I always say the cream rises to the top.

I have worked with several places and there are always (politically correct wording on this one) "different levels" of installers....

Some just do what it takes to get by.....others would rather downgrade an install to keep the job and by doing so sacrifice quality.....

I always see electricians and other trades doing double-duty and running wires and equipment just because the home owner wants to save a buck or two, or has the proverbial friend of his cousin with a kick ass set of tools.....

They will always exist as we know it, as well as the guys in the white vans with extra speakers and all the internet sales.....

Word of mouth pays my bills and I try to do the extra that people don't always get to ensure that when that big screen or projector project in their unfinished basement comes up that we're there.

The hacks and such will still exist and you'll always get the "you should have seen the install that I had to fix" statement.

Call it job security....


CI

i dont beleive in the different levels of installers...you either do it right or not at all..... end of story......

word of mouth is great and pays the bills but i want more....greed is good...gordon gecco.


well the first set of numbers go out on this disaster house tuesday......i pray they have the passwords or i gotta start from scratch......that means lots of works

It would seem that the Chicago area reps and distributers are really doing a bang-up job of getting product into the hands of people who'll sell their products.

My subjective observation is that there was a distribution explosion that began in the late 1990's and continues into present day.

Is there an oversaturation point on retail channels and if so, have we reached it yet?

What are/would be the consequences of an oversaturation?

The old saying is that most small business fail within the first five years, but to contradict that, I see most upstart CI businesses doing fairly well these days (regardless of the quality of work performed). The business that are typically not doing so well are the older, established, high overhead outlets (of course, many exceptions apply).

Of all of the hundreds of retailers, manufacturer's reps and distributers that I've known over the course of 20 years, I've seen less then a handfull who've gotten rich from being in this business, so what's the motavation for newcomers? Do they not realize this or do they have no other career to fall back on?

unfortunatelally it has become quantity not quality

Is overdistribution to blame?

What needs to be done to fix it?

What role will CEDIA certification play?

I think that the best thing for the integrity of the industry will be the inevitible slowdown in housing.... call it a bubble burst, or a deflation of the bubble, or whatever.

The REAL reason distros are bursting at the seams in growth and dozens of quasi-qualified companies are coming into the industry every year has to do with demand. Builders are LOOKING for people to do this kind of work, and they want it done on their terms (meaning very fast and very inexpensively).

The cream will rise to the top and the opportunistic hacks who jumped out of dozens of declining fields into this one, will find the next thing to do that pays fairly well with little effort and jump into that.

I do find it entertaining that ABT has become somewhat of a distributor in the Chicago market. I am aware a a few dealers that buy thier TVs from them because they provide free delivery and the smaller CI dealer doesn't have to deal with the B.S. from the regular distribution channel in terms of warranty. One of these days I'd love for the Chicago guys to get together to put some faces to the names.

I just spent a fair amount of time & money to be certified. Not that it probably matters. I don't see the average guy giving CEDIA any real weight.

I've been around my small market so long that that the people who already like me won't even notice and the people that are sure I'm an idiot won't change their minds.

I did it to give CEDIA & the certification program one last chance and just in case I run into someone who is really paying attention.

I just wish everyone was more impressed with *me*... it would make my job easier.

Yesterday I was called by a customer who a rep of mine told to call me. Anyway apparently he had a 70volt problem in a residence. I took my lunch break and went a couple miles to look at it, when I get there the dealer currently working the system was there. That's no biggee for me I walk in introduce myself and walk over and start looking at the system. Now first off the house is big modern and in a pricey neighborhood, but you should see what the guy has for electronics a freakin Peavey 70volt mixer/amp and a Harman receiever, a really old 1st generation RPT 40" TV looks terrible...and a pair of Sony (junk) tower speakers in the front and a pair of sony bookshelves literally sitting on the floor in the corners. Anyway I am not there to be a critic so I take a look at the amp make sure it is actually receiving a signal..it is! I ask where the head end is....nothing...ok where are all the wires connected? Oh downstairs..ok lets go...go down look at it actually a fairly neat job on a board 3 barrier strips..and 2 huge EV autoformers. Ok so now I am just confused...what in the hell are these doing hooked the come in hooked up 70V they go back out to the VC/Speakers 50V (no idea where the all the speakers are connected) ok so I tone the wires..it is coming in & going out and the speakers and playing the tone....so I go back up hook my 70V speaker I brought directly to the amp ..nothin..change inputs...nothin! Ok easy..your amp is toast. Come to find out during the course of them talking that the outside speaker (Atlas/Soundolier in ceiling 70V) were not working and when they took one of them out to inspect it it poured out rust...lol! Anyway they ask me to take a look I do and of course first thing I am wondering is why would anyone use regular in ceiling speakers outside but hey what do I know. I tell them to replace them with a pair of anyones 70V outdoor speakers. Here is the kicker, since we can assume since the transformer/s in the outdoor speakers are cooked and probably in dead short...would you leave them connected? Apparently yes...thats a good idea!

cedia is a joke.....havent been a memeber since1994 last year in dallas when i told joe cane to kiss my ass......

name with a face in chicago....my face has no name......sure hooters any given friday 2 hour notice..lol

as for abt you can most likely get things cheaper there than at av@d but why.....those guys are huge hacks can i have a sub zero and a plasma to go.......

as for fast and cheap in the ci market....not gonna happen you cant have both and if you have bth then people like us have to come in and fix the mess.

CEID you replied that there aren't different levels of installers......I believe my words were labeled as P.C. In other words ....I wanted to say that some installers in this area SUCK!....I tried to be nicer about it but lets not dance around the bush...

"Oh" the Electrician said, "since I was gonna wire for speakers I ran some of that heavy gauge ROMEX cause its the largest wire I could find!"

CI

in my company there is not different levels...in the ci biz there should be none...either right or wrong

some is an understatement....i would say that all of them suck except about 20 or so and out of that i would have maybe 3 do my house if i could not.

no reason to be nice , i'll call a spade a spade...the chicago market is inundated by suck ass hacks...every tom,dick,harry and laid off IT guy got into this industry and they all suck. not a freaking clue.... worse than that the customers are happy with their suck ass hacks for the most part.....customers are not wanting superior installed products at anylevel......they want cheap shit hacked in...

then when one of those hacks gets a customer that wants it done right the hack that up as well then get fired and people like us get called in....for damage control....that is why i started this thread....

i am sick of it....we need to unite and start breaking some kneecaps to get this to end

if i have offended anyone....i dont care get out of the business


ed

Alan, I just made my way to the end of this string, and you definitely are right on the money. Every time a situation like this comes up, my first reaction is to be the hero. But cooler heads prevail, so I always take time to ask these prospective clients questions that are blunt, but to the point: How, why, what, when.................. If the client is open and willing to work within YOUR parameters, then there is opportunity to be the hero. Unfortunately, as we all have experienced from time to time, these clients are not always forthcoming with this information, and now the heat is on. I few unbillable hours (site walk-through: Q & A with prospective client) can ward off a potential disaster. I know there are some un-skilled people in our industry that masquerade as professionals, but do these "butchered jobs" look like the work of a bad custom a/v person, or the work of a person whose specialty is in a trade like ours (read: alarm people / electricians / off-hr verizon workers, etc. ) but is actually VERY DIFFERENT? I have worked side by side with some of these tradespeople - some say they will not touch what we do (audio/video custom integration) others say they will run wires if told what wires to run and where to run them. WHO is telling them - the customer perhaps? Never rule these possibilities out and the chance for disaster drops dramatically. And to all of the other tradespeople mentioned above who are proficient in low voltage custom audio/video system integration - I am not talking about you.

Aaron

ahhh man this could get even uglier now.....

the person that this thread is about just forwarded my info to another person who got burned by the same ci company.....

i could turn from hero to zero quickly if i'm not carefull.......

i'll keep you all posted

ed

Is it a company that did a whole neighborhood while they were being built??