I'm based in Western Australia, had have just stumbled across this forum. Attended a product training course you did for Niles in PERTH, WA some years ago as a "newbie" and got a lot out of it (hope you are who I'm thinking of!). Thought I'd share a couple of stories that might be of use.
1. On one occassion I went to a newly completed home to quote the owner on supply and installaion of a Home Theatre/Multi-Room System. The place had already been pre-wired, so I quizzed the owner on the extent (and intent) of what he had done so far.
In this process he advised me that the house had already been fitted with a number of pairs of in-ceiling speakers. He told me the make and model (they were supposed to be a high end version of a well known brand), and I immediately realised that they were not what they were supposed to be. I told the client that I was too busy to do the job (I knew that whoever did this couldn't have done a thorough job on the wiring).
I left feeling sorry for the guy, and angry about the practices some companies get away with, giving the industry a bad name.
30 minutes later I was back at his door (correct speaker in hand) and showed him the obvious difference in grill pattern and quality. He then got a ladder and I took out one of the speakers to confirm what they really were (a cheap unit about 1/5th the retail value of what should have been there).
Needless to say he was less than happy with the original installers. I still declined to do the job, as I didn't want him thinking I was trying to torpedo the other guys to get business, and instead referred him to a couple of other firms.
2. While trying to fault find in an RF distribution system that was providing very poor Free-to-Air performance, I had cause to check the modulators located in the equipment cabinet of the client's home theatre. This was quite a nice, fairly high end system worth nearly 6 figures (remeber, its easy to get to 6 figures in Australian $$$).
The modulators and cabling were hidden behind a panel to keep things neat. I removed the panel, and to my horror, I found basic 16 or 18AWG fig8 electrical cable used for the speaker runs, RG6Quad for baseband video to the projector (ie copper-clad steel conductor), and cheap and nasty interconnect (about AUS$3.00 each).
Again the client was less than impressed with those who supplied his theatre, but was happy when I offered to upgrade what cabling I could.
I have since done another theatre for this client, and had numerous referals - the best kind of advertising you can get.
The moral to these stories?
All those aspects to an installation you think the client will never see, they will see one day, and while positive word-of-mouth can make a business, negative can break a business. So don't be tempted to take those short cuts, charge enough for installation to be able to do the job properly, and take pride in both your work and your industry.
