In an early attempt to understand how sound acts during a live performance, Bose engineers began using concert halls as their laboratory. The team soon realised the halls had certain spatial characteristics that had to be replicated to re-create the live music effect at home.

Thinking about sound in two parts:
Direct sound and reflected sound
Bose engineers made an important discovery. During a live concert, the vast majority of sound reaches the audience's ears after being reflected off the walls, ceiling and floor. 

With conventional speakers, virtually all of the sound is radiated directly into the room with very little of it reflected before reaching the listener. Much of the live performance experience is lost because it's the ratio of reflected to direct sound that gives live music its spacious, open quality.

A solution that revolutionised the audio world
The result of that early research was the now-legendary 901® speaker system. It was designed to create a lifelike listening experience by directing most of the sound out the back of the speaker to reflect off walls. 

The 901® speakers' concert-like blend of reflected and direct sound began revolutionising the audio world in 1968. Today, our technology used in DIRECT/REFLECTING® speakers is a defining principle in many of our speakers and audio systems, adding an extra note of realism to what you hear. 

Explore for yourself, the further details of this amazing technology »