Amar G. Bose, the American innovator and entrepreneur who pioneered audio technology and founded the audio-equipment company, Bose Corp., died Friday at his home in Wayland, Mass., at the age of 83.

His son, Vanu G. Bose, confirmed his death, the New York Times reported. Details about the cause of his death were not immediately available.

Bose was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and conducted extensive research on acoustic engineering, which led to the innovation of high-end audio systems and speakers for home users, concert halls and automobiles.

Bose was a classical-music aficionado and a violin player, and he was dissatisfied with the inferior quality of a stereo system he bought as a student in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, Bose designed a new type of stereo speaker to re-create the concert-hall experience for listeners, leading to the founding of his company to conduct research on next-generation stereo systems.

The Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting speaker system, unveiled in 1968, was a top-selling speaker for more than a quarter of a century, establishing his company’s market position. The Bose Wave radio and the Bose noise-canceling headphones, which followed the 901 system, also quickly rose in popularity and were adopted for use by military and commercial pilots.

Bose refused to offer his company’s stock to the public to preserve his freedom to pursue long-term innovation. His company was believed to have annual sales exceeding $2 billion as of March 2011, according to a Forbes estimate.

Bose was born on Nov. 2, 1929, in Philadelphia to an Indian father and an American mother. His father had participated in India’s freedom struggle against the British, and had fled to the U.S. in 1920 to avoid persecution under British authorities.

Bose had two children with his first wife Prema, and he is survived by his children, his second wife Ursula, and one grandchild.

India