Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT • Hacker News Board

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#61

Post by dmethvin » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #59

horacio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves. His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithful…

"Faithful reproduction" is not a goal of Bose kit. A psychoacoustically pleasing reproduction with fine detail, by simulating the effects of a better acoustic environment in a room of a house is. I have a pair of Bose speakers. They cost me $100. I wouldn't use them for pro work, but I don't feel ripped off by them because when I put my TV out or music through them, they deliver on the ads' promise of "room-filling s…

Any mass market product will have to compromise in some way in order to be affordable for the masses. Good engineers and designers find ways to compromise that don't make the products suck.

I have to admit, though, "faithful reproduction" sounds like a great platform for Republicans in 2012.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#62

Post by clistctrl » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

tt wrote: post #29

I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Beyond those small perks, his stories working with Norbert Wiener and his inspirations have completely transformed and shaped my personality and how I solve problems. Above all, the highest integrity one would have with his/her work, has been my #1 beacon thanks to Dr.…

sorry I have only a little value to add... but Toscanini's is some of the best ice cream you can get in Boston.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#63

Post by SwellJoe » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

robg wrote: post #53

SwellJoe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was initially funded, at least partially, through research grants, I believe. But, shouldn't you have instead said, "Wasn't Bose a bootstrapped company?" if you were talking about how the company was funded?

Sure, but I was playing off the contrast as it's typically being made today. Sounds like he never had an interest in VC. Seems like Bose is at least one counterpoint to this view: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2338140

That's a good point, and I wasn't aware of this discussion, which gives your comment more useful context. I think there are a lot more examples than pg hints at, they just happen to be less common in tech...which someone else theorized could be because money is so easy to come by in technology and less so in other fields. People don't have to bootstrap as often in tech, so fewer big success stories started out by bootstrapping.

I think maybe it's a hard thing to figure out because there are so few Googles, Amazons, and Apples in the world. If you only have a few extreme outliers to look at as your data, your conclusions might be completely wrong, even though they fit the data perfectly.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#64

Post by ethereon » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:31 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #10

Folks like to rag on Bose products (and from a pure sound quality standpoint they are overpriced IMO) but Amar Bose was the best professor I had and his enthusiasm for engineering and acoustics showed in all of his lectures. He's been good to MIT over the years (MIT students, faculty and affiliates get substantial discount) and this is another example of him giving back. I hope this encourages MIT to resurrect some o…

I wouldn't say acoustics is dead at MIT. I participated in some very interesting ocean acoustics research in the last few years which has been published in Science a couple of times.

For anyone interested in reading about underwater ocean acoustics:

[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5922/1734.full?ijkey=t...

[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5761/660.full?ijkey=bc...

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#65

Post by Florin_Andrei » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:32 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #54

klbarry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which companies are better than Bose?

For headphones, I've heard wonderful things about pretty much everything made by "Grad Labs" http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap...

Grado is not bad, but I don't think their goal is faithful reproduction of the sound either.

I own a pair of Grado phones, and a pair of Sennheiser, high end. There's a pretty big difference between the two.

The Sennheiser is, for lack of a better word, "transparent". It's like the sound is coming not from a pair of cans, but from "out there". It's very easy to forget you're wearing phones. It's like they don't have any personality of their own.

The Grado, OTOH, is very different. The sound is very much "in your face". Can you hear all sorts of tiny details and nuances? Sure, but that's because they were magnified a lot, to force them to become obvious. A look at the response curve tells you why: Grado likes to crank up the high-frequency response on their cans. They are great, though, if you're mixing audio tracks and are keeping an eye out for tiny mistakes.

The Sennheiser is like a wide-screen TV. The Grado is like a microscope. Both are useful, but for different purposes.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#66

Post by Florin_Andrei » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:37 PM UTC

ctide wrote: post #56

klbarry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which companies are better than Bose?

Sennheiser makes fantastic products, even if they occasionally like to cripple them ( http://mikebeauchamp.com/misc/sennheiser-hd-555-to-hd-595-mo... ) and the sound quality is significantly higher than anything by Bose at a similar price point.

Get the HD 6xx or the HD 800 if you can. I'm not saying the 500 series are not good, but the 600 and the 800 are way up there.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#67

Post by guelo » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:38 PM UTC

What a wasteful donation. MIT has an over $8 billion endowment, and it teaches the most privileged technical students in the world. If MIT was at least trying to expand to teach more students, but of course it can't since it needs to maintain it's high selectivity in order to preserve its reputation. I can think of a thousand better donations than wasting it on rich ivy schools.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#68

Post by Florin_Andrei » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:40 PM UTC

tt wrote: post #45

ThomPete wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am interested. What did him and Wiener work on?

Bose spent over a decade working with Wiener. It started when Lee recruited Bose (as a grad student) to work under Wiener. Bose often told the story of the initial encounter, in which he spent 6 months fearing for his life because his level of math versus that of Wiener was equivalent to a child who knows basic arithmetic versus someone well versed with Calculus. They worked together on a wide variety of projects, in…

> Wiener told Bose that he resented his upbringing because his parents wanted to see if they could raise a genius.

Looks like they were pretty successful.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#69

Post by masklinn » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:43 PM UTC

klbarry wrote: post #50

horacio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves. His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithful…

Which companies are better than Bose?

For cans, you want AKG, AudioTechnica, BeyerDynamics, Denon, Grado or Sennheiser.

But you'll have to try them out, all of them have several lines with different sounds, and each company has distinct characteristics.

You'll need to try them out.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#70

Post by ars » Fri, Apr 29, 2011, 9:47 PM UTC

VladRussian wrote: post #46

rubergly wrote: post #35

I don't understand anything about the stock market, but giving someone a large portion of stock with the agreement that it can never be sold seems like the wrong thing to do when people need to spend more to bring us out of a recession.

> people need to spend more to bring us out of a recession. every time i hear that i'm surprised what a fairy tale! Of course politicians forced to say comfortable "we need more spending" than the suicidal "we need more working", yet it is obvious for any sane normal person what only increased productivity and efficiency can get us out of this small hole-in-the-road current recession and the really big crises looming…

"increased productivity and efficiency" means less jobs. (But also a higher standard of living since things become cheaper.)

What you want is more demand. (Which depletes natural resources.)

If you want, you can have "well off poor". That's someone who is poorer than his neighbors, but due to efficiency still has everything necessary for a comfortable life. Due to human nature people don't really like this.