Bose Corporation
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|
| Private | |
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Founded | 1964 |
| Founder | Amar Bose |
| Headquarters | Framingham, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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Key people
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Bob Maresca (President & CEO) |
| Products | Loudspeakers, headphones, audio equipment, car audio, Professional audio |
| Revenue |
 US$ 3.5 billion (2015) |
| Owner | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (majority non-voting shareholder) |
|
Number of employees
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11,700 (2015) |
| Website | www |
Bose Corporation /ˈboʊz/ is an American privately held corporation, based in Framingham, Massachusetts, that designs, develops and sells audio equipment. Founded in 1964 by Amar Bose, the company sells its products throughout the world. Forbes estimates that in the 2015 financial year, Bose received revenue of US$3.5 billion and employed approximately 11,700 people.
Bose is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise cancelling headphones, professional audio systems and automobile sound systems. The company has also conducted research into suspension technologies for cars and heavy-duty trucks and into the subject of cold fusion. Bose has a reputation for being particularly protective of its patents, trademarks, and brands.
A majority of Bose Corporation's shares were given by Amar Bose in 2011 to his alma mater and former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, while they receive cash dividends, they are prohibited from selling their shares in Bose and are unable to participate in the management and governance of the company.
The company was founded in 1964 by Amar Bose. Eight years earlier, Bose, then a graduate student at MIT, had purchased a stereo system and was disappointed with its performance. This led him to research the importance of reverberant (indirect) sound on perceived audio quality.
Bose began extensive research aimed at clarifying factors that he saw as fundamental weaknesses plaguing high-end audio systems. The principal weaknesses, in his view, were that overall, the electronics and speaker failed to account for the spatial properties of the radiated sound in typical listening spaces (homes and apartments) and the implications of spatiality for psychoacoustics, i.e. the listener's head as a sonic diffraction object as part of the system. Eight years later, he started the company, charging it with a mission to achieve "Better Sound Through Research", now the company slogan.
In an interview in 2007 Bose talked about an early review that kept the company alive.
Bose's first loudspeaker product, the model 2201, dispersed 22 small mid-range speakers over an eighth of a sphere. It was designed to be located in the corner of a room, using reflections off the walls to increase the apparent size of the room. An electronic equalizer was used to flatten the frequency spectrum of this system. The results of listening tests were disappointing.
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Wikipedia