Dads SYstem....I think he got ripped

[4x4TX]

Ok my dad had a custom house built about three years ago...with that, he had the house prewired for surround sound etc...

He got a technics receiver, infiniti speakers and subwoofer, all monster wire, two outdoor infinit speakers for the back porch and two speakers attached to this system in other rooms to run off the receiver....in my opinion, it sounded like crap..it might be the way the room was built, I Am not sure....the speakers are mounted really high up on the walls, probably 12-15ft high because of the high ceilings..I often find myself "trying to hear" regular TV...its like the center speaker isnt enough...after complaining to the company that put it in, they brought out a Onkyo DS575X receiver...I dont think the other one was even hooked up digitally , this may be, not sure..once I get my system set up I will go back and look at his....I know his little box that controls the speaker connections for the outside porch and other rooms does not work and I attribute that to him not switching it over from the other receiver....I think he spent a whopping 3800 bucks on this crap... I am gonna pull his receipt tonight and have more details tomorrow, just wanted to get some thoughts.I think he is gonna call this guy back and lay it to him..

[FatDog]

Well a couple of things:

- In-wall speakers rarely sound as good as speakers pulled into the room. In-wall's are for looks, not sound quality.

- Pull one of the speakers and see if there is a box mounted behind the sheat-rock. Better speakers come with this box to mimic the inside of a real speaker cabinent. Cheap installs just cut holes in sheat-rock and install using the void-space for a cabinent. While disapointing, many places do the cut & install technique so you cant really complain.

- Stereo speakers can be mounted up high, but if this is a Home Theater speaker set, there should be 3 front speakers mounted at roughly screen height. If they mounted the fronts 10 feet up - they did it wrong.

- The Rear speakers can be mounted 10' up. This matches Dolby guidelines. (I prefer all speakers mounted at the same height however).

- HT Receivers do have center and rear offset adjustments for the volume. Have you used a SPL meter to calibrate/level-adjust the speakers to compensate for distances?

Before you "lay into" the installer, check these things out. If you find things wrong, then make a list and ask the installer to come over to discuss the problems. It's possible his workers messed up but if you are polite, but firm with him, he is more likely to admit things were installed wrong and fix things.

But there are little-to-no standards for these types of things. As long as the speakers make noise - there is little you can do to claim there is a quality problem.

Even commercial movie theaters have no standards that they have to follow. George Lucas discovered this and created the THX standard for theaters.

This is why I suggest you be polite-but-firm - your dad signed a contract for work with NO standards behind it other than your 'Golden Ear'. If you start yelling, the installer could stand on the "it makes sounds - that's all we promise" argument.

[FatDog]

4X4 - any update on your dad's house?