August - September 2001

Engineering Hall of Fame:

Frank H. McIntosh and the Advent of Hi-Fi

Many electrical engineers recognize the famous McIntosh brand of high-fidelity audio amplifiers, even if few are willing to shell out the thousands of dollars it costs to own them. These classics were designed in the 1950s by Frank H. McIntosh, an engineer who left a 10-year career at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey to pursue his interest in radio and audio engineering.

After time spent as a broadcasting products sales representative and a stint in the U.S. military during World War II, McIntosh opened a small engineering consulting firm in the Washington, D.C. area that designed radio studios and installed Muzak sound systems. It took several years, however, for the company to settle on a name. What began as McIntosh and Ingles Consulting Firm would go through two name changes before settling on the third in the early 1950s: McIntosh Engineering Labs, Inc.

It didn't take nearly as long, though, for McIntosh to become dissatisfied with the quality of audio amplifiers that were available commercially for his studio designs and Muzak installations. While doing this early project work, he committed to developing an amplifier of his own, aiming for a product that would offer higher power and lower distortion.

McIntosh hired Gordon Gow, a brilliant young Canadian engineer, to help make his idea a reality. The resulting McIntosh 50W1 Unity Coupled Amplifier could deliver exactly what its advertisements promised: 50 watts of audio power at less than 1 percent distortion from 20 Hz to 20,000Hz. McIntosh directed his initial marketing efforts of this state-of-the-art product toward professional audio engineers and the still-tiny market of home audio enthusiasts.

His target audience soon grew by leaps and bounds. With the coming of the LP record in 1949 and the subsequent marketing hype, "high fidelity" exploded into a national movement and McIntosh sales took off. The outstanding performance of these amplifiers was one factor in achieving commercial success, but the chrome-plated chassis, impressive output transformers, and glowing vacuum tubes helped attract customers, too.

Because the lasting reputation of McIntosh products stemmed from their vacuum tube designs, aficionados were skeptical when the company announced its first solid state power amplifier, the MC2505, in 1967. While the transistor designs were quite good, the classic vacuum tube amps continue to be the products most sought after by today's collectors — and continue to command the highest prices.

Frank McIntosh retired in October 1977 and Gordon Gow, an employee since 1946, replaced him as CEO. McIntosh lived in Scottsdale, Arizona until his death in 1990, the same year Japanese audio equipment company, Clarion, bought his company.

David Morton, Ph.D., works at the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at: www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/.