Audio visual installation in Sydney.

Three trades, or one person

Most audio visual work in Sydney is quoted by three different businesses. An antenna company for the reception, a data cabler for the network, an AV installer for the screens and the sound. Three quotes, three site visits, three sets of dates to coordinate, and each one able to blame the other two when something does not work.

Here it is one person. That is the sort of claim every trade site makes, so it is worth saying where the evidence for it is: the ServiceSeeking awards on this business sit in three separate categories over 2018-2025. Top 10 TV Antenna in Sydney, Top 10 Home Theatres in Sydney, and Top 10 Electrician in Sydney. Those are three different judging categories, awarded by a third party, to the same profile.

Trading since 1994, ABN 33 255 370 013, which takes ten seconds to check against the ABR. There are 126 photographs of finished work on this site, all of it ours.

What that covers

Nine disciplines, and most houses need three or four of them rather than all nine. Each one has its own page with what is involved, what it costs and the questions that come up on the phone.

• 01

  TV Installation & Wall Mounting

  Brackets, cable concealment and a level screen, on brick, gyprock or stone.

• 02

  TV Antenna Repairs & Extra Points

  Reception faults and faulty cabling diagnosed on site, plus extra outlets.

• 03

  Digital TV Antenna Installations

  New antennas and upgrades for reliable free-to-air reception.

• 04

  Home Theatre Systems

  A cinema designed around your room, your seating and your budget.

• 05

  Soundbars & Sound Systems

  Action films and music, properly amplified and calibrated.

• 06

  Media Streaming Devices & Pay TV

  Foxtel, streaming boxes, video doorbells and every device on one remote.

• 07

  Data Cabling & Network Cabling

  Cat6 runs terminated and tested for a stable wired connection.

• 08

  Data Point Installation & Repairs

  Single ethernet points for Foxtel, consoles, TVs and offices.

• 09

  Wi-Fi Access Points & Whole-Home Mesh

  Full-home coverage with no dead spots or dropouts.

• ＋

  Pre-Wiring for New Builds

  Cable run at frame stage, before the plasterboard closes the walls.

The order the work goes in

On a whole-house job the sequence matters more than the equipment. Done in the wrong order, the same work costs twice: once to install it and once to pull it apart. This is the order we run it in and the reason for each step.

1. 01

   Cable first, always

   Every decision below this one gets cheaper or more expensive depending on whether the cable is already in the wall. If the walls are open, or about to be, this is the only stage that matters. See pre-wiring.

2. 02

   Reception before screens

   There is no point mounting three televisions and then discovering the antenna feeding them is splitting a weak signal four ways. Reception gets tested and fixed at the head end first, because a fault there shows up on every screen in the house.

3. 03

   Network before anything smart

   Smart televisions, streaming boxes, projectors and access points all end up on the same network. Sorting the cabling and the Wi-Fi coverage before the gear arrives is the difference between a system that works and a system that works most evenings.

4. 04

   Screens and audio together

   Mounting a screen and then coming back later to add sound means a second set of holes, a second cable run and a bracket that is already in the way. Speaker positions and screen position get set at the same time or the room fights itself.

5. 05

   Calibration last, on site

   Out of the box, most televisions ship in a shop-floor picture mode built to survive fluorescent lighting, and most sound systems have never been told the shape of the room they are in. This is the half hour at the end that people notice most and pay for least.

Common questions

What does audio visual installation actually include?

Anything that puts a picture or a sound in a room, plus the cabling underneath it. In practice that is televisions and projectors, home cinema, soundbars and multi-room speakers, free-to-air antennas and reception faults, streaming and pay TV, data points, network cabling and Wi-Fi. Most houses need three or four of those and not all nine, which is why the quote starts with a look at the place rather than a package.

Do I need one installer or separate trades?

One, if the work touches more than a single room. AV, antenna and data are three different trades on most jobs, and the faults that cost the most to fix later happen at the joins between them: speaker cable run beside 240V, a comms cabinet with no power, a screen position nobody told the electrician about. One person carrying all three means there is no join to fall down.

How much does a whole-home audio visual installation cost?

It is quoted per job, on sight, and the quote does not move afterwards. What moves the number is the building rather than the equipment: whether the walls are open or closed, whether it is timber frame or double brick, how far the cable has to travel from the comms point, and whether there is an existing antenna and network worth keeping. Two identical houses with identical gear can differ by a lot on those four points alone.

Can the work be done in stages?

Yes, and on most houses that is how it goes. What matters is that the stages run in the right order rather than the convenient one: anything that involves cable in a wall should happen before the rooms above it are finished, even if the equipment itself is a year away. A cheap conduit and a draw wire left in the right place costs very little now and saves cutting a finished wall later. We will tell you which parts are time-sensitive and which can wait.

Can you take over a system somebody else installed?

Usually, and the most common version is not a broken system at all. It is a system that was installed correctly and then never commissioned: sources on the wrong inputs, speakers wired out of phase, a screen still in its shop-floor picture mode, nobody ever shown how to use it. That is a visit rather than a rebuild. Where several trades each did their own part and no one owned the result, the first job is working out what is actually there, and that happens before anything is quoted.

Who turns up on the day?

Ray, who quoted it. Creative Sound & Vision has been trading since 1994 and the person on the phone is the person on the ladder, from the quote through to the clean-up. There is no subcontractor, no crew rotating through, and nobody to hand the job to halfway.