Westfair TV Audio — Attraction in Fairfield

Abandoned completion of our project midway through in favor of more profitable ones. Here are the email exchanges which you may want to consider before making the mistake of attempting to do business with Westfair, the one star reviews tell the real story:

FROM ME TO THE OWNER:

"Hi Glenn—hoping you might be able to intervene to resolve a situation between myself and Greg (project manager), who aren’t working very well together on a project [at our home in Fairfield].

We [needed to relocate] our a/v equipment to a [new] pantry built in. Greg pulled the wire to the new location and made some useful suggestions about incorporating a wood panel in our chimney veneer for mounting the tv. He was told the equipment [would be placed in a cabinet] in the pantry and made no comment on that subject however.

Now the cabinetry is in and we are ready to reinstall and Greg has been insistent that the cabinet is not right for him and must be reconfigured with an adjustable shelving system. He told me yesterday that this is essentially the only option and a rack system will not work in the cabinet, that it could not possibly fit. He is also telling me, without explanation, that it is going to take in excess of 32 man hours to reconnect the equipment, which I find difficult to fathom l, but have nonetheless agreed to.

Last night I placed all of our major components in a rack system in the cabinet as shown in the attached photo. It took under an hour to assemble and organize the rack. I’m not sure why Greg and I have such difficulty seeing eye to eye, but I would rather not have to bring someone down from our office or another vendor mid stream if I can avoid it as it seems senseless to retread the same ground.

Any help much appreciated, thanks JN"

FROM THE OWNER TO ME:

"Hi Jason, yes Greg (project manager) and Doug (operations) filled me in on your work order. Time and materials are fair to both sides on installs such as yours as it could go smooth or not. Unfortunately we will not be able to continue working on your account. Our company simple is not the right company for you.

Regardless I wish you the best of luck with your project."

FROM ME TO THE OWNER:

"Okay Glenn. I'm curious as to why and what this is really about for you all/why it was so offensive to say I'd rather not have adjustable shelves. Obviously will post in reviews the email above and the fact that you all are leaving us in the lurch mid project. Very bizarre interaction."

FROM THE OWNER TO ME:

"Jason, we have been around since 1962 and have a great reputation with a 6-8 week backlog of work and several new construction projects under development. In order to maintain this success we have to work under our parameters. I'm sure you follow the same formula within your profession.

Sorry it did not work out."

FROM ME TO THE OWNER:

"Glenn, I see that you all have a solid reputation which is why I'm finding what's happening here so perplexing. It seems what you're really saying is that you dismiss projects underway in favor of more profitable ones, or demand a minimum profit in order to complete a job you've begun. If that's the case I don't really follow how you've maintained your reputation. We would NEVER do that--I wouldn't allow it. If this is a new mode of operating for you all in light of being particularly busy, I wonder if you'll find it harder to maintain your reputation.

If it's really just about standards, the rack system in the cabinet is an objectively better solution, both functionally and aesthetically, allowing for much easier access to the backside of the components. From my perspective this looks like a case of arbitrary parameters or an abject refusal to yield when you're wrong/not quite right. You've put me in a position of having to bring someone else in to retrace your steps and pay twice for the same work. In return, I'll let the community be the judge of whether how you all have handled this was...

Westfair TV Audio simply has the best people in the business. Installations are obsessively neat. For example, I recently upgraded all my TVs and a speaker bar in the family room. The installers spent a couple of days making sure the TV and new speaker bars in my family room looked proper sitting and standing at any part of the room. They made adjustments on the order of a few millimeters in spacings to ensure this. Most installers just look spec the 2-D layout on-paper, drill holes, and mount and move on. Not these guys. They are artists and perfectionists. I also have Westfair TV Audio handle my smart home systems (a Crestron core with interfacing to legacy sub-systems). Their knowledge and mastery of the programming nuances as well as networking configuration is superb. I have an old, legacy system that handled motorized shades. That legacy system was always flaking out. Sometimes it would work, others it would not. The company that installed the system could not figure out why. They would just reboot the system, and we'd pray that we get a decent run out of the shades before they stopped working again. When Westfair hooked that legacy system into my Crestron system, they found out why immediately (a subtle network configuration issue), fixed it, and the inconsistent behavior went away. This had been a problem for over ten years, and Westfair solved it in a day. This is tech talent operating at a rarified level. Finally, I will tell you that last week I had Westfair install an outdoor audio system with mind-blowing sound quality. Westfair's service are much in demand, they always have been, but they had a small window of time where they could fit me in. Design, layout, installation (including buried wires all over my patio space), alignment, testing, and adjustment all happened within three days. These days you cannot even get bluetooth speakers delivered in three days, but Westfair made a small miracle happen mid-week for me. So I just spent my Father's Day weekend sitting outside while enjoying high-end audio coming from four speakers (I attach a picture of one of them). If you want the best in the business, look no further than...

I had a recent experience with this company which was quite troubling. They came to my house this week to evaluate and troubleshoot a problem with my RTI TV, remote and music system. The technologist was here for approximately 90 minutes were upon the system seem to be working reasonably well. I immediately received an invoice and paid the amount in full. The following day my system froze up and was non-functional. I called the company back and spoke to Glenn the owner. I was informed by him that “we really didn’t do anything when we came to your house on Tuesday“ he claimed that the tech had just done an evaluation on the system and moved an IR sensor on the cable box for the TV. I asked that they could please send their technician back to my home, to try to correct the problem. At that point he became quite angry and insisted that they were not the cause of the problem and because my system had been installed by another company years ago he said that they really should not be working on systems that they did not install . I believe it quite unreasonable after having paid their invoice fully that they refused to come back to my home and attempt to correct the problem. When I made the comment that I thought the price they charged me for the original evaluation was too high. His comment to me was that well you live in a gated community therefore, it should be no problem for you to pay that amount of money. I thought that was an outrageous statement to make. Unfortunately, he made it clear to me that absolutely under no circumstances would they return to my home to see if they could correct the problem. As a result, I cannot recommend...