From Speakers to Suspensions Philadelphia PA

5/21/2008

Ed Sunkin reports on some of the latest automotive suspension technology from the Bose Corp.

By Ed Sunkin 

Akron, OH – You’re probably familiar with the name Bose and the company best known for creating high-performance audio products. But did you know their research activities go well beyond sound? In fact, for over two decades, Bose has been researching a new system for automobile suspensions.

I myself recently learned of this while attending the National Inventors Hall of Fame Class of 2008 dinner and induction ceremony Saturday, May 3. (Thanks to my wife who received tickets to the invitation-only black tie affair from her job as director of marketing and community relations for the Akron Beacon Journal .)

Amar Gopal Bose, one of eight inventors to join the Hall of Fame ranks and the founder of the Bose Corporation in 1964, was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1950s. One day, after Bose bought a stereo – choosing the best he could find – he returned home, set it up, and found himself disappointed. The  speakers with impressive technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance.??

''I knew something was very wrong because it didn't sound like a violin should sound,'' said Bose, 78. ''And I knew there was nothing wrong with my ears.''

Over the next 12 years, Bose spent his evenings trying to make a better sounding speaker. Extensive resea...