His father Edward Fred Beranek was a farmer whose ancestors came from Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic) and his mother Beatrice Stahle, previously a schoolteacher, had become a farmwife.

Beranek's father remarried and moved the family to the nearby town of Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he became co-owner of a hardware store.

In the summers of 1932 and 1933, Beranek worked as a field hand on local farms, to earn tuition money and to improve his physical condition.

He also continued to repair radios and played in a dance band, but falling income forced him to consider dropping down to a single class (in mathematics) during the next academic year.

He found a position at the fledgling Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he studied German in his spare time.

In August 1935, Beranek had a chance encounter with a stranger whose car had developed a flat tire while passing through Mount Vernon.

While helping the stranger (who turned out to be Glenn Browning), he learned that the passing motorist had written a technical paper on radio technology.

When Beranek mentioned plans for graduate school, Browning encouraged him to apply to Harvard University, a possibility he had regarded as financially out of reach.

He managed three major wiring jobs for Cornell, including designing and installing a master antenna system in a new men's dormitory then under construction.

During this time he built the first anechoic chamber, an extremely quiet room for studying noise effects which later would inspire John Cage's philosophy of silence.

In 1945, Beranek became involved with a small company called Hush-A-Phone, which marketed a cup that fit over the mouthpiece of a telephone receiver in order to prevent the person speaking from being overheard.

He continued to serve as chief scientist of BBN through 1971, as he led Boston Broadcasters, Inc. which (after a court battle) took control of television station WCVB-TV.

In 2012, at the age of 98, he collaborated with Tim Mellow to produce an updated and extended revision, published under the new title Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers.

Beranek participated in the design of numerous concert halls and opera houses, and traveled worldwide to conduct research and enjoy musical performances.

[11] Beranek appeared on the television game show To Tell the Truth in 1962, around the time of the opening of Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.