A Blast From the Past, a "Muzak" control switch

[VK5RC]

Staying at a slightly 'faded' but well located hotel the other night, I spotted this in the room and had to laugh, I haven't seen one for decades - I am old enough to remember when they were more common. It didn't work sadly.

It must be sad when something becomes renown for being mediocre or even less. In Australia a non alcoholic drink "Claytons" soon became an adjective for being for 'false' or 'pretence'.    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Claytons

[@rt]

There’s still a timber Muzac speaker with beige cloth cover sitting where it always was, on a wall, at a local newsagent here.

[nctnico]

I never knew it was a brand. Muzak is an official Dutch word for background music.

[Cyberdragon]

Where is the player? (Or where would it have been)

[VK5RC]

I don't know but I recall some had their own dedicated phone line! Hotels etc.

[rrinker]

 A business consultant I knew through a past job was involved in the creation of a sort of competitor - basically they were FM radios with no tuning dial, it was just fixed on one station's frequency and they had an internal speaker as well as a line out to connect to the business phone or PA system - in those days, before the fancy PBX systems were common, you had a standard PA system tied to a specific phone extension (or multiples - so you could page just specific areas) and you dialed an extension which connected you to the PA input. Not as common any more as PBX and IP phones usually have an internal intercom feature for paging.

[VK5RC]

Thanks for that input, I was trying to explain Muzak to my 14yo daughter and it is so similar to Spotify etc but 'Muzac' got it slightly wrong - hence generating the 'bad' or mediocre reputation. Most other companies whose names became popular adjectives/verbs  eg 'hoover' it up - usually have done well. At least for a while anyway.