Bose Company Memories

Contributed by Bob Douglas

Many of us cherish and appreciate the years we had at Bose, especially for the opportunities Dr. Bose opened up for inexperienced and/or uneducated employees. Personal growth in the company was not only encouraged but supported with programs, such as tuition reimbursement, and all new positions within the company had to be posted internally first, before recruiting outside, so existing employees could grow within the company.

All all of this was mandated by Dr. Bose, because he was a huge advocate of education, and believed that all humans had untapped potential. As you may already know, while he was running a Billion$ Corporation, he was a professor at MIT for over 40 years, and taught an acoustics course every fall. We were very lucky, because not many companies were like that, and today they most certainly are not. So there’s a lot of reverence for the man that gave us so much.

I personally started there when I was 18 years old, parents had no money for college, I was living on my own, and had very little direction of what I was going to do with my life. Needless to say, Bose took care of that and I’m forever grateful.

Contributed by Bob Douglas

(Regarding Dr Bose’s musical preferences for classical)

You’re not entirely wrong! Classical and Orchestral were his favorite genres, and I know he was no fan of Rock music. Back in the late 70’s early 80’s you could walk through the facility and hear (different) Music playing EVERYWHERE! This was when Corporate and Manufacturing were in the same building and almost every department had a 360 system playing. This frustrated management especially when giving tours, particularly to General Motors while in negotiations to start the GM/Delco/Bose project, so they decided to pick a Rock Radio station and pipe it through the building’s PA system, and ban all the individual systems. This lasted a few months until one day Dr. Bose got frustrated with “the Rock music”, and it was said that he went in the control room and started ripping wires out, and that was the end of that… until the early 90’s when we came out with The Wave Radio, then everyone had one of them on their desk, LOL!

Contributed by John Wawrzonek

(From a FB group conversation with Tony Pridgen about working at Bose)

It was a dream job. I had been working on an MS in solid state physics and was miserable. I had gotten into MIT by being a fanatic audiophile in the 1950s and left for MIT in 1959. In 1964 I had a sudden realization “why don’t you do what you love.” I asked who at MIT was in audio and I knew it was Amar Bose. So I knocked on his door. We chatted for a bit and then he took me to his lab in building 26 (RLE). When I walked into the lab I thought “i’m home.” It was one of the most important events in my life for it affected everything from then on. Dr. Bose became my faculty advisor and we worked on the 2201. The most memorable part of the job was acquiring accurate orchestral recordings. We had a violist from the BSO working with us and he arranged for us to record the BSO at Tanglewood. For three years we recorded three concerts each summer. The first year it was just binaural and stereo. But I had a stunning piece of luck and found an 8 track (1″ tape) of the kind made by Ampex for Les Paul and Mary Ford who was over-dubbing her voice. I asked the tech running the acoustics lab who the 8 track belonged to and he said he didn’t know. So I said “can I have it.” Sure and I wheeled two big racks up to Dr. Bose’s lab.

In 1967 I was Bose’s first engineer devoted to loudspeakers and on my first day at work as its 5th employee heard the 2nd pair of 901s to exist. It was October when I arrived and Dr. Bose had invented the 901 that summer. I did quality control and engineering up through Series IV for which I created the specification for the equalizer.

Series III (which I was not involved in) had a problem caused by too much reliance on the main Bose listening room (the “Chapel”). Dealers complained and over the Christmas holidays that year I worked with the speakers in my own living room (verified) as an “average” living room. With a 1/3 octave band equalizer among others and much listening I would an overall broad rise in the mid-range that did not show up in the Chapel. And so Series IV was acceptable. Series V and VI (in which I was not involved) made improvements.

Here’s a picture from a magazine ad. This was the listening / evaluation room called the “Chapel”. It was Dr Bose’s preferred listening venue.

Other listening rooms were: Crypt, Cloisters, Canonry and don’t forget Primaat and Beldar! (EDNOTE: The last two were inspired from Saturday night live, apparently)

(Here’s some correspondence about these rooms)

[Daev]
This is the first time I’ve heard anything about the critical listening facility at Bose. Are you at liberty to describe it further?

[John]
I believe I am at liberty to describe most anything. I am only one of 2 or 3 of the Bose Corporation start-up crew remaining. The only other I am in touch with (we have lunch maybe twice a year) is Sherwin Greenblatt a most amazing man who was chief engineer first then president for many years. He received a 7 minute standing ovation at his going away gathering. I love that man.

Re facilities, I have to guess at the size of the Chapel but in the ball part of 22 feet wide by 30 or so feet long with an angled ceiling. It was the primary test room. Adjacent was the Crypt with length equal to the width of the Chapel. I spent countless hours in the Chapel listening and measuring and had no trouble with its acoustics.

So the 901 III remains a mystery. I had taken myself out of the loop because I had had some ear surgery and was afraid it would affect my hearing. It did not so I was able to do the minor corrections necessary.

I also was a life-long audiofile and had attended countless live concerts. My father used to take me to the RI Phil. when I was a kid. I fell in love with classical music and listened almost all the time. My home was an audio lab when I was in high school. I had already completed the first MIT EE lab course before I got there. I apologize for the bragging and long stories but as I said there is no one left to talk to. However, I am unbelievably lucky to have a home with a music room at least as big as the Chapel and likely with even better acoustics. However, putting the 901s where they are makes for the best listening where Susan and I sit. I inherited all the equipment because I was working on it and it was not salable.

Ask anything you wish and I will try to answer. And, BTW, in the line of bragging I invented and built the Syncom speaker testing computer. It was used for over 25 years. Several were made and tested ALL drivers. Well, nuff for now. I am working on a book of my photography (second career) and I need to finish it and a bunch more stuff before the pine box arrives. My very best wishes for the new year to all ex Bose employees. I am very glad to have you around.

In response to “What happened to Bose?”
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Bob Douglas – Top contributor FB forum, 2024.07.10

“In my personal opinion the reason the company has declined is because those that inherited control don’t have the vision, passion, leadership, and brilliant mind that Dr. Bose had… and honestly it’s sad but not surprising, new leaders have new visions and things change.

When he gifted the company to MIT, oversight went to the Board of Directors, of which only one seat belongs to MIT, so they don’t have direct control of the company, and with MIT’s reputation in Innovation, that’s not a bad thing, and perhaps another reason they were chosen to be the care-takers. The CEO’s (chosen by the B.O.D.) running the company since his passing haven’t fully utilized his core principles (again IMO), and looked for outside advice on the direction the company, instead of using the roadmap, and guidelines for success that Dr. Bose left in place. One of the conditions of the gift to MIT was that they could never sell the company, but management found a way around that by selling off pieces of the company. First they liquidated/Sold off all our Manufacturing facilities that Bose wholly owned, and I surmise their Quality Control along with it. Then they sold off long term research projects like the Bose Automotive Suspension system, and Hearing Aid Technology which were both already yielding new products. Just last year they sold off the Professional products division, and so on….

Dr. Bose was closely involved in most aspects of the company; Research of course, but also Marketing/Advertising, Sales, and even Manufacturing which at one time was world class, and when we lost the Visionary with those extraordinary leadership skills and talent that Dr. Bose had you lost the the heart and soul, and culture of the company.

I would add market forces like the decline in retail stores have been a big factor… Bose’s great success was dependent on live demonstrations of products particularly because Bose products never followed the status quo (“To be better you have to be different”), and customers needed a demonstration to fully appreciate the new and unique technologies Bose developed. Additionally markets have trended away from conventional speakers, and more towards personal audio, and Bose certainly has excelled in this area, but simultaneously abandoned stereo, and multi-channel home theater almost entirely, which IMHO was a mistake especially with the resurgence in Record Albums/Vinyl and Vintage audio across many generations, young and old… I see it in my audio business. As an employee and contributor to the company for 45 years, it is personally sad to see the changes, but things do change, and many are out of the companies control so we can only wish them the best, which I will always do! Yes, at one time we were the most respected name in sound, and I am very proud to have been a part of that.”

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Last Updated on 2025-10-19 by Daev Roehr