SOUND BY DESIGN

It was incredible!! I should have done this years ago!!! This company did a fantastic job!!!

I paid David Dutton over $30,000 on a recently purchased home to up date the theater room, family room, pool room, bed room AV equipment and upgrade the houses AV control/distribution panel.  On several days they showed up late or did show up at.  Once after not showing up all day or contacting me after saying he would be there he showed up unannounced the following day and was very suppressed when he called my cell to find no one was home.  Every install had significant glitches that I had to fix.  David couldn't get the pool room set up to work (this is with equipment that he picked out - a Sony AV receiver and ProControl Remote).  Towards the end David would sit on my couch checking his Match.com account while his son was working.  On the last day they actually showed up they did work in my study, the following day when I went to grab my iPad it was missing.  After weeks of trying to contact David by phone and email, he finally sent me an email that said he had been "out of pocket" but he would make things right.  I haven't heard from him sense. <br />

Terrible experience with this company. To his credit, he was responsive over the phone and came over promptly to provide us with an estimate. However, that's where the positive experience ended. We decided to proceed with him since he looked professional and his initial quote seemed relatively reasonable. We agreed upon a time and date. He never showed up. I called him to find out what was going on and he gave some random excuses about his employees being sick, etc. I understand that things happen, but he should at least have had the courtesy to call and let me know that he wouldn't be making the appointment. We rescheduled and he again didn't show up. The third time, his employees did make it, but they were almost two hours late. Again, there were no notifications from his end. We were the ones who had to keep following up. Once they got here and started doing the work, they started jacking up the quote by mentioning other things that were 'needed', including some kind of a switch in the network box. We started with an initial quote of $850 and by the time they were done, the price was $1300. We couldn't stop the work midway since we wanted to move into the house and had other work including painting scheduled, so we ended up sticking with him and paying him. When we returned home that evening, we saw that the work had not been completed. We called him and he said that my painters were getting in his way, so they will come back later. My painters were the most professional people (in fact I just left a great review for them), and this was only their first day where they were simply looking around the house and putting the tapes everywhere. There is no way that they were getting in these peoples' way. Even if that was the case, David should have had the courtesy to call me and let me know that they were leaving and would return later. Not only did he not do that, but he also charged my card that very evening without having completed the work. I have never seen such unprofessional behavior anywhere. They did end up finishing the job two weeks later, but this is not an experience I want to have again. <br />

This has been one of the most unprofessional companies/people I have ever had to deal with. First of all, we had an appointment scheduled with David for 5pm and he never showed up. I called him around 5:20 and he said that he wouldn't be coming since he had some things suddenly crop up. Ok fine, I rescheduled. He comes, talks to us about our project. It looks like he knows his stuff and gives us an estimate which is not too bad. So we call him back to schedule the work at which point he says that he forgot to add the price of a switch to the estimate which would now be higher by another $100. We said fine, maybe it was a genuine mistake. He comes to do the work and once again jacks up his estimate by another $200. We were in a position where we needed the work to be completed, and he clearly was trying his best to take advantage of the situation and milk it as much as he could. In my opinion, that is unethical behavior and not the right way to run a business. Moving on with the story, I came home from work to let him into the house and then went back to work. He sent me the invoice in the afternoon; I assumed that he had completed his work and paid him in good faith. I asked him what he would charge for mounting a light 46" LED TV on a wall and he quoted $250 NOT INCLUDING the cost of the frame. Clearly he was just continuing to keep jacking up his rates thinking that we were rich idiots who would be willing to pay him whatever!! I did not add the mounting to my project. When I got home in the evening, I saw that he had left all the outlets uncovered, the panel wiring was all over the place and there were naked wires sticking out from everywhere in the wall. I called him and he said that they would complete the job after the paint job in my house was complete since the painters were getting in his way. I have never seen somebody so into themselves! The painter is one of the best people who have worked for me and he had not even started his work that day. All he was doing was the initial prep work for the paint since he knew that we wanted the cabling completed first. What bothered me most was that David TOOK THE MONEY for the job WITHOUT COMPLETING IT and without telling me that he had not completed it. Moving on, I rescheduled the follow up appt with him after my paint job was over. He scheduled it for 3 to 5 pm, then called me at 3 saying that they would be there in half an hour. I called them at 4:30 and they said it would take them another half hour. They ultimately got there at 5:45 after making me wait for almost 3 hours! Clearly David and his men don't realize that other people have lives and schedules too!! His work is mediocre at best and definitely not worth all the trouble and heartache I had to go through. Please do yourself a favor and find somebody else more professional who runs an ethical business model.

Overall it went very well. Person who did the work left the house clean and work tirelessly.

Great from start to finish.

The first technician recommended that wer removed the camera for a better vantage point and so less sun would hit it. He drilled a hole in the stucco, and realized then that the cables wouldn't reach, and put the new camera back in the old place,yet he had just hours before told me that the placement of the first camera was why it had broken to begin with, yet he placed the new camera back in the old spot. Thus, leaving a large hole in the stucco, where he had tried to install the camera. He could not get the camera's to work correctly saying that he needed a different type of reciever that was more powerful and more expensive. He returned a few days later with a new receiver which still did not fix the problem. They then sent out another technician to fix the reception problem, who was later fired. After a few emails through the summer I finally got David, the owner came out in the end of August of last year, and he told me they needed a part for the receiver, and that he would order it and be back in a week. That was the last I heard from him. I have emailed several times and called the office and once spoke to Stephanie about this issue. I sent emails through October and still have regularly tried to contact them every other month to resolve this matter. They have not responded to emails, which I have sent to the office staff and David himself.

Overall the work went very well. There was one minor glitch which I only noticed after living with the installation for a week (two speaker zones that should have been separate ended up on the same switch so they do not operate independently). However, an appointment has been made to correct that, and to do some additional work I need done, adding a separate volume controller to one speaker zone. I fully expect the connection issue will be resolved.

They were pretty good. They had to come back and fix some things. The only thing, they installed an antenna that didn't work very well and I had to fix it myself. They didn't seem to have much knowledge on installing HD TV antennas.

I chose the company for being highly recommended and my less fortunate experience is likely anomalous. I experienced a problem during installation caused by the technician. It took four service calls to correct this and the chain of events it triggered. I had to pay for the resolution, which cost about half the original work order (it included upgraded equipment, although my previous was fairly new and I would not have replaced it otherwise--I personally cannot see a performance difference. Also I incurred liability because an outside contractor aggravated the original problem in an attempt to solve it, but I feel the solution was too costly on my part. It was challenging and time-consuming to restore full functionality of my home systems. SBD was responsive each time I reported a problem. Staff is very friendly and technicians were prompt. A lesser issue: later I discovered the cables behind my equipment were in disorder. I would have expected cable ties and an orderly set up.)

David came out to meet with us and understand our needs. They provided clear estimates and scheduled the work quickly. It took a while for the HD antenna to come in before they could come out. They made two trips (first trip for the cable line, second trip for the speakers and antenna). Herman came for both trips and did an excellent job. He was polite and worked very fast. I'm not sure if he was late for a date or something, but every time I saw him moving from room to room or to his truck he was walking at a very fast pace (seriously . . . close to running . . . I got tired just watching him).

David promised quick service and was out the next day (Friday) from scheduling. He and Herman worked quickly and professionally. They did not finish the same day owing to conflicts of schedule, but did fix it so I could watch the new TV over the weekend without problems. Herman did the main "grunt" work and was very knowledgeable, plus he showed up promptly on the following Monday morning to finish up. He made sure I knew how everything was wired and how each component worked with the set-up before he left. And he made quite sure to vacuum and clean up!

David and his team did great work! David called in advance of the appointment, arrived on time as promised, explained the work to be done and explained the invoice.

Excellent job recommending, installing and training/programming home theater systems in a timely manner. Actual expense was slightly lower than the original quote. No problems with original work. Dave Dutton was extremely knowledgeable about Home Theater products, video and sound, and made excellent recommendations.

Overall great job. They gave me alternative wiring options and accurate cost estimates up front. They finished in a timely manner. They were extremely flexible regarding schedule. There was a small glitch in that one of the brackets they brought was not appropriate, but this was quickly resolved in a follow-up visit.

Sound By Design always helps us select a perfect fit for our home, and when it comes to doing the actual work, they are always working around us and our schedules. The equipment is all top grade and the carpentry they have done when installing our home theater is fabulous. The cut-out on the wall was perfect and the end look is great. The new sound system is wonderful and they took their time with the spacing to get the acoustics just right. They are great at their trade and we have always been more than satisfied with the work we have had done by them.