Wave systems use a folded waveguide (a series of passages from the speaker driver to the speaker grill), in an attempt to replicate sound from larger systems in a compact design. Bose claims the waveguide “produces full, clear stereo sound from a small enclosure by guiding air through two 26” folded wave guides”.
The Bose acoustic waveguide concept works on a simple principle which involves the magnification of the air vibrations formed at the rear sides of the speakers. However along with amplification, the intricate designed Bose wave radio also enhances the output beyond other compact systems.
The Bose Wave Radio uses two drivers to produce the Stereo
Sound Field one of the drivers is a 3″ Paper Wideband
driver and the other is a 4″ paper midrange if I recall
correctly.
Every speaker “driver” has a front and a back wave. The
sound you hear from the front of a driver is only half of
the air movement the driver produces. What Bose did was to
take the 4″ driver and build a folded transmission line
behind it.. What does this do? The back wave of the driver
is channeled through that tube that is folded up inside the
Wave Radio enclosure and it reverberates to create lower
frequency sound without the need for a much larger woofer.
I think the setup is also called a Quarter Wave Pipe. Bose
also used this “technology” in the 3rd Generation Mazda RX7
where they had tubes running all through the back of the car
with small drivers to produce lower frequencies.
As with anything there are trade-off’s and this technology
is not without them.. The lowest frequency is still determined
by the length and size of the tube plus the drivers ability
to generate the air to move.
![[IMG]](http://www.bose.com/images/learning/wg_solution_2.jpg)
As you can see on the original Wave system it has a
specific low frequency driver coupled with the Acoustic
Wave Guide. The Wave Radio just uses one of the stereo
drivers to generate the low frequency information which
dare I say is cheesy. In a “Stereo” configuration you
typicaly want the same exact drivers on each side yet
the Wave Radio has two completely different drivers.