The live concert is always better than recorded music.

This proverbial statement beyond the rhetoric has to do not only with the head-banging one can
indulge in, when in a rock show, or the crowd-rush that cannot be simulated at home, but a more
subtle aspect. The difference is the missing information in recorded music. Although for a normal
listener the song or the performance when played on music players might sound complete in terms
of duration, for a keen listener it is not the case in terms of impact.
Amar G Bose, the recently demised maverick researcher, was one such keen listener an audiophile
who wanted to recreate the magic of live concerts when playing recorded music at home. e chose
research and teaching at !assachusetts "nstitute of Technology to accomplish his goal. Amar Bose
started the Bose corporation in #$%& with an agenda of 'Better (ound Through )esearch*. And
Bose corporation, +, years since its inception does deliver better sound through research.
Magician of sound
Amar Bose discovered a techni-ue to recreate the wide space reflection that is inevitable in
concerts, the reason live music sounds as sublime as it does. "n a concert, very little sound reaches
the listener directly a large portion of the sound is reflected and hence gives a rich -uality when it
superimposes with the direct rays of sound. .hen we listen to music even with the /.# channel
surround speakers at home, this feature is missing.
Amar Bose incorporated this techni-ue in Bose corporation0s flagship stereo product Bose $,#. 1irst
released in #$%2, Bose $,# is still running strong in its si3th edition. These stereo speakers use
proprietary signal processing from Bose corporation to render the concert like effect using only two
speakers and an e-ualiser. The 4irect5reflecting technology in the Bose speakers as it is claimed in
the product specification 'brings the warmth, power and e3citement of a concert hall to your
home.*
Another important contribution to acoustics by Bose has been the noise cancellation headphones. "t
started with applications in avionics for pilots, today noise cancellation earphones and headphones
are craved by consumers for unfettered sound e3perience, while on the move.
Audiophiles and the quest for entire spectrum
All recorded music, either while recording or digitisation end up losing information. The loss of
information happens when some of the tones are e3cluded when recording.
Tones are the various fre-uencies an audio signal is comprised of. 6ike the note 7 has its bass tone
at #8,.2#8 9, ne3t tone the middle 7 is at :%#.%:% 9, vocal 7 at +:8.:+# 9 and soprano 7 at
#,&%.+,: 9, and it can have overtones appearing at higher multiple fre-uencies which carry some
portion of the energy. "n process of recording, some of the higher tones are filtered out, for reasons
like data compression. 7ommonly used !;8 is a format which employs this lossy compression.
"n the last couple of decades, with the reducing cost of digital storage, formats like the 1ree
6ossless Audio 7odec <16A7= are gaining popularity. These lossless formats consist almost all the
component fre-uencies and when played with the right audio systems can reproduce the live effect
with high fidelity.
A lossless version of Beethoven0s 1ifth symphony can be about #+, !B, whereas the !;8 version
could be merely about :, !B. And when a listener is keen on getting the best out of the entire
spectrum, uses 16A7 on a good audio system, he5she is -ualified to be an audiophile>
Freud of acoustics
?nlike other audiophile audio systems, Bose manufactures e-uipment that give importance to
human perception, and not simply the circuit parameters. "n his landmark paper, Amar Bose
elucidated that the metric to measure the performance of audio system need not be circuit
parameters like attenuation or gain in power levels at different fre-uencies, or the number of
channels. e believed, and Bose corporation still believes that sound perception by the human mind
is what is the best metric.
This research oriented approach of Amar Bose, by making perception of sound the metric, they tried
to broadly cater to users e3periences by analysing 0psychoacoustics0. 6ike 1reud0s work on
;sychoanalysis drew flak, Amar Bose0s approach of incorporating psychoacoustic non-parameters
has been for decades been criticised by audiophiles.
.ith all the accolades and criticism one thing that does not change is that Amar Bose brought state-
of-the-art research into audio systems, leaving behind a legacy of e-uipment that leaves the whole
spectrum for listeners to relish.