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For Fifty Years
1999 is the 50th year of business
for McIntosh Laboratory of
Binghamton, New York. It all
started when Frank H. McIntosh
organized a small electronic en-
gineering consulting firm in the
Washington, DC area. One of
the many goals his firm ad-
dressed was the need for a high
quality audio power
amplifier. No existing
amplifier at that time
could reproduce the
entire audio range
from 20Hz to
20,000Hz with low
distortion. Mr. McIn-
tosh had a dream. He
wanted to create an
audio power ampli-
fier that would far
surpass the limited
performance capa-
bilities of any power
amplifier available in
1948.
Mr. McIntosh assembled a
small team of talented and dedi-
cated people who shared his
ideas, and formed the original
McIntosh Engineering Labora-
tory. This beginning staff in-
cluded Gordon J. Gow and
Maurice L. Painchaud, both of
whom would spend the rest of
their productive lives working
for the company that later be-
came McIntosh Laboratory, Inc.
Initially both Mr. Gow and Mr.
Painchaud were directly in-
volved in design engineering.
McIntoshs First Amplifier
After months of research, the
dream had become reality. The
original McIntosh Power Am-
plifier, the 50W1, was created.
This amplifier was the first that
could truly be described as High
Fidelity, with 50 watts output
from 20 cycles to 20,000 cycles
with less than 1% distortion.
Now it was possible to repro-
duce music with a new degree
of sonic accuracy that had never
before been possible. The suc-
cess of the company was se-
cure. Additional new models
were added and the company
expanded into
new facilities in
B i n g h a m t o n ,
New York in
1951. At that time
the company
name was
changed to the
now familiar
McIntosh Labora-
tory, Inc. Gordon
Gow advanced to
become Execu-
tive Vice Presi-
dent of Sales and
after Frank McIn-
tosh retired, became Company
President for the last twelve
years of his life. Maurice L.
Painchaud became Vice Presi-
dent of Operations and the
Company Controller, and was
appointed President after the
untimely death of Gordon Gow.
Frank H. McIntosh
Gordon J. Gow
Maurice L. Painchuad
Sidney A. Corderman
A Brief History of McIntosh
The Original McIntosh
50W1 Power Amplifier
