Bose Home Audio
Bose and their Stereo Systems

Bose Home Audio Systems are some of the best ways to listen to classical music (or any kind of music for that matter). Here are some of their popular products...

Wave music systems

The WAVE music systems are great if you want a really compact system that still sounds great! They are basically a "table-top one-box" solution for listening to music with the minimum of clutter.

They're built around Acoustic Waveguide speaker technology, which means that the sound winds through tubes to get a fuller sound from a more compact box (clever!). They look quite simple and elegant, have no buttons, but instead have a small remote control.

CD player, AM/FM radio, amplifier and speakers are all right there in one small package. Digital radio is also jammed in there - perfect for when you want an unobtrusive sound system for your classical music stations!

iPod Dock

Bose also make the SoundDock for your iPod, which is basically a small speaker you can attach your iPod too.

There are four types, varying by size and price - there's even a portable version. They act as docking stations for any iPhone and most iPods - just pop your iPod into the dock, hit the Play button and hear your stored classical music flood the room!

They look quite sleek and sound amazingly good for their size, using the Waveguide technology as in the Wave radios. Highly recommended.

The portable version is a bit smaller, and the iPod dock rotates into the base during transit. They're great for listening to some short previews when you are at the Proms or Glyndebourne, waiting for the start!

For more on docks see our guide to the best iPod docks.

Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Bose invented noise-cancelling headphones originally for pilots.

Bose's "QuietComfort 15" headphones help to reduce unwanted outside noise that interferes with your listening pleasure. Bose were actually the first company to develop active noise canceling technology. Personally I think these are the most useful piece of Bose home audio technology.

History of Bose

The Bose Company had an interesting start. A man called Dr Bose, professor of electrical engineering at MIT, found that loudspeakers with excellent technical specifications didn't really sound very "lifelike".

He wanted to buy a home audio setup, but he couldn't find anything he liked the sound of.

So he set up his own company to do the job! In 1968 he brought out his first product, the revolutionary 901 Bose stereo speakers, which are still around even today.

But this was only the start. Dr Bose started several lines of research aimed at improving the sound quality of home audio systems.

For example, he looked into how people perceive sound (called psychoacoustics) rather than just how audio components measure up in the lab.

This research means that Bose has come up with quite a few innovations in stereo listening equipment.