What! A post about metronomes? Ho Hum.
I gotta be honest, I’m not crazy about iPhone/iPad metronome apps only for ONE reason, they’re not loud enough unless you’re running them through speakers. That said, an 11-year-old student introduced me to a great metronome app she uses (when I make her!) on her iPad, best one I’ve seen:

Pro Metronome:

And here’s a list of non-app, some perhaps are somewhat “antiquated” metronomes.

The Korg MA-30, the one I have in my studio. Still cool to kids cos it runs on batteries and has buttons to push.

The bad boy Franz (yes, you plug it in), mine lasted for years (I went through two of them I think) … in fact … sentimental packrat that I am, I still have the second one. It finally died, and I don’t have time to run around finding a clockmaker to fix and calibrate it.

The Wittner mini, had one of these in college, another great metronome, of the wind-up variety:

Call me old-fashioned but I still love these the best, the Seth Thomas wooden metronome, a throwback to the early 1800s (yup, patented by Johann Maelzel in 1815 (Hence, “M.M.” stands for “Maelzel Metronome” so when I write “m.m.” on your music you’ll know where the heck it comes from.) According to Wiki, Beethoven first used m.m. markings in his scores in 1817.

It’s nice and loud, the one I grew up with as a kid (actually, I think we had two, I broke the first one when I threw it across the room in frustration).

Feel free to share your thrilling metronome memories here too! 🙂

(Seriously, always want info, esp. on apps, or other “physical” metronomes.)