If you had your own shop........??

[ThreEleven]

This is a discussion I get into with my car audio buddies all the time, just now getting hard into home theater i wanna know what you guys think..........
If you were gonna open up your own little home theater shop, just one location to start, what brands would you carry?
Keep in mind, you want to cater to all walks of customers, so you have to have one or more mid and low end brands. What do you guys think?
I think this will be a fun post, let's here it..............
thanks
-JOe

 

[MBauer]

It depends

Do I want to make money or support a hobby?

If I want to make money I primarily sell brands that advertise a lot(with the exception of Bose, I have some pride).

For example; Sony, Samsung, Pioneer, Denon, etc

If a hobby, stuff I like or want

For example; Arcam, Parasound, Lexicon, Krell, etc.

Neither list is meant to be exhaustive

 

[Shadow_Ferret]

Well, on the low end I think I'd have Yamaha and Sherwood recievers. For speakers probably BIC America, Cerwin-Vega and Athena.

For the higher end I'd have Marantz, HK, and Rotel receivers. For speakers probably NHT, B&W, EPOS, and Totem.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I'd sell Bose and Monster Cable and then be able to retire at 50.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Definitely Yamaha, Denon, and Sony. From there, I would like perhaps some Rotel and other higher/midline products. Probably Pioneer and perhaps Marantz.

Good speakers...? B&W? Definitive Technology... Sonance for sure in distributed audio.

Displays would need to run the course, but I would definitely carry Sim2 projectors. Mitsubishi, Samsung, Hitachi... ??? Lots of good stuff there.

Definitely need to carry Crestron so people could get the best darn remote in the universe for their system.

Monster Cable for sure also. There is a lot of request for their cable and a lot of profit from it. Predatory? Perhaps, but I'd rather have that money instead of Best City taking it all. People want Monster, I would want to be able to provide them it. In a custom install, I'd likely make my own cables instead of using pre-fab cables anyway.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Entry level:

Speakers:

BIC everything, although their center channel would work at any level.
Venturi line and the Acoustech 5.1 and 7.1 setup. I like the BIC Acoustech because Dr. Hsu helped design the sub on that system.

Athena everything. Amazing sound from some very affordable speakers.

Fluance and Canyon Audio for those on a very tight budget. Great looking, well built speakers in the KLH price territory.

Cadence XSUB12

BIC and Acoustech's 12" subs.

Receivers:

Pioneer and Yamaha (lower end models). I don't care for Onkyo or HK's flat sound with entry level speakers. Neither do I like Denon's entry level stuff - too many complaints.

Mid to Higher end equipment:

Speakers:

Paradigm - Monitors.

Axiom - entire line.

Energy - entire line.

SVS subs. Period.

I would not sell Monster Cable to anyone. Let those who want to shop at Best Buy buy from Best Buy. People coming into my store would realize right away I don't sell snake oil. Just the basics like 12/2 speaker cable with banana plugs, as well as RCA's jacketed component cables (the one's Home Depot sells).

TV's:

I'm really into LCD for their price points. I'd carry the more affordable LCD's such as Kresien, Syntax Olevia, and Winbook models in 20", 27", 30", 37", and 42". Anything larger, I'd direct to the cattle call shops because my place wouldn't be large enough to house every option available.

Room set up and installation. I'd charge a flat $55 per man hour fee to install and set up any equipment and program everything to one master remote.

Would be great fun, but a tough business in light of the deals available on the net.

I also think buying slightly used, extremely high end equipment at rediculously low prices from Ebay and setting it up in a showroom would be interesting.

 

[zumbo]

Arcam
Monitor Audio
Anthem
Joseph Audio
Rotel
B&W
Parasound
JM Lab
NAD
MB Quart
Adcom
Paradigm

 

[ThreEleven]

Man, that $55 per man hour is a great idea. I work for a big box (I know, I know)and they charge absolutely insane amounts for any kind of home theater install. Even basics, if an old lady wants us to come hook up a dvd player to her tv...........100 bucks. How about hook up a HTIB, without conceling any wires.......$200.
-JOe

 

[BMXTRIX]

$55.00 an hour while maintaining a brick and mortar building will likely not result in any profit at all unless you have some 10 buck an hour clueless technician.

Labor rates are designed not to just cover the employee's expenses, but to help pay for his training, taxes, insurance, vehicle, and still leave the company some profit for growth.

If it takes one tech 30 minutes to drive to a house, 2 hours for an install, and 30 minutes to get back to the shop, that's 3 hours of labor - portal to portal. That's not unnreasonable to expect on hooking up a HTIB system.

We charged far more where I worked and paid the techs a lot more as well.

Of course, it depends on your neck of the country.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

How about $250 for the first hour, then $55 for each additional man hour. And we contract out. Like Time Warner, Wide Open West, etc...

 

[BMXTRIX]

Where I used to work labor was charged at $75.00/hr and the company basically broke even on labor charges. They had good training and all the guys had vans to drive in with the company logo. But, between loading vans, pre-planning in the shop, and delays/issues, the company basically makes back about what is spent on the labor force and the labor is there to help drive the sales, especially custom sales.

Really, on a big, custom job, a person doesn't just go in and buy boxes. They go in, need a salesperson to help them, then if it is really custom, it goes to engineering, and finally a full proposal is written up. Only 1 in 4 or something like that actually gets signed off on. So, that one customer is paying into the overhead expenses of all the other people who did not buy. If everyone bought, then everyone would have a better price because overhead would drop. But, people don't want to pay for an estimate, they want free advice, then to shop it out.

C'mon, of course it's cheaper to buy online! But, then you want to pay a company cheap labor to install it... and what happens if it doesn't work? Who uninstalls it? Do you expect it to be 'taken care of' by the company that installed it when it isn't their product?

I have no problem with labor rates in the 75/hr range really.

 

[sjdgpt]

I have no problem with labor rates in the 75/hr range really.

I would pay you more. Your advice has been rock solid and very helpful.


By the way $75/hr is very reasonable for professional services.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Thanks - my labor rates don't fall into the install/labor dept., but fall into the programming/senior engineer dept. I think they bill me out at $125/hr for commercial work. Dang, somehow I don't think I'm pulling in 250K a year though.

If I ever get www.avintegrated.com up and running I am thinking that 80/hr is fair in my market, which is the Washington, DC area. I guess that really does play into it as some markets cost far less to operate in then others. This place is way to much $$$.