Bozak B-305
A two-woofer, three-way infinite-baffle system that Bozak sold as the "perfect voice" for a medium-sized listening room - and priced accordingly.
Overview
The B-305 was Bozak's medium-size three-way system. In its period advertising, reproduced in Audio (May 1957, p.41), Bozak described it as a two-woofer, three-way system rated 35 to 16,000 cycles at 16 ohms and 30 watts. The 30 watts is what the drivers were rated to take. It is not a limit on how loud the thing will play, because this is a high-efficiency infinite-baffle design from the vacuum-tube era. Owners pairing one with a modest push-pull amplifier of the day found it went plenty loud on very little power.
The surviving literature spells out the layout. The system consists of two B-207A coaxial units, one B-209 mid-range, and an N-102 network, all phased, wired, and mounted in the cabinet at the factory. The 1956 Audio write-up describes the B-305 as a lowboy in contemporary styling, and the same source notes the system's clean, typically-Bozak balance with a full 120 degrees of useful listening area. A two-woofer array in a wide cabinet spreads the soundstage in a way a narrow tower can't. The 120-degree spec is Bozak's own claim for how far off-axis you can sit before the image falls apart.
Bozak sold the B-305 in two cabinet treatments. The "Provincial" was the traditional-styling version, and the "Contemporary" was its acoustical twin in modern decor. Bozak's own copy in Audio (May 1957, p.41) says the two are identical in acoustical specifications and performance, differing only in cabinetry. So if a pair comes up for sale, a Contemporary and a Provincial can be mixed without any sonic mismatch, though purists will still want a matched pair. The enclosure measures 36½ inches wide, 18½ inches deep, and 32 inches high. That is a real lowboy footprint, wide and squat, meant to sit against a wall rather than stand in the corner.
Pricing was not casual. The 1956 Audio listing puts the B-305 Contemporary at $390.00 net, with the panel-mounted P-305P version at $249.00. That $390 was serious money in the mid-1950s, well into furniture territory. Bozak's advertising leaned hard on the "one line, one quality" pitch, positioning every system in the catalog as built from the same grade of components and differing only in power and realism by driver count and enclosure size. The B-305 sat in the middle of that lineup: above the single-woofer B-302A and B-300, below the four-woofer B-400 and the flagship B-310.
The driver complement changed over the model's life. The 1955 and 1956 literature describes two B-207A coaxials plus a B-209 mid-range and N-102 network. A 1956 Audio piece on "compatible speakers" describes the B-305 as consisting of two B-199A woofers and the B-209 midrange, with 6 dB-per-octave crossovers at 800 and 2,500 cps. The surviving documents don't record whether that was a running production change or a builder's variation, so owners comparing early and later cabinets should expect to find both arrangements. The crossover points and the 30-watt power rating are consistent across the period sources.
Bozak's own advertising billed the B-305 as "the perfect voice" for a medium-sized listening room, and High Fidelity (February 1959, p.99) ran the same line, suggesting a pair in stereo would deliver a degree of perfection that had to be heard to be believed. That's marketing copy, not an independent verdict, and no lab measurements of the B-305 turn up in the archive. The design was meant to fill a normal living room with orchestral material at realistic levels. It was not a studio monitor and not a party speaker.
Anyone chasing a B-305 today should expect the usual Bozak realities. The cabinets are large and heavy, the drivers are old enough that surround and cone condition matter most, and the N-102 crossover networks use capacitors that will almost certainly need attention before the system sounds right. The 16-ohm impedance is a consideration when matching to modern solid-state amplifiers, though most will drive it without complaint. Prices for complete, original systems have climbed as the Bozak name has been rediscovered, but the B-305 remains more attainable than the flagship models, partly because the wide lowboy cabinet is a harder sell in a modern room than a tall tower.
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