I hear 'ya AHEM, we did get a lot of calls...

I would think that in certain markets, you could almost keep a guy busy doing JUST intercom replacements, but it doesn't fit where I want to be right now...

Haha - I can relate. I was a drummer - all I had to do was start playing and the whole neighborhoond knew about it. The question wasn't whether or not someone would complain - it was whether they would bother to call on the phone, or just yell "shut up" out their window.

Anyway, point taken on intercoms. No question they weren't high-fi. But for Mom, they probably hit the nail on the head. In those days, I guess it was the man of the hosue who controlled the FM tuner, since it was buried in his "Hi Fi" cabinet. The intercom at least put a radio in the kitchen with a user interface Mom could understand.

What I've found about intercoms are that back in the 70's and 80's they weren't used in the low to mid end houses, but rather in the higher priced homes. After all, intercoms were a luxury item and most people weren't including them as standard home options.

Now that these homes are 20-30 years old, they're still nice homes, they're just outdated homes.

My first type of intercom customers are the people who are now in their 60 or 70's who are the original owners. These people aren't typically responsive to pulling out the broken intercom system and having it replaced by a touchscreen system, but many of them have become alientated by technology, hate the big box movers, and no idea who to call for service on anything electronics related. I've had more then one of these types of customers who've wound up declaring me to be their permanent electronics guy and on occasion, the intercom has been a stepping stone to selling them new plasmas, home theaters, LCD TV's, etc.

The second intercom customer is someone who's just bought a house with a non-working intercom. I've gotten referrals on several occasions from real estate agents in this manner. Many times, the new owner is planning extensive remodeling of the home and calls just to get the intercom working, but with a little bit of education on today's choices, can wind up being an excellenct customer too.

The moral of this story is don't neccessarily turn your back on intercom service calls. It can be a good way to get your foot in the door.

Ask a stranger off of the street where a good place to buy a television or home theater systems.

You'll most likely hear Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys, Tweeter, Magnolia, Sears, Ebay, APT, whathaveyou.

Ask a person off the street who does work on intercom systems and watch the blank look on their face. Check the Yellow Pages, you won't find them there either.

M&S was manufacturing a true stereo intercom as far back as 1970, and possibly further back than that.

I'm currently upgrading a system that was installed in 1973. Big ugly thing. With tape deck in a box, and turntable in another. All 45ohm, but it did work.

Look at the specs on these things and it'll shock you though. Distortion levels are simply not to be believed. Raise the volume above maybe 50%, and the sound quality (what there was of it) goes out the window.

Of course these systems were single source, single zone, with no local control...Different animal.

Don't forget B&W Casa...

I'm not a pro but still believe that B&K should be added to "Current Driving Players". The CT610 still needs some work but is still a better product in my opinion than those by some of the other current driving players.

I promised a summary of what I ended up with... caution, long post:

Ever since there have been sound systems in the home, there have been distributed systems. The earliest reports of professionally installed distributed systems come from the 1920’s – these fully custom systems used switching relays, constant voltage tube amplifiers and hardware modifications to distribute music around the home. There is no report on how the sources were controlled – one can imagine an “always on” model during parties.

In the 50’s the invention of the transistor and the ensuing miniaturization of audio systems enabled higher quality, more reliable implementations. In addition to the high-end custom installations, the dominant implementation of low-cost whole-house audio in the 50’s and 60’s was the intercom system with integrated radio.

Intercoms

Many baby boomers will remember the Nutone, M&S, General Electric, Westinghouse and other intercom systems popular in the era. In addition to allowing people in various rooms to talk to each other, they included a radio in their base station which could be distributed among the rooms with local volume control. The tube model shown below (figure not included in posting) from about 1955 has a phono input jack, and a system has been described to me that included a fold-down integrated phono player. Nutone, M&S and others still manufacture updated systems like these, still limited to single-source, multi-zone distribution. Current models can include built-in CD players and inputs for personal audio systems. Specs are decidedly non-audiophile.

Today, some higher-end whole-house audio distribution systems, namely Crestron, Elan and Channel Vision include intercom functionality, eliminating the possibility of competing systems being installed to meet the different needs of the homeowner. (Integrators hate intercom systems due to the low margins associated with installing and maintaining them)



Distributed Hi-Fidelity Music

In early 1978 Niles Audio was founded. This event could be identified as the beginning of mainstream distributed audio. The company’s first products were switching systems designed for use by audio retailers as a tool to help them demonstrate speakers and amplifiers to potential customers. Niles’ first consumer products – a four-pair speaker selector and a patching matrix for up to five components – were precursors of today’s active control systems.
Other key players over the past decades include:
1980’s

Bang & Olufsen – B&O remains involved in the boutique multi-room market.
ADA - still a niche player with loyal top tier integration firms that use their products almost exclusively in some of the biggest projects in the World.
Carver – low visibility today

1990’s

Sony
Denon
Elan – major player today
Russound – major player today
Audio Access – now owned by JBL – minor player today
Xantech – IR (control) distribution – still big player (same parent as AMX)
RTI – Versatile remote control systems.
Crestron – primarily a control company (including home theater and distributed audio)
AMX – Similar to Crestron
Linn

Most of these vendors are still participating in the business today.

Man, this is still way off...

I wasn't there - trying to piece it together. No rush, but if you can help, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get it straight.

Thanks,

Norton

Baby Boomers would recognize M&S as "Music & Sound"

In addition to allowing

I don't think that intercom margins are all that bad, integrators mostly hate them because they sound like crap, are very limited, and very proprietary. Oh, and ugly too.


I'm not sure that you want to give Niles credit for inventing hi-fidelity distributed audio.


I don't consider Carver to be even a minor player in the 80's multi-room scene.

Don't forget Sonance in the 80s. There was a time when if you wanted an in-wall speaker that Sonance was about the only choice out there. (ADS wasn't as mainstream, but deserves some mention)

(Had one system that while perhaps ahead of it's time, pretty much sucked)

Not involved in multi-room in the 90's aside from having maybe one or two multi-room receivers.

Founded by SquareD

Actually, Audio Access and JBL are owned by Harman International

Same parent as AMX?

RTI is more 21st century and known mostly for theater system control.

They'd have collective heart attacks if they read that.

Not so much

When I look back upon the last 20 or so years of this industry, I'd also have to give a GREAT deal of credit to the designers and installers themselves.

It wasn't long ago that the cool toys that we know of today didn't exist, yet there were lots of us who took what was available and customized to make it work in applications that it wasn't designed for.

That to me is the true spirit of multi-room audio. Many of the engineers who design this stuff never pull a single wire or visit the homes that they're installed in.

In many cases, feedback and demand from dealers are what's pushed the envelope for manufacturers to create products based upon what we want, and what our customers are asking for.

How about Kustom (Nuvo Technologies) or Speakercraft being an OEM manufacturer of speakers for other companies (Niles and Sonance both I think, not sure).

I just saw a pair of in walls bigger than most 80's floor standing speakers with a tweed type of grill cover and a volume control mounted onto the speaker itself in a retired doctor's house. Can't remember who made them though..

SpeakerCraft, Elan, Xantech and M&S I believe have the same parent company, Linear.

M&S is now, once again, owned by Nortek, after a short stay in the Linear fold (purchased when Linear sold NuTone).

For those who say intercoms aren't profitable? Sorry, you're all wet.....

Some days I long for days gone by, when business consisted of nothing but intercom systems. Margins were MUCH better (70 points) than what you typically see in distributed audio, and the systems were simple, short installs.

Nortek owns Linear, so Nortek owned M&S since the deal went down...

Nortek owned Linear before they went on the CI tear and bought Channel Plus/Open House, Xantech, M&S, Elan, and Speakercraft.

They moved portions of the other companies to the big Linear facility, supposedly Xantech, Elan, and Speakercraft are going to remain autonomous...
I do know that the RF gurus you used to speak with at Channel Plus tech support in the 90's aren't the ones you speak with anymore.

Anybody remember the Adcom 800 system. We used to do it with Xantech smartpads version1. How about Nakamici receivers TA4A that you could use with their own IR reciever. I think it used 8 conductors.

Memories???????????