R$100,000 (US$50,000).

Engines

  • 1.6 L (1595 cc/97 in³) petrol, 75 kW (102 PS)
  • 1.8 L (1781 cc/108 in³) petrol, 92 kW (125 PS)
  • 1.8 L (1781 cc/108 in³) light-pressure turbocharger petrol, 110 kW (150 PS)
  • 1.8 L (1781 cc/108 in³) turbocharger petrol, 132 kW (180 PS)
  • 1.8 L (1781 cc/108 in³) turbocharger petrol, 154–165 kW (210–225 PS) (S3)
  • 1.9 L (1896 cc/115 in³) VGT turbodiesel, 66 kW (90 PS)
  • 1.9 L (1896 cc/115 in³) VGT turbodiesel, 74 kW (101 PS)
  • 1.9 L (1896 cc/115 in³) VGT turbodiesel, 81 kW (110 PS)
  • 1.9 L (1896 cc/115 in³) VGT turbodiesel, 96 kW (130 PS)

Second generation (8P): 2003–present

In the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, Audi launched the second-generation of the A3, the Typ 8P, designed by Walter de'Silva. Originally launched as a three-door Hatchbach only with four cylinder engines, it featured a new mechanical platform (the PQ35 platform), a redesigned and more spacious interior, new petrol engines with Fuel Startified Injection and standard six-speed gearboxes (except on the base 1.6).

In mid 2003, the line was updated with two sports models, a 2.0 Turbo FSI version with 200 PS (147 kW) and a 3.2 VR6 engine (for the first time) with 250 PS (184 kW). Quattro four wheel drive and the S-Tronic semi-auto gearbox were introduced as optionals (quattro is standard on the V6) on every model 140 PS and over.

A new five-door body, dubbed Sportback, was introduced in June 2004. Unlike the previous generation, the new A3 Sportback is 8 cm (3 in) longer than the base three-door body, and includes improved rear cabin space and a larger luggage compartment (370 litres). It also received the new front grille originally introduced in the A8 W12.

In 2005, the S-Line trim level, with new sporty decorative elements, became available in certain models, and the 3-door received the same frontend as the Sportback. For the first time, the A3 became available in the North American market, exclusively with the Sportback body, with the base 2.0 TFSI introduced in 2005 and the 3.2 V6 quattro following in 2006.

In April 2006, the lineup was expanded with the introduction of a more powerful 2.0 TDI with 170 PS (125 kW). In August 2006, Audi announced the arrival of the S3 version, which became the new range topper. The 2.0 TFSI engine was uprated to 265 PS (195 kW), thanks to a higher turbo pressure of 1.2 bar, and is available with a standard 6-speed manual and Quattro. The second generation S3 is capable of accelerating to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.7 seconds. The springs and dampers were tuned for a harder setting, and ride height lowered by 25 mm (1 inch). 225/40 R18 tyres are standard.

In January 2007, the normally aspirated 2.0 FSI was replaced by a new turbocharged 1.8 TFSI engine, with 160 PS (118 kW). It is available in front-wheel drive only.

Engines

  • 1.6 L (1595 cc), 75 kW (102 PS)
  • 1.6 L (1598 cc) FSI, 85 kW (115 PS)
  • 2.0 L (1984 cc) FSI, 110 kW (150 PS)
  • 2.0 L (1984 cc) FSI turbocarger, 147 kW (200 PS)
  • 3.2 L (3189 cc) V6, 184 kW (250 PS)
  • 2.0 L (1984 cc) FSI turbocharger, 195 kW (265 PS) (S3)
  • 1.9 L (1896 cc) VGT turbodiesel, 77 kW (105 PS)
  • 2.0 L (1968 cc) VGT turbodiesel, 103 kW (140 PS)
  • 2.0 L (1968 cc) VGT turbodiesel, 125 kW (170 PS)
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