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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 found the following review helpful:
 Fun door bells and chimes year-round! May 24, 2007
By Deb in Seattle
I thought it would be fun to have a cool door bell when we built a new house recently, and this doorbell provides lots of entertainment for our kids and guests love it. I love the spooky Halloween cackles, holiday and kids' songs. I only gave it four stars because I find the piano keyboard very difficult to use when you want to record a chime--it doesn't really capture the notes and rhythm in the right time, so my dreams of having the Monday Night Football song or the Michigan Fight Song playing is over. Also, unbelievably, they do NOT have "Happy Birthday" as one of their song options. There are some cheesy vocies that yell "Happy Birthday" but not the classic musical song. I'm guessing there must be some trademark issue with using that song, but who knows!?! Anyway, I did tons of research and I am VERY happy with this purchase. They are also very helpful if you have any installation or other questions. I called them on the number listed on [...] once and also posted to their helpful user forum that has installation tips and also a user forum where you can share programmable doorbell songs! Have fun and get this one!!
14 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 Musical Doorbell Jan 11, 2009
By J. Radosevich
When I had a warrenty problem with the doorbell it was difficult to find out who the original manufacture was. Here is that information:
Microsystems Development, Inc.
1177 Park Ave.
San Jose, CA 95126
Phone: (408)280-1226 x112
Fax: (408)280-6868
email: sales@musicaldoorbell.com
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Good but not great - doesn't work with other doorbells Nov 04, 2008
By Mark Clarkson
I got this doorbell to replace a standard doorbell on the top floor of my house. It turns out that because you must place a diode across the switch/button, my functioning doorbell in the lower floor no longer worked, but was always stuck half on, buzzing and vibrating.
I replaced the doorbell with a second of these musical doorbells and the two work fine together.
There's a huge selection of tunes, but the speaker is sub-par and they sound pretty blurry at any but the lowest volume settings.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Great product, easy to program and install Oct 11, 2007
By Connie McNeill
It took us less than an hour to enter the notes for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and replace our old doorbell with this great product. Wonderful fun to be able to honor our love of baseball (go Diamondbacks!) with the doorbell ring. We looked at other products that allow you to record cuts from CDs to use as your ring, but we like the doorbell-sounding ring better.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Works well, but needs a larger speaker Feb 01, 2011
By W. Billick
Nice compact unit in an off-white plastic cabinet. Lots of tunes to choose from. Has special tunes for birthdays, holidays, etc. Also includes a few voice announcements such as "there's someone at the door". You can record and store other tunes of your own choice via the provided built-in mini-keyboard. All tunes are played via either chimes or bells -- whatever you like best. Switching between tunes at a future date is easy and takes less than a minute. MP3s cannot be uploaded and played. For the back door, the unit provides a separate tune that can't be changed -- but it adequately serves its purpose.
Our Microsystems Development musical doorbell replaced an older Nutone musical doorbell that stopped working after 15 years. When I got in touch with Nutone regarding possible repairs (it currently sells for over $100 on the Web) they recommended that I get in touch with a local electrician. That would've cost me close to $200 to replace Nutone (since most of the electricians would've charged me "at least" the manufacturer's list price) -- plus another $75 to $150 for their time. At that cost, it was never going to happen. I would've preferred to return the old Nutone doorbell to be repaired, but Nutone doesn't offer that option. So the old Nutone went into the trash.
Overall, this musical doorbell was relatively easy to install, looks quite nice on the wall, and it was half of the Nutone's Web price. Only took about 20 minutes to take the old Nutone off of the wall and mount and wire this one in its place. I used the previously installed AC bell transformer, along with the in-wall wiring that had been used for the Nutone unit. If you don't already have a transformer, you'll need to buy one -- or you can optionally run this musical doorbell off of batteries. Amazon sells these transformers, and so does Home Depot and Lowes. Lighted doorbell buttons are supported, and the diode that you'll need for your front doorbell button is supplied with the unit.
Only negative is the small speaker that's built into the unit. While the doorbell has an option for several different volume levels, at the highest volume level it does produce some noticeable distortion in the sound. If you're sitting in front of a TV a few rooms away from the doorbell, it may not be loud enough to readily hear. When I have the time I'm planning to recess a 5 or 6 inch 8-ohm speaker into the wall next to the musical doorbell which should fix both the original speaker's insufficient volume and distortion. At that point I'll be able to hear the doorbell anywhere in our 3,500 sq. ft. home.
The doorbell supports using an auxiliary speaker located elsewhere in the house. So in our basement I installed an inexpensive 6" x 9" Radio Shack speaker -- which is quite loud & clear at the doorbell's highest volume level. I wouldn't recommend buying the optional speaker that Microsystems Development sells since it uses the same very small speaker that comes with their musical doorbell unit.
I give the company high marks for customer support. The company that makes this unit (musicaldoorbell.com) answered questions via email within a few days, and there's also a user forum at their Web site with lots of helpful information.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with my purchase (except for the "too small" speaker). My old Nutone came with a larger, better quality speaker which was louder and had less distortion. But please realize that the Nutone muscial doorbell that I'm referring to had been purchased 15 years ago, and I don't know if Nutone's current model uses the same speaker as before. A lot can change in over 15 years!
See all 20 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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