Sight and Sound

Anyone have any comments on Sight and Sound? They are vm’s new low voltage (coax, cat, home audio, theater…) contractor.
Prices are insane.. 4k for a 500$ unit 4 pairs of speakers and the install. Ouch
http://shopping.e-sassi.com/view_builder.php?bID=9&cID=93&PHPSESSID=02b3eac096a16c482e8beb413e8de0f5

 

We just met with them and we are wondering about the HDMI & HDTV outlets at $775 each. This seems like a lot but we are not sure.

 

call my husband Kevin 703-263-1002 x166
he works at AVS Inc. (audio video systems). he can get you a good rate and excellent people. they have done some work on several houses in the broadlands.
good luck!
sunny

 

I have not seen the prices but from what you guys just indicated, that is ridiculous! I know they think you want to just build it into your mortgage and be done with it, but there are limits to what is reasonable.

I would look at your "plan" and really think about that you want to do. There are some awesome wireless music distribution systems on the market now for whole home audio and you can buy it for a lot less than $4k. One to look at is Sonos.

I would also call a couple of places that do installs (AVS Inc. is great) and get estimates. Tell them what you want to do, how many, distance, etc. and you can compare. I went with the Home audio option with Openband - got then 5 room speaker package, including outside and I think it was arond $1800. That was not bad... then.

Be careful how far you do HDMI cable runs... there are limits. The challenge is doing HDTV and HDMI cable runs after the house is built. But like I said, call around for estimates so you can compare.... and in my humble opinion you are much more likely to get a better solution yourself... and I consult for cheap (six pack).

And I saw that 4- Zone Whole House Audio Distribution option (the NuVo Simplese) and it looks like for the equipment, the going price is $1500. So that sounds like a lot for installation on a new home.... but again, check with a installer to compare.

 

Let me add to Zeratul's excellent comments.

First look at doing as much wireless as possible. The wirless systems are getting very very good. In my own home the inside of my walls looks like the wiring of the space shuttle. And I use very little of it!!!

I use almost none of it. My internet is wireless. We use only cell phones. And in the next couple of years most of the connections to your tv is going wireless. That technology is already here and several companies will be rolling out tv's and equipment that are all wireless. And you can aready buy such equipment although a tad expensive at the moment.

If you want to have a dedicated movie theater such as I do. Here is what I have done. I have a painted screen that is quite large a friend of mine in the theater business told me to build a flat black frame around the painted wall screen and also paint the surrounding wall flat black and if you have it in a windowless room the hi def picture can be stunning. My projector is an Infocus up convert which I bought on sale with trade in for $450.

My receiver is a high end onkyon which I paid at a steep discount $1500 my 8 in wall speakers with separate powered subwoofers again at a steep discount was about $2500 and I use a oppo dvd player about $200 which can only be bought from oppo on line. Rated as goodd as some of the muti thousand dollar dvd players and I have a hi def dvr in the theater and at all the flat screen tvs.

A word about hdmi there are several grades of it right now you want level v1.3 and you can lose significant picture and sound quality over 30 to 40 feet. and at those lengths you want high quality shielded wires with excellent connectors. At shorter lengths such as 10 feet or less I have not noticed much difference between the quality from good inexpensive to very expensive hdmi cables. Link to some testing and reviews http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cable-battlemodo/

Lee j