RTI is one of the best new products we have used in a while, rock solid rf, great software and brilliantly simple design.

Second the Parasound Z system, control is excellent, amps wont fail to please and the Z-pre comes in handy all of the time.

James loudspeaker is one of my favorite speakers lines ever, line has it all except an entry level in wall.

Also gotta give a shout out to Sherbourn, the amps are overflowing with power and the owner looks and talks like Sean Connery.



In the crap heaper we (our company) have to throw in Control 4 just for the sheer fact that we saw an almost 70% failure rate. Except for the toilet controller, that one worked perfectly.

The I Pronto (just a poorly designed piece of crap)

Samsung RPTV's

Imerge

Anything Wesley Mullings is pushing.

I'd really like to develop this into a cohesive web database but just don't know if time allows. I know it's great when a post here saves me time and money. Mentioned the Sanus at the start. We used this mount on a project recently and it is a feet (feat?) of engineering beauty. It's as if the guy/s that designed it actually install TV's. Strong as HELL, doesn't sag one bit (used it with a 63" TV), and easy to put together and mount. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Link: sanus.com]

The single arm mount for ligher TVs have worked great for us too.

WARNING: I'd avoid this product like the plague:
[Link: lucasey.com]
It is DEFECTIVE. We used one a few weeks ago and had to take it down and switch to another product. It sagged and was absolutely impossible to push back to the wall and have it stay remotely level. Not just finicky, it was an outright defective design. Only reason we tried it was the shallow depth.

Other notables on the good side...
- the previously mentioned RTI product line

- Triad, Triad, Triad... did I mention Triad??
Best support in the biz, decent achievable margins, and they go out of their way to create multiple solutions to issues that other manufacturers can't address at all. The custom color matching of grilles and stain matching on veneers is probably the single biggest advantage for them over their competitors, which translated to the single biggest advantage for me over my competitors when I was in the field.

- Middle Atlantic Products. I am glad MAP is getting some love here...
I know the guy who set up their biggest residential distribution deal (he is in my mirror every morning)

- Lutron HomeWorks HomeServe RF.

- Liberty ConnecTec, their one piece RCAs are wonderful. (no seperate center pins to lose) and it doesn't hurt that they look good...
The ICM based systems (ProConnect, old style Liberty, Digicon, etc.) are equal in performance, but the new Liberty gets my vote on ease of use.

On the bad side...
- DIY know-it-all enthusiasts, low ball electricians, and cheapskate builders who have NEVER seen Lutron HWI in action proclaiming that PLC systems (in any of their incarnations) are as good as Lutron for a lot less. The "a lot less" part is absolutely right, but the lack of reliability on occasion and the additional delay on EVERY occasion are deal breakers.

- Any remote with the Philips name on it... actually the software is to blame for most of the issues, but they have decided time and time again to let the CI community beta test on their own time and money.

I know that some of the items on this list (good and bad) may shock some of you who know what I should be recommending, but I will call it like I see it and I believe that this will take me farther. My integrity is more important to me than shilling something that I know is not the best.

Got to love we Americans who cannot tell the difference between a Sottish and cockney accent. Still a great company whose products ought to be in more of our jobs.

I am surprised not to see Lutron on this list. They make a fabulous product which they continue to innovate, have supurb tech support and even better customer support. They invented the lighting control market for most of us with Homeworks, brought wireless lighting systems to market and have brought shades to our market. They understand control and they understand that those who can sell often cannot program and develop their products accordingly.

Stewart Filmscreen also goes the extra mile. Donald Stewart is a gentleman who does the right thing. Great support and on the rare instince where they screw up they do the right thing. They also go the extra mile--or they have bailed me out of my own mistakes on any number of times.

Crestron: Best tech support for the most rediculous array of products and dealer abilities. Customer support that deals with professional commercial companies and small companies like mine --who continually call to find the RMA that was granted 3 weeks prior and promtly lost. They have more than done the right thing. I took over a few jobs from other dealers and they have provided new equipment, trouble shooting, engineers to visit some of those sites. Only Lutron has done anything even close to this level of support.

Notice how many of these good companies are small companies?


Bad: All telephone systems. I am still waiting for someone to craft a system, especially software for the residential market.

Large electronics corporations. Even the best suck. Production on demand, refusal to take back DOA units, failure to craft much in the way of product to our industry. Even the best of them, like Integra still have major issues--or how long have you waited for production on demand units to show up?

Rep/Distribution: The biggest evil to ever hit this industry. Now everyone has access to everything so more incompetants can attempt to do bad jobs pulling the price of jobs lower and making our reputations lower.

Alan

All great votes IMO Rick. And I agree on Philips too. I loathe the company and refuse to beta test their products for them. They are the worst example of what happens when a billion dollar company develops a product for the CI market and then could give a crap about it because it's such a tiny slice of business for them. It's not like a small company where you can at least call and yell at someone that might matter. Their tech support is some poor lady (or man) that sits at a computer screen and reads off suggestions when someone calls in. Most of the time they don't even know what they product is or does that they are supposedly offering tech support on.

How on earth do you guys break an Imerge?

Add my "Bad" vote for any Pronto incarnation.

I would also like to add Vantage to the execellent list.
Easy to program and intergrate with good tech support.

Elan to the good. Product okay, support great.

I have to throw my vote in, mostly goods, as I try to research products beofre selling them.
Good:
RTI. Enough cannot be said, especially if you've ever battled with that other companies RF "solution".

Middle Atlantic. Great, solid products and a solution for everything.

Fujitsu. Nuff said.

Peerless mounts have been good for us. No complaints.

Been happy with both Yamaha and Marantz. Namely Yamaha lately, good discreets and accessable documentation helps.

SpeakerCraft has been good for us too. Solid products, quick shipping and rarely a back order. They saved my ass during the "done by christmas" crunch.

Bad: Last year or two, JVC video products. UGH! Anything that records a DVD has decided to go into perma-lockup mode. Even the replacements for the replacements. Done with that ordeal, only JVC product we sell now is DILAs.

Oh, the mention of JVC reminded me of another BAD product...

The JVC S-VHS VCR...
It does not have rear A/V inputs!!

You can ONLY record from the front inputs, or from the RF feed coming into the tuner. Dumb move JVC...

Right. A client's assistant who has seen a TSU7000 was just shaking his head at how much better an RTI T2+ was (this in combo with an RP-6).

There is one Prontoid product that still stands out: the Marantz RC5200. In IR mode. And yes, its software sucks, but at least it WORKS! Once you upload using the RTI software, though, and find that upload time not only doesn't give you enough time to clip your toenails, but you can hardly even get one shoe off, well, ALL Pronto software is seen to be primitive.

Gotta love Americans who cannot get enough sleep and must constantly spend time making sure we distinguish proper accent designation. ;-}

I am not a linquist as you are not a speller. :-)

A word about Panasonic phone systems.

As has been stated, Panasonic's national support in NJ is only an option if you don't mind waiting an hour on hold only to be dealt with rudely.

Also, their supplied documentation only covers about 10% of the actual situations that you're going to run into.

If you're going to sell them, you owe it to yourself to buy from a distributor that has a good in-house tech support team and plan on losing money on the first couple that you install. I thought that I'd covered every possible feature on an 848 this year, but somehow, everytime that someone posts a question regarding to one, it's something that I've not run into yet.

Getting proficient with these or other brands of phone systems takes a lot of time and effort, but can be very rewarding in the long run.

Just don't approach it as something that's going to flow right into a whole house project. These things are designed primarily to be installed by communications companies who know all of the terminology involved, and not for CI companies who're only going to do one or two per year.

Then again, nobody told that to their marketing department.

Rick - don't know which JVC S-VHS VCR's you've been installing, but every one I've ever sold (and owned) had rear AV inputs and worked well with discrete everything. We've sold hundreds of these over the years, and have maybe had two or three service issues of any kind. I would have put them in the Excellent column if it weren't for the fact that nobody wants a VCR anymore...

QQQ,

I know you're busy but through Daniel or some other place... this web database would be a GREAT thing. Unfortunately, in post form it is too random.

That said I'd like to add my 2 cents...I tend to look not just at products but at the people representing them and how those people care about resolving inevitable problems (does anyone here work with a product hat has never failed even once?)

Great...

Bay Audio... A couple of guys who build great products and really care about your business. You'll know them personally and do training in San Diego.

Sherbourn... Ron and cohorts provide exceptional service and their reasonably priced amps smoke things that are double the price.


Good...
Integra... love the products... have problems wth billing

Auton... noisy as hell but they work. One thing stands out though. Auton once built a lift wrong for us. Since the customers plasma was on site we went to install it on the eleventh hour and found this out way too late. Our fault on the timing... theirs on the construction. They built a new one that morning and put it on a United flight that afternoon... that was a shining example of customer service... Thanks again Virgil.

Bad...
Dwin... two years ago I'd have put these up top. Now EVERY one we've ever sold has crapped out. They must be experiencing a lot of problems because ther service has really been lacking (slow turnarounds, etc.) I'm really afraid of ever selling one again.

TAW... literally the worst company i've ever dealt with... good idea but when i got the $15.00 RCA universal remote with the writing on the rubber buttons dremeled off and a little sticker that said TAW on the bottom with my $5500.00 scaler I wondered. 200% or more defective rate. Little or no support without request for lots more money. Blamed other manufacturers (Xantech IR system) for problem with codes. Phil actually reamed Xantech for 5 minutes rather than take any responsibility for his stuff. One clients unit went in 4 times. Upon the third repair it was literally dead out of the box. Phil blamed shipping. He wouldn't even look at it again without a Visa card. It worked after the fourth time for about two weeks and died. We heavily enjoyed the sledgehammering session on that piece of crap but it cost us over $1000.00 to replace it with something that actually works.

NOBU... Their new stuff looks cool but I'll never try them again as they left us high and dry on a product they "no longer support". They told us it would work in wall but later found out it wouldn't and redesigned. Now we're left with a big hole to patch and a big f--k you from Nobu. They of course had the audacity to send us new literature.

I could add more to all three but I think we do need to figure out something where the categories are listed with responses attached. I'm sure certain products would end up in all. Personal experiences only... not hearsay... very valuable to us all.

Daniel?

I forgot about Parasound. Been installing their stuff lots, lately the Zamp. Solid performer. Just don't use the auto sensing circuit.

In fact, I don't recall any (line level) auto sensing device that's ever worked well.

Most importantly, any product sold or made by anyone remotely sounding or looking like Sean Connery must be of the highest quality. I will pester my engineers to start specking Sherbournes. Thanks for the tip.