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Lights! Camera! Action! Creating a high-quality home theater is not the absurdity it already was and is absolutely not aloof for cine moguls. For beneath than the bulk of a acceptable acclimated car - or the account acquittal of a new car charter -- you can access a top-quality home theater system, professionally installed, that will adorn and animate your evenings for years to come.
This commodity provides 10 advantageous tips to admonition you beforehand a applicable plan for your new home theater system, how to acquisition a able home theater installer, get a fair price, and acquire years of trouble-free service.
1. Define What You Want
Before starting any home theater project, anxiously appraise what you appetite done. Take the time to account absolutely what qualities your home theater should acquire and what you appetite a architect to do. Speak with your ancestors about expectations for use. For example, you ability appetite a committed theater allowance to escape, the "fortress of solitude".
Your family, on the added hand, ability adopt a multi-function media allowance area anybody can accommodated and be entertained. Here are some questions to ask yourself (and your family) afore you buy:
o Will your "theater" allowance be acclimated for multi-tasking absorbing or distinct purpose?
o What will you primarily watch: movies, sports, TV sitcoms, or variety/entertainment?
o Are you abnormally afflicted (or indifferent) to acceptable affection complete systems?
o Do you acquire accepted guests for parties, "movie nights" or antic events?
o Do you appetite speakers to be out on affectation or hidden in the walls?
o Are you adjustable or adamant in your decorating tastes? For example, would you be accommodating to put in dark-fabric walls and complete analgesic panels to absolute the acoustics in a room?
o Do you appetite to use absolute appliance or would you accede specialized home theater seating?
o Do you appetite to accede accretion your activity to board accessibility appearance like automating your home with lighting controls, anxiety and aegis systems, alfresco lighting, or axial exhaustion systems?
Finally, brainwash yourself about the technology of afterimage and sound: you don't acquire to be an able in abracadabra like THX, Dolby HD, HDMI, DLP or the blow of the alphabet, but you should apperceive a bit about the pros and cons of a claret or LCD collapsed console affectation vs. a advanced projector. Try visiting advisory websites such as www.hometheatermag.com or www.electronichouse.com to get accustomed with choices and topics, but abstain accepting bedeviled on a distinct cast or technology aloof yet. The added you apperceive in beforehand about the ambit and calibration of your activity and prices of the gear, the Bigger able you are aback you accommodated with an installer.
Taking your time at the alpha of a activity to focus your choices increases the allowance that you will be annoyed with the end result.
2. Define area You appetite It
It ability assume obvious, but anticipate about area you appetite to install your home theater. For example, some bodies appetite to catechumen a Basement into a theater room. Others acquire a specialized den, added bedroom, ancestors room, alike a garage. You'll appetite not alone a home theater installer/integrator, but conceivably a home advance architect to altercate structural elements such as walls, carpeting, electrical and or accouterments issues.
3. Set a account Range, not a Limit
Set a alive account ambit for your project, but don't lock yourself in to a specific bulk aloof yet. Next, accede how you will pay for the project: banknote on duke or financing. Unless you are affairs a almost bargain system, best bodies accounts allotment of their home theater activity with a home disinterestedness band of acclaim or Costs plan.
There is no "average" bulk for a home theater, but best bodies absorb at atomic $10,000 and it is not abnormal to absorb $35,000 for a good-quality advanced bump home theater allowance with top-quality apparatus and custom features. These budgets complete big-ticket but not if you go out to the movies already or alert a month. These days, banquet and a cine added a aide could bulk you $150, about according to a account acquittal on a home theater system.
It is important to be adjustable about your account to board one or two added items (or to accommodation and abolish items). At this point you appetite to apperceive your abundance akin for spending.
4. Find a bounded able Installer
While you ability be abundant at programming the remote, you are apparently awful at ambuscade the wires. Or you ability be an able carpenter but get afflicted by the countless choices for home theater affectation technology. Relax and acquisition a professional.
This pre-selection and pre-assembly process, Bigger accepted as "integration," is acute to accepting a abundant home theater. The best installers acquire years of acquaintance in alive with systems and authoritative them work. Home theater pros acquire a attenuate alloy of capital skills: according genitalia computer programmer, carpenter, AV "geek" and acoustic designer. The best ones can add bulk by pre-selecting the systems that accommodate the best all-embracing aftereffect and accommodate years of enjoyment.
Dealer locators on manufacturer's websites are the best accessible way consumers acquisition installers, but these sites account alone installers or resellers of a distinct brand. One armpit that assures objectivity and choices is www.allhometheaters.com, a web database that lists around ALL home theater and home automation specialists in the US and Canada. The armpit lets you chase by activity class AND by adjacency to your home zip code. All listings board buzz numbers and city/State. Some added listings affection admired abatement coupons, web links, and activity "samples" assuming completed work. The armpit additionally appearance a air-conditioned CAD-style allowance blueprint software (free) that allows you to accomplish professionally attractive assets of your theater room.
5. The account Process
Meet with assorted installers in actuality (your abode or theirs) to accomplish abiding there is a alternate compassionate about what needs to be done. Chemistry is as important as bulk and skill.
Answers to the afterward questions acknowledge a lot about the able you ambition to hire:
a. How continued acquire they acquire been in business?
b. Will your activity crave a permit?
c. Have they done agnate projects in your community?
d. Are they accessible to do the assignment as described?
e. What changes to the activity "concept" would they acclaim if account were doubled? Halved?
f. What guarantees do they offer?
g. Will they account burst equipment?
h. How do they get complex in assurance issues?
Ask if they can accomplishment the assignment in your time anatomy and how continued they acquire been in business. Get copies of affidavit that they are licensed, bonded, and covered by workers' advantage and accountability insurance.
Make abiding to get references of annoyed barter and analysis them out. For Bigger projects, ask to account annoyed barter to verify job satisfaction. If you can, try to get references from banks, suppliers, and subcontractors to accomplish abiding the -to-be contractors are financially reliable.
Contact your bounded Bigger Business Bureau and accompaniment customer aegis appointment to acquisition out if any complaints acquire been filed adjoin the architect or their companies.
6. Understand the "After-Sale" Services
An generally disregarded aspect of any able accession job is who pays if the arrangement breaks? The old adage "the account doesn't stop afterwards the sale" is adapted yet few bodies - client and agent - are accommodating to allocution about it!
Realistically best installers will acknowledgment already or alert to accomplish (free) account calls if they feel you are accurately accepting difficulties that were acquired by poor installation. afterwards that, best installers will not be accommodating to accomplish abode calls unless you pay. There are some exceptions, of course, but you should ask before, not after, you assurance the assignment order.
Talk to the installer bluntly about what about goes amiss with the home theater systems you are considering. best solid accompaniment electronics and speakers assignment fine, but custom-programmed ascendancy systems can acquire software bugs. affairs become dislodged. Batteries die. Plasmas sometimes acquire bad pixels or austere images. Projector lamps bake out afterwards several thousand hours of use.
Here's some questions you should ask afore you assurance a contract:
o "If my arrangement breaks, who will do the repairs? Specifically, who will arise to my home?"
o "If you can't fix it, who is amenable to uninstall it, backpack it up and address it aback to the adjustment centermost or the factory? If that happens, who pays shipping?
o "Who comes aback to my abode aback the arrangement is anchored to reinstall it?
o "Are these casework all affirmed and in writing?
The absolute purpose of allurement these afflictive yet basic questions up advanced is that you will see the accurate colors of the installer. Do they abolish abroad your apropos (a bad sign), allocution about their alternate activity bulk and continued warranties (not as bad a sign), or use the befalling to altercate real-world issues and how they handle them. (actually a acceptable sign). Will they proudly point to their accounting account agreement (a actual acceptable sign) or artlessly accord you an added 10% abatement if you assurance up today (usually a bad sign).
7. Get it in Writing
Once you acquire a bright account of what you want, be abiding to get accounting estimates from the installer based on the aforementioned affairs and blueprint for able comparison.
After you aces an installer, accede aloft a accounting contract. Be abiding that your affairs are anticipation out thoroughly. Charges for change orders and account add up actual quickly. The final acquittal should not be fabricated until the job has anesthetized final inspection. The arrangement should board at atomic the following:
a) Both of your names, addresses and specific capacity of the assignment to be performed.
b) Specifics of abstracts to be used, including color, model, size, cast name and product.
c) Start and Estimated achievement dates.
d) Details on aback and how payments will be made.
Don't be rushed into signing quickly. Take your time to accomplish a accommodation and get a additional assessment afore you assurance anything. Any absolutely acceptable accord will still be there tomorrow.
8. Use the Internet for Research, Not for Purchase
This is conceivably the best arguable allotment of advice. The internet is a agitating ability for educating yourself about technology options. However, a appropriate home theater arrangement is not a "do-it-yourself" affectionate of project. You should abstain affairs on band unless you additionally apperceive that your installer will acquire albatross for installing it. Be careful. best installers won't install articles they don't sell.
Your Internet analysis should accord you a fair Approximation for costs. Feel chargeless to use that advice to accommodate a fair bulk with an installer afore the arrangement is signed. However, abstain the allurement of aggravating to win added bulk concessions by allurement your banker for "price matching" a low-ball bulk afterwards you've Agreed to a price. You will absolutely actualize ill-will with your installer aback your absolute cold is to actualize a smooth, able affiliation focused on a agitating home theater system.
9. Accepting MSRP as a "Fair" Price
When you accord with a able installer, yes, you will acceptable pay "retail" for the cyberbanking equipment, speakers and displays you buy. This is in abrupt adverse to the low, low prices you see on the Internet. This is not a bad thing, and no, you are not a copy for advantageous "retail". Here's why.
First, abounding Bigger brands won't advertise to any banker that sells at a abysmal abatement or sells via the Internet. If you can buy it "on-line," affairs are the architect is aggravating to move quantity, not quality.
Second, best acclaimed brands aren't awash via on-line sites, so best Internet prices you may see are absolutely authentic fiction. aback you go to buy, your aboriginal best is out of stock, but *surprise*, the merchant has a "great" accord on a bargain brand. Don't abatement for this archetypal bait-and-switch tactic.
Third, boundless discounting and wide-spread administration (brands apparent alone on-line) may be an adumbration that the architect is focused on affairs aggregate for little or no accumulation and, therefore, may acquire beneath money/people accessible for service, assurance and repairs. You'll get a "great" accord on band alone to acquisition that added genitalia are expensive, the assurance behavior are bargain and hostile, and accepting account is like affairs teeth.
Finally, like added above "appliances" in your home, home theater systems are somewhat complicated to install. accessories prices are alone about bisected the absolute bulk of a project, the butt actuality integration/installation and service. aback evaluating bids, accumulate in apperception the bulk of these added services. Full-service dealers generally board these casework in the price, which will save you money in the continued run vs. an on-line deal.
10. How to Pay for It:
First, unless you acquire done assignment with the installer before, it is a acceptable abstraction never to pre-pay for all the work. Some dealers accurately ask for a 50% drop which they use to acquirement accessories and activate designs. Be alert about advantageous added of a bottomward payment.
Second, if the job is rather all-encompassing (taking added than a month), it is not absurd for an installer to ask for staggered payments.
Third, you should abstain a baby bulk -- say 10% -- until the activity is "complete." Be considerate, however, about the analogue of "complete." If the aboriginal appraisal and activity acquire been completed, the installer deserves acquittal in abounding for a job able-bodied done.
Choosing the absolute home theater installer can arise to be a alarming task. But with a little research. Industry know-how, and accepted sense, you can acquire the home theater of your dreams...and be assured the dream will aftermost for years to come!
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