Trunk slammers don't put the larger companies out. The people that hire them would most likely never hire a large company. Therefore, the business was never there. Don't people get that? Does McDonalds put high end classy restraunts, that charge $150 a plate out of business? No way...As far as the first post goes, it was pretty arrogant. To think Media Systems only did huge scale jobs is rediculous. I have seen some of their smaller jobs, and those jobs were very small in scale. One was just distributed audio to 4 rooms...nothing more.

The arrogant thing about the first post, was that this jerkoff was jumping up and down like he just hit the lottery and now he is going to be rich because all these clients are just going to be beating down his pickup door.

Uhhh, New guy...If you think for an instant that a big, well respected company going out of business is a good thing, you are an ahole..This industry is a bitch, period..Very few have figured out how to do it right..And that goes for any level..There are some well respected "Trunk Slammers" in my town..and some well respected "Big Guys"..Some of us are better at business, and some are technically better..In the long run I have learned to never get cocky or applaud defeat..Cause one day this could be you..My " Big Company" started in town with no real competition..Seven years later there are 2 more " Big Guys" 2 Tweeters and 2 Best Buys..The overall business plan has to be in flux on a daily basis...If you think you have it all figured out, write a damn book.. You would make a killing at CEDIA...



THXRick

"In flux" I like that term. like surfing a wave, you have to be on your toes. And it's a never ending learning curve

For this idiot to proclaim his joy over this sad (and sad it is, for it reflects on the industry as a whole) event in an open forum speaks poorly of him.

I suppose that he's happy that there are many families who are suffering due to lack of employment?

I suppose he's happy that there are several families who have lost money on their incomplete systems?

Childish attitude, to put it lightly.

Hey G,this may push some of Media's employees to start their own small businesses similar to yours.

It would serve you right if they then start undercuting your prices just to get work. All of a sudden a bunch of little guys nippin at your heels.


To me "trunkslammer" is derogatory term meaning someone who dosen't know what they are doing or does crummy work ie: my former boss.
He has a storefront.
He has 8 employees.
He stapled big 8 ohm cement resistors to basement floor joists for impedence matching, they char the wood nicely at high volume. He used to use 22/4 for volume control feeds, now he uses 18/4 "the customer can't hear the difference". In the 9 mo I was with him I saw 2 customers that were sold bad HD systems, 1 the scaler he was sold was not compatable with the Hughes HD receiver, I was told to use the composite outputs "the scaler will convert it". The other was sold a Samsung LCD 40" with a Hughes HD sat, the set only accepted 480P the Hughes only outputed 480I or 1080I. He told me that he would get the customer an "adapter", never did.

I work out of my house, does that make me a trunkslammer? I am a CEDIA certified installer and designer. I do better work than my former boss and better than lot of the storefront companies around here. I am also fully insured. I charge what I need to make a profit and am cheaper than some of the big boys, but I also loose some bids to lower priced competition.

I never slam my trunk, it's a hatchback.

This message was edited by phil on 07/12/04 03:14.

Well said Phil. Some of the most atrocious "trunk slammers" are multi-million dollar outfits with fleets of vehicles.

Ditto Q. There is scary truth in what you are saying Phil. I've seen work like that. Get the cash and run installs. Slam and jam.

I still spend some time repairing things, and hence get to see other companies installations. "Trunkslammer" is a term that is obscured by the quality of the installation in my opinion. Big company, small company, it all comes down to designing a good system and milking it for all it's worth.

You guys are right about small vs. large not being a fair assessment in our industry. It is unfair that the key vendors make the small talented companies sweat their quarterly numbers all the while they pine for the day that they can sign up the mega sized, yet clueless, retailers with the same products and wreck the market. The reason why Media Systems pulled the plug is not publicly known, but let me say that many trunk slammers like our man G1130 would still be bagging groceries or pumping gas if it weren't for guys like Mitch Klein and myself you have been sharing the successes and failures of installs during the infancy of this young industry with our peers as well as the newcomers by starting and promoting CEDIA.
Price wars among Tweeter, Best Buy, Circuit City and the like really do not affect the high end integrators, it's nowhere near as devastating as losing key staff that we have trained from the ground up who decide to buy a used cargo van and go into business for themselves. If you look at the key players in any community in the country, many of the key members spent time with one of the big, old-school integration companies like Media Systems.

This message was edited by 2nd rick on 07/13/04 20:34.

I have been approached by the "White Van" selling below cost speakers twice in the last two months here in Denver. When I told them I was in the industry, they wanted to become one of my suppliers! What a way to enhance any custom business (sarcasm applied)

but let

Seems a tad pompous to me.

My company was in the A/V business before CEDIA was created. And yes, I have learned some new tricks via CEDIA. But you're saying that I would be bagging groceries or pupming gas if you had never come along?



TOO FUNNY......

Since your a fellow old schooler, I'm sure that you have had your share of jobs that were lost to some johnny-come-lately hacks that were given your quotes by the client and used you proposal as "custom installation 101" and probably still had no clue how to execute the plan.

My favorite moment was when I saw one of my shadetree competitor's quotes and realized that not only had they copied my proposal layout exactly, but they copied my cover letter word for word!!

What I meant by the earlier post is that too many of the newer trunk slammers AND bigger companies with green install departments don't know how lucky they are that guys like us struggled with the growing pains of REAL custom in the early days....

Old schoolers learned to DESIGN whole house wiring and screw down punch-down blocks, RF splitters, combiners, attenuators, taps, and RF amps to a half sheet of plywood.

Old schoolers made "multi-zone" systems by stacking remote controlled stereo receivers together and using Xantech line level distribution amps and IR routers with whatever keypads or remotes we could get to work consistently. It was that, ADA, or B&O, which were also super-klugey.

Old schoolers learned to set up CRT projectors with finicky video processors without the benefit of video upconversion and adequate onboard video switching.

Old schoolers has to plant 10' dish systems and calibrated the massive beast to rotate and pick up signal from a dozen individual birds in the sky. Then to share the receiver through the house, you had to use a primitive analog tuned modulators that for some reason you could never get set perfectly so every TV tuners in the house tuned in clearly.

All that, and we had to wait 2 weeks for our parts from Channel Plus, Xantech, Channel Master, etc. to come from the individual factories... we didn't have the luxury of stocking multi-line distributors in every town.
I have to laugh when I'm at the will call counter of my distributor and I hear a spoiled newbie walk in and cry "what do you mean you dont have that keypad in stock in light almond?, I need it for a job this afternoon!!"

Now, anyone with a tax ID and a van can be an expert.

He can throw up a DSS dish and split it out to a dozen or more receivers with off the shelf, amplified multi-switches...

Wire a house with a structured wire panel with modules that do the majority of the system design for you...

Plug and play an integrated multi-zone receiver where you literally only have make the connections and program the CD player commands to the system keypads to get a finished system...

Send a half dozen sources with different connections into any $800 or higher receiver that will automatically convert your signals and output a single connection on to a single lens projector with a nice onboard scaler that needs little more than a simple twist of the zoom and focus control to be dialed to the screen.

And on this thread we have one of these "expert" newbies who probably never struggled to integrate a science project of consumer and pro products because thats all that existed, or ever contributed ideas to peers and to the industry, is trying to put down someone like Mitch Klein who helped make his job so easy.

The old schoolers know what I mean.

2nd Rick,

I took the original post a bit the same way t slammer sup did but nice piece of explanation and comeback. Very well said indeed... been there... done some of that. I can also honestly say that manufacturers have heard some of my ideas along the way and bought them into this world (although I'm sure they were reiterated by other fellow installers at the very same times).

It is nice to see that basically no one agreed with the initial post on this thread and that g man hasn't had the nerve to reply. Maybe he's too busy building his empire on MS ex-clients.

Okay, okay....I'll let you off this time....lol


You sort of got me with the "multiple receivers and klugey keypads.....Gawd, that does bring back some memories....