I've come to the conclusion that i'd be happy if i never had to look at Crestron stuff again.
I'm sick of beta testing products for them that should never have been released in the state they were. Pad 8's that bleed audio(crestron sent me a diagram of audio leads with resistors inbuilt so that i could fix the problem myself, instead of putting the same resistors into the product to start with). Badly designed power amps that constantly blow fuses on power up. All product here in australia has to be sent to the states to be repaired (how convenient). Firmware upgrades that ruin a program that worked previously. I've never been involved in a job with Crestron that didn't have problems that could and should have been avoided(there are many more examples than stated above).
Now the final insult. My boss tells me that a job we quoted for 50k of crestron product to a client here in Oz, has been quoted for 20k by someone else. Who would do such a dastardly thing, you might ask?
The quote was from Crestron USA themselves, direct to our client.

I have certainly experienced some issues with Crestron products as well, as I have with AMX and any similar product. I can't speak for what you are experiencing in Australia, but here in the US there customer service is par excellence. Up there with the best I have ever experienced and they don't only take care of us, they follow up without asking to make sure the problem was resolved. They never hesitate to advance replace a product.

Using the power amp issue you refer to as an issue, we've installed large numbers of Crestron amps and Never had one blow a fuse that I'm aware of. I wonder why you are experiencing that.

If they quoted direct to one of your clients that's inexcusable.

I used to work for a Crestron dealer and have a dozen or so installs under my belt and I must agree with QQQ. Almost zero problems and Crestrons response to the few we had was over the top. Add the best training in the industry to their support credentials as well. There was only one out of box failure in 3 years. If you want grief, try Elan. (I couldn't resist). You need to install their software upgrades in a specific manner and if it ain't broke I woulldn't change it at all.

I always love the "My boss tells me" line. So it must be true.

While everyone here knows I'm not a huge fan of Crestron, I must admit I find the idea of crestron undercutting one of their own dealers entertaining.... But unbelieveable.

The guy probobly just called up Crestron and they made him a dealer.

My 2 unwanted cents:
Bulloclks!

You mean software ( which is what firmware is ) might cause a programmer to rewrite his code? Hardly unusual and how can that be a Crestron issue? It's not as if they wrote the code. You could always go back to the previous firmware at any rate. Big firms from my experience do not upgrade firmware for precisely that reason--it may result in some programming issues and those firms do not wish to waste their software engineer's time on uncompensated matters.

I have never had an issue with an amp. I have never had an issue with audio crosstalk on a PAD8A. Original PAD8, yes, as they screwed up and they were willing to fix the problem where it occured. In both my PAD8 systems it was not an issue. I forget who up here made the original comment about the unmentioned fact that many companies pass problems along to those of us field animals for which we are NEVER compensated. Request Audio, Integra, cable boxes, satellite receivers, I have had Triad Platums come out of the box with tweeters disconnected and taking that driver out is a pain. I have seen Proceed 5k DVD players come with the transport installed upside down. Crestron does have a tendency to sell expensive boxes that require the programmer to do everything ( you mean the firmware cannot be written so balance, treble and bass values are at null at startup? ) and there have been a few horror stories ( such as the Network Poll Accelator or screws torqued so tightly that you could not remove them to install the rack ears ). I wish they would settle on a serial connector instead of using 3 different ones but again while a pain it is hardly difficlt to keep in mind that a processor has one pin out, the CNX-RMC or ST-CP an other while the DAP8 has a third.

My only issue is their foolish refusal to run all new product designs through me for approval. I do not know much about Oz. But my experience has been very different. There have been very few hardware issues, especially with respect to the audio components. The DVP4, a few. I have my offices less than 20 minutes ( at 5am ) from Crestron corporate headquaters and have never had them bid against me. Now the folks from Coopersberg, PA? ALL OF THE TIME. However, if an end user asks for a quote, Tech Sales will provide that quote. That quote is then put out to bid. How would Rockleigh know that your firm was bidding on a project? You would expect them to check with each dealer in Oz before supplying the quote? Crestron provides cutting edge solutions. Occasionally they screw up and something does not work. I grant shipping a dead product back to the US is hardly a perfect solution but why do I have the nagging feeling that many of these issues are software related ( as it the code in the processor ).

Alan you read my mind.

I've had one issue with the Crestron amp. Too heavy! Other than the beast is powerful and draws some power IF you turn on all outputs at the same time I love it. Not the cheapest amp by any means but hey if I can turn down the preamp if the amp gets too hot by teenagers cranking up the VVV then hey!

Only one time I had wayyyy tooo much on one circuit and tripped the breaker when all zones of the amp kicked on at once. Spaced them out over a few seconds no problem.

Dave

Crestron seems to be great for everybody else...we haven't had any issues that couldn't be fixed with a quick tech support call.

They aren't "Crestron" for nothing.

Ya...that's right...we choose Crestron over AMX...FYI ALL

Power amps...we recieved 3 of the power amps that had the problem of blowing fuses. The amps weren't blowing fuses with audio. They would blow fuses when the power switch on the front was turned on, even without any audio zones on the pad 8 / pad 8A being turned on. We were told (by the Crestron Distributor at the time) that it was a design flaw and that the amps were drawing too much current at startup. What would happen is, when power failed or was turned off, when power returned the fuse would blow on startup. The curcuits were redesigned and subsequently amps sold since do not have this problem. Crestron were aware of the problem at the time of shipping.

Audio bleeding on Pad 8......
Yes it was the original pad 8 not the pad 8A. My gripe is that the product was released that way and that i had to fix the issue myself on our time and at our expense. I had only just recieved the unit and again crestron were already aware of the problem at that time of shipping.

Firmware upgrade......
In this case we had an established program that worked fine. We had to make additions to the system and (AS SPECIFIED ON A SHEET SUPPLIED WITH EVERY SINGE CRESTRON PRODUCT) our programmer installed the latest firmware. After that much of the system behaved in an eratic but intermittent manner. Yes we reverted to the original firmware but not before wasting time and money trying to source the problem as it was not immediately obvious what the problem was and and didn't show itself straight away.

The quote to our client......
Crestron USA has an appointed distributor here in Australia. Any request for a quote should have been refered to them and subsequently to a dealer. Even if that dealer was our competition, we would at least be playing on a level ground. It's bloody hard to compete against what i suspect is our distributors cost price (considering our quote was 50k and crestron USA's quote was 20K).
For the record, i trust my boss emphatically to tell me the truth about such things.

While i'm at it, crestron should update thier IR learner. A marantz 5200/5400 remote can learn codes that it can't.

I have to say that the service we get from the disributor here is excellent and most of these problems occured when it was being distributed by another company, however i cannot blame the previous distributor as they did not build the faulty products and they did not send me the lead manufacturing diagrams to fix the problem myself. Good service would have been to not send out product known to have issues in the first place or at the very least to have supplied the fix themselves.

I think my gripes are pretty resonable.

Simon.

Sorry

I discount all third party info as misleading. Show me an press release or actual bid.

In the land of OZ I'm guessing you say fuse and that translates to a breaker in the electral panel to us in the US. Seems like a electracal wiring design issue to me. Don't see Crestron as an issue. I'm seen McIntosh/ Krell amps pull more current on startup the Crestron amp.

Dave

We might not have seen the amp problem over here since we are on 120V. Might have only occured when used in countries with 220V.

I'm going to side with Crestron on this one.

I like ham sandwiches.

This must be a 220v issue as I know of no 120v issues.
Yes, every job with CNXAMPs gets 2 20A breakers to mitegate the possibility of the breaker tripping. While the amps are OEMed it would be Crestron's problem if true. The same amps are found in Europe so something seems off here.


This is an old issue and someone was fired because of it. The relay ( the reason for the led signal definition ) was installed but not connected on the circuit board. While I feel your pain when in bloody hell would you expect them to do but offer you a field solution? The PADA came out a year later with new circuit boards and the relay in the circuit.

Such is life in the lovely world world of automation. Does not mean your original problem was not the result of bad programming, especially Simpl+ that the new firmware brought out. First time this happened to me was in 1998 on a job with chainned touch panels. Uploaded new firmware and all touch panels ceased working. 5 days and 60 hours later tech support infromed me that the new firmware did not support chaining and I had to revert back to the previous version. Lesson learned: If you have a working system and it begins to evidence problems immediately go back to the previously working firmware. It's called installation experience.


Just curious. What files have you been unable to load? I cannot say as I have had any issues here but I do confess that I learn fewer and fewer IR files as we do more and more serial.

Reasonalbe? I guess you also think Olivia Newton John can sing. Can you name a company that makes as many products as Crestron? Apart from the eastern electronics giants who rarely produce cutting edge products and whose failures are more numberous ( only you have chosen to ignore or overlook them ) you adduce 2 hardware faults, of which only one seems legit ( and why are you relying on your distributor when Crestron, even from Oz, is but a tech support call away ). You mix togther hearsay, old news and some legitemate complaints which you have decided to exagerate and reach the conclustion that Crestron is a bad company and guilty of making worse products. Therefore, if I have one bad experience with an Austrialian ( such as what happened in Munich in'72 when a few drunken idiots from Oz hijacked a few trolly cars ) then I can extend that experience to all of you blokes from down under?

Does Crestron screw up? Yes. Do I like it when they do? No I do not. Does it cost me money? Yes. Am I aware that this can happen when dealing with cutting edge products, even when the cutting edge product is power supply or amplifier? Yes. Might this be part of the reason for the magins in the Crestron skew? If you really knew your stuff you might include the entire X-gen processor skew--which remains with us in the form of the CNX-RMC. No company in my experience makes fewer errors nor tries as hard to fix their errors. As an example, not long ago we did a sports bar with 33 32" LG LCDs. LG knew they had issues with the chips in that unit but sold them to us, and then took their sweet time admitting it and took even longer to warantee the repair. How many hours do you think were spent troubleshooting why some TVs seemed to turn on but did not display an image. How many hours do you think it took to drop 32 displays from their ceiling mounts, open them up, replace faulty chips, remount them and reconnect and retest all wiring; and that is not including my R&D into the problem, extra coding to try to eliminate the problem, and swapping out emitters, IR splitters, an new wiring. This is a normal day in the automation/installation business. LG only had to drop new chips into its displays while they were in the warehouse. How about the infamous Sharp/Pioneer plasma that once turned off could not be turned back on via serial? Integra's 5 disc CD changers that failed and failed and failed ( Tom tells us because of a faulty design of the cable between laser and board ) or the Sony receivers whose component video never worked.

Alan