Going C4 or Not: dealers use C4 or hit the road

[Considering_C4]

I have a spent the last week looking into C4 for my new home. I even went as far as having the dealer come and prewire the home due to time contraints at a cost of around 2K for a 4200 SF home. I need to get the home to at least do basic sound in 8 zones initialy to even justify the system to begin with. From what I am reading the Web/Control4/and this forum is I am looking at a HC300, a 8 zone amp, Ipod control and a tuner to get the basic sound systems going. I have a room that will be in the future a theatre room. All Wiring is done ( overkill )

I came accoss this site and found it the best insite into what i am getting into. I am asking for some help to determine if this is the right choice for me.

My concern is such

There seems to be some real disdain from dealers for any customers perfoming anything themsleves. I am not talking about programming or C4 equip hook up but i am talking about terminating all my own connections, building the network and racks, and putting in my own speakers. The are all basic elements that do not require any uncommon skill sets.

Here is my question

I have a 8 zone amp from a my brother in law who had to pull it out of a spec home and put in a horrifically expensive system for the buyer( this is why i starting looking at C4). From reading a thread on someone asking about DIY it is obviouse that dealers would consider my situation with disdain because because of outside equip and doing basic backbone stuff myself. I am already sold on the system but I am not willing to pay a dealer for a 2500 dollar amp or speakers that i already have. I do plan on getting locks, Garage control, dimmers ect in the near future but want to know should I Contiue down C4 path or will my limited involvement and having the amp overly affect the quality or time spent on my home. I have seen several post from dealers that state they walk away or do not spend the time they normally would on situations like mine. I am not flaming dealers just want thier opinion as to how they would look upon my scenerio. I plan on spending the 2-3K on the equip needed to get audio working then scaling as i can.

From what i had read here there is not much looking at Customers as future investments ( to be hooked on C4 ) if they walk in the door with out good margin.

please give me some insight- should I look elsewhere?

Steve

[RyanE]

Steve,

There's really no way to answer your question in a general sense across the Control4 dealer base.

There are about as many different kinds of Control4 dealers as there are Control4 dealers. You may or may not find one in your area that will work with you already having existing equipment.

If you look at it from the dealers' side of the fence, they are going to have to do your job for less than a comparable job, just because they won't be making a margin on the amp and speakers.

As far as allowing homeowners to do their own rack dressing and speaker installation, etc., if I'm a dealer, I might let a homeowner do something like that, but then there'd be no warranty on that work, and the biggest issue would be that how well you do the work would still reflect on me as a dealer.

Needless to say, it's a complicated situation.

RyanE

[mercedes]

You just need to find the "right" dealer for you. My guy has been great and I continue to spend money with him well after the initial install. I was able to help with the install from a planning stage and some of the deployment. I also had some high end existing equipment that I wanted to use in the new home install and he was cool with that. From spending a great deal of time on these forums I know there are some dealers that would not allow any of that. I can understand their point of view. I am a very reasonable guy so if something doesn't work and it had to do with a piece of gear that was mine, I don't blame my dealer or expect him to fix it for free. I know other people that have not used him to run their cable because they had "a brother in law" that could do it cheaper and then told him he was a terrible installer because of all of the issues with the install. Most of them had to do with the customer installed cable. Find the right dealer and be reasonable during the process. Dealers need to feed their families and customers need to be happy in the end. When you do something like C4, you need to go into it knowing it is a long term relationship with your dealer.

I love my C4 system and everything it has provided me. Sure I wish somethings were better but C4 continues to make things better. I would not want to install anything else in my home.

Good luck.

[3fingerbrown]

I think you will find that most dealers will take your job. Throughout my install, I have sometimes opted to provide my own hardware (thought not c4 gear) and I just pay my dealer the installation and programming labor.

I would advise getting everything you want to do yourself done and installed, and then get a few bids from dealers. You show them what work is done, and you tell them what you want.

If possible, I would try and work with the dealer that wired your system, as he will be the most familiar. But any dealer shouldn't walk away from your job simply because you already have a C4 amp. Beyond the HC-300, there is potentially a lot more to sell to you.

I would avoid the Control4 tuner as it is overpriced and was obsolete before it was released years ago.

[EagleMoon]

I'm probably naive here but I'd like to think that dealers will sell you hardware at price that covers their overhead and profit and that they would charge installation fees to cover that aspect. I don't see any need to subsidize one part of the job with the other. But I'm certainly not a dealer and don't live in their world.

Although I don't have the paperwork down here with me so I can check, I'm pretty sure that's what my dealer did: he discounted the hardware some and he charged me a separate line item for installation/programming. I do know that because he was two hours away and I used a local person for wiring, that the dealer added in a smallish "inspection/management fee" for the wiring to be sure it was done correctly. He had folks onsite for around 25-30 hours on two separate trips with 4 hours roundtrip travel, plus he came out 2 or 3 times. I think the installation cost was in the $2-3k range. Of course, it may have been more -- by the time we did this I was already numb from writing checks for the house construction and furnishings so I may have selective amnesia on the numbers!!!

[RyanE]

I would certainly think that might be an intelligent way to run it, but all of this is up to the dealers themselves. Some, I know for a fact, don't discount off MSRP, because they count on that to subsidize some of the installation costs, etc.

In any case, hopefully the OP can find a dealer who will work with what they've got, and what they're interested in doing.

RyanE

[Paddy]

There seems to be some real disdain from dealers for any customers perfoming anything themsleves. I am not talking about programming or C4 equip hook up but i am talking about terminating all my own connections, building the network and racks, and putting in my own speakers. The are all basic elements that do not require any uncommon skill sets.

I used to have the same feeling Steve but most people support the DIY movement, if it is done right. So for example if you feel comfortable running

your speaker wire all the way back to your C4 amp and terminating all 8 Zones, you would be crazy to pay someone to do the exact same thing.

In my case I did a lot myself, but when it came time to call the dealer they showed up, they saw what I did and were impressed. They than gave me excellent guidance and improvements to my setup.

My feeling is there is a happy balance between DIY people and C4 dealers, but hell ya do as much as you can yourself, but don't be afraid to use a dealer as well.

[Considering_C4]

Thanks to all of you for your help, I called the local dealer in and they set me up with an appointmet. They did not seem bothered by me doing the network back bone just suggested that i avoid certain routers. They even offered to loan out used equipment until i decide wether to run Ipad controllers or not in November when i put in the rest of the system. As for the wiring they are fine with me doing all the terminations and racks but the wanted to test each line they would be using in thier system. I offered to give them fluke results for each line and they said that would be fine as well. They offered to give me a great deal on installing all the speakers in exchange for using 100% thier equipment and the price they gave ( remember they already know the layout of my house they wired it) was enough to appeal to my lazy side.

This guy was never once got upset that I had some equipment, he found a way to get me excited about how it would work and said he was available for advice( without charging). In return I will be using more of his stuff and will save me some headache doing parts i realy did not want to do ( speakers ).

So my cost will be about 1200 more net and I dont feel bad about that at all.

After this I told asked him how he would feel when i called him later to bind remotley a ten pack of dimmers i purchased elsewhere he laughed and said to call him first and we would work something it out.

This is how people ( including DIYs ) should be treated by Sucessfull dealers. Thanks To RyanE for taking the time as well as Ilovec4 for the offer of help. I will be taking you up on it.

Steve

[Considering_C4]

I would avoid the Control4 tuner as it is overpriced and was obsolete before it was released years ago.

Thanks for the info, can you elaborate on what is the issues with this hardware- and what to recomend instead?

[3fingerbrown]

I would avoid the Control4 tuner as it is overpriced and was obsolete before it was released years ago.

Thanks for the info' date=' can you elaborate on what is the issues with this hardware- and what to recomend instead?[/quote']

It is waaaaaaaay overpriced, doesn't have HD radio, satellite, or internet radio. In my opinion its an overpriced dinosaur.

For example, this Sony unit is $88 and does HD radio. It has stereo outputs too, and comes with an IR remote, so maybe a driver could be built for it. But I don't know of anyone that has integrated this or any other third party radio unit into C4.

[RyanE]

There's a serial driver for the Parasound zTuner (which is what I use at my house), but it's not an HD Radio model.

RyanE

[Considering_C4]

May be a dumb question, but i Do not go with C4 version it will affect the way it looks in the menus will it not? The tuner controls will be IR to the tuner not integrated into the system so it will not be a the same control will it?

[ILoveC4]

You won't have anywhere close to the level of integration with the sony unit, or any unit aside from the one RyanE is using.

I would go with the C4 tuner. HD Radio is lame anyways.

[jwhitaker@revit]

radio is lame unless it's internet

[Considering_C4]

OK so the consensus is there is no real ideal solution for the a modern Tuner that I should prob wait untill that portion of the C4 lineup is updated? I can prob set a standard receiver just for this until a better solution comes around.

[Considering_C4]

I would avoid the Control4 tuner as it is overpriced and was obsolete before it was released years ago.

Thanks for the info' date=' can you elaborate on what is the issues with this hardware- and what to recomend instead?[/quote']

It is waaaaaaaay overpriced, doesn't have HD radio, satellite, or internet radio. In my opinion its an overpriced dinosaur.

For example, this Sony unit is $88 and does HD radio. It has stereo outputs too, and comes with an IR remote, so maybe a driver could be built for it. But I don't know of anyone that has integrated this or any other third party radio unit into C4.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images345x345/538001.jpg

3 Fingerbrown ,Do you have a model number of the radio you suggested?