Zion AV

Dave did an awesome job installing a Cat 6E 550MHz system at our rental property in Berkeley. He took the time to understand what we were trying to achieve and then came up with a better system than we had in mind for our student tenants. He even stayed at our place until 9pm to get the job done in time. He provided me with helpful trouble shooting tips for our tenants as well. Dave knows his stuff and is a hard worker. Highly recommended.

We just moved to a new location for our business and we had issues with on some stuff that was not installed such as phones and internet with Comast and ATT messing up our orders. We were about to open and we were in a bind. We contacted David and he was helpful enough to come on by during his busy schedule to evaluate what needed to be done. On Saturday, David came in and let us know what was needed and gave a good price. He installed our data lines and phone lines and they are working great. If was a big job since the building did not have proper wiring but David helped us tremendously on having our business run properly. He is very nice and down to earth. he is such a good worker and very friendly so i saw all his hard work and had to buy him lunch i love how he works so fast and is so patient rather than other people who will rush through things HE IS VERY RECOMENDED!!! WE EFFING LOVED YOU !!

Pro: picks up your call and comes on time. He did cleaned up stuff afterwards.
Cons: really over priced for the the quality of work. Asked him to install tv and sound bar wit concealing all wires, he kept sound bar wires visible. He was not willing to put an extra nut. I had to tight couple of nuts in tv frame after he left. He constantly tried to sell his hdmi cables at extreme rate of $ 50. I can get best quality hdmi for $ 10 in frys. His website has 10% discount offer. When i asked for this discount he made face like i asked for his kidney.
I would not recommend. But i dont have experience with any other so i dont know if others are better or worse.

I wanted to wall mount my LCD tv and tried to do it on my own … Fixing the wall mount bracket to the studs was tricky and decided to seek professional help.
Called Zionav at 9 am and I get a call back from David in an hour. Scheduled an appointment for 2 pm same day and got the job done. neat. David was friendly and he gave me further tips on optimizing the wiring and connection points for all the networked gear.
Certainly recommend him for all your tv/​speaker installation needs

Dave was great!!! We have a complex system in our living room, it has always been buggy and after it being out for 4 months and getting no help from original installer, we found Dave on Unilocal.He was quick and professional, diagnosing this was more than just being buggy, ordered the parts we needed and then came back and installed them. The best part was that he then reprogrammed our remote control, and that has made such a huge difference! Looking forward to using them for all our AV needs.

Called these guys on a wednesday morning and was impressed that they would be able to schedule me in so quick, just 3 hours later. He kept me updated via iMessage as he got closer to me and was prompt and actually a bit early when he got to my place. Very impressive!
Service was quick and professional, he quickly assessed and understood the situation as I described it, and was able to quickly get my network set up exactly the way I wanted it. You can tell Dave really knows his stuff just by the way he approaches problems and diagnoses issues. The price was also very reasonable.
After he left I discovered that my internet had stopped working. I quickly called Dave and he returned in just 10 minutes to diagnose the issue. He quickly resolved it, and gave me some tips on the best way to set up my network.
Everything is running perfectly now. What a great experience! Highly recommended.

David is great. I unfortunately went with Magnolia for my audio needs and although they said they provided excellent service, they failed in setting up my system correctly as well as gave me faulty equipment and I barely got a response back from Magnolia. I now chose David to come out and set up my Universal Remote and he was amazing. Prompt and courteous. In addition to setting up and showing us how to use the URC, he reviewed my entire system set-​up, fixed and OPTIMIZED the entire system and explained all things thoroughly. David is our go to person now for all our audiovisual needs. When we do our backyard, he’s our guy. Highly recommend!

Dave is completing my family room av installation as I type this review. He is the only person I called based on Unilocal reviews. I called a little after 6 pm on a Monday and he called right back to accommodate me on. the Friday of the same week.
He had a very professional yet friendly demeanor. His enthusiasm to do things the right way and not cut corners is greatly appreciable. He had to make multiple trips underneath the home into the crawl space to drill through the baseboard and pull wires for 5 speakers, 2 subs and a Tv.
The full job took more than a day and a half to complete and the second trip was from 5 pm to 10 pm the following Wednesay. The good part is that he did not leave me without a functionng system when he had to wind up the first day (Friday) job. Everything with the exception of the surr spkrs were plugged in and working. He even agreed to put in a recessed receptacle for the refrigerator without hesitation as an add on job. Of course I paid for it at the end of the day.
Dave has great attitude and even at the late night hour didn’t wink for a second when I reminded him of a small leftover item to trim the sw cable. It’s not everyday that we come across professionals that perform not just their best work but deliver an exceptional customer experience.
At the end if the day, although it cost be about 30% more than the original quote and quite frankly more than I had hoped, he did a great job, and to his defense put n man. Stars I asked forin the former bonding posts on the wall, 20′ ft professional HDMI cable and an additional subwoofer outlet and Cable. What’s more, he even said he would come back and fix a bad power outlet that was covered up by the prev owner of my home in a very shabby way.
I would call Dave again in a heartbeat if I needed any av help.

David was a pleasure to work with! I hired him to do some work for my office, including re-​wiring our video-​conferencing system, installing a new Shoretel phone system, fixing existing phones, and repairing our fax machine. David completed every task perfectly and with ease.
He explained everything to me in simple terms and everything has been running perfectly smooth for the last couple of months. The only thing that’s kind of a bummer is that he is usually very booked up so sometimes it takes a week or so to get him into the office.
David is professional, efficient, extremely competent, has reasonable prices, and easy to work with. I definitely plan on hiring him again.

I called David to run an Ethernet cable and phone line to my home office, which turned out to be more challenging than expected due to our wall construction issues. He did a great job in spite of the unforeseen difficulties. He ran Cat 6 cable, and even purchased and installed a cable channel that wasn’t part of the original scope of work for me, which was extremely thoughtful and saved me from having to do that myself later. His pricing was very fair and considerate, not charging extra in spite of the additional time required to overcome the unexpected wall construction issues. I would definitely use him again and I highly recommend him to others.

Recently had Dave come and quote an entertainment center install for us. We had purchased the TV, speakers, receiver, and all other components. We needed him to install and connect everything. He had to go under the house, install another CAT5 line etc. He was great and we would definitely use him again. Took 2 days and he was a pleasure to work with. We also ended up purchasing an IR receiver from him as well as a universal remote. The additional cost was definitely worth it. Highly recommend. No issues with scheduling or call back.

I called Dave on a Tuesday morning after my wife read reviews on Unilocal.I am totally ignorant when it comes to audio/​video equipment, remote controls etc. I was tired of having to turn on three separate remotes to access my TV. Dave promptly arrived that same afternoon and sold me a new remote that while somewhat pricey, is an ease to operate. Dave was friendly, professional and answered all my questions. I would highly recommend him to anyone who needs assistance in this area. His prices are fair and he absolutely knows his stuff… plus, he’s a Giants fan!
AL C., Millbrae

I hired Dave to install my 65 inch tv after reading reviews from Unilocal.Dave is awesome. We scheduled an appointment and he came right around the same time and it took less than an hour for the installation. He did a great job. I was really impressed and you don’t get this kind of service for such low price or at least I think.

Dave is awesome! Highly recommend him! With all my frustrations with Comcast, I finally looked on Unilocal to see who could do a wall fishing job as I wanted my TV above the fireplace. I called him at 5:30 PM on a Wednesday, and he was at my place by 8:30 PM that day, as he had promised. He took a look inside my place, finding wall space, and said he could do the job easily. He stayed within my budget which I was grateful for. Also, he noticed Comcast had given me an old crappy cable box, and recommended me to get a HDMI one. I went the next day, and got a nice sleek box that’s half the size!
Dave came 2 days later, and did the job within an hour and half easily. Although I was not there, my brother kept me posted. I spoke with Dave during the job, and he mentioned Comcast did a horrible job with the internet cables and splitters, tech-​y talk that I don’t quite understand, but basically re-​did it for faster internet connection at no cost. How awesome is that?
I did read how he is not on time and such, but I had no problems. The most he’d be late was 30 minutes, but he did give me an hour long time frame of when he would be by. He also picked up his phone everytime I called, so I had no issues at all with working him.
For any AV needs in your home, call Dave at Zion!

I hired Dave to do some low voltage wiring in my office that I was having built out. Dave was an extreme pleasure to work with. Dave was very professional, honest, and very knowledgeable about what I was looking to do.
During the time Dave was working on the low voltage work, there was a lot of other construction going on that wasn’t ideal for his working condition, but under the circumstances he made it work.
Dave not only installed all the wiring in my office for phone lines and internet, but he also set up my router, firewall, networked 8 computers, networked my fax machine and 2 printers, connected Comcast, set up my credit card machine, helped install 3 flat screen TVs, set up speaker wire for my 6 ceiling speakers, installed the speakers, and wired 2 amps to run the speakers. Needless to say Dave did a lot of quality work in my office.
I highly recommend Dave at Zion AV due the fact that he is very honest, friendly, competitive in his prices, and is a hard worker.

I hired David to install a DirecTV dish. He came out as scheduled, but didn’t have the tools to complete the job. He then came out a second time a few days later. He said it would take 2 hours to complete. My house was being renovated with lots of people around so I didn’t notice where he had gone, but 4 hours later, I noticed he had left. 5 hours in, I called him, and he said he needed to get something. 6 hours in, he came back. 7 hours in, he was running back and forth all over my house — asking me to stand outside to look at the TV to see the signal strength. My contractor needed 10 minutes to install a power plug for the TV, and David was putting pressure on me and the contractor to hurry that up, saying that «he had dinner plans». In the end, he didn’t get the dish aligned — zero signal. I hired him because I thought he’d have a sat signal meter, but he did not. He offered to come back a 3^rd time — I declined. I do have better things to do, and it’s quicker to do it myself.
I’ve installed dishes before, but I hired him to keep from having to climb up on the roof. So much for that plan. I reviewed the DirecTV specs for the SWM installation, and found the problem: SWM requires 150ft max cable length. I got on the roof, moved the dish installation, shortened the cable by 50ft, and leveled the dish pole better — I mounted it in a location where I could actually see the tv from the roof, so I could tweak signal strength. I found the satellite in 5 minutes and locked in 95% signal strength.
Later, I discovered that he had left the grill cover off of my crawlspace access hole. I almost fell into the 3 foot deep hole in the dark.
He charged me $ 175 anyway, for an incomplete job.
I wasn’t going to ding him with this review until I offered to Paypal him, and was told that there’d be a 4% PayPal fee despite PayPal not charging any fee for the instant transfer — that was the straw that broke me. Thanks David.

I called these guys today after reading so many rave reviews. I also saw they were advertising $ 125 TV installation. However, when I told him that the TV size was 65″ he said it would cost $ 200 instead. There is no mention of the TV size limitation on their web site. It is not that I was getting an industrial size TV installed.
Needless to say, I feel they are not very truthful. So be careful. He may be doing a good job. It is not a rocket science. I will hire someone else to do it.

Updated Review:
Dave did some network cabling for me and sold me a Panasonic VT30 65″ TV and mount/​mounting job.
The network cabling job was decent, but not fully tested, and required me to have him return to finish the job when I tested them on my own. For a total of 12 ports he installed, you’d think these could be tested pretty easily. In the end it was completed and worked okay though so I don’t really ding him for this on my review.
What I do penalize Dave for is pushing his stupid extended warranty scam onto me. Hoping that Dave was a trustworthy guy, I bought a «Repairmaster» extended warranty for the VT30 through him for several hundred dollars which he claimed at the time would cover any problem and replace the TV if necessary at no charge.
Last week one of the rear fans on my TV started buzzing horribly. I thought great I have my warranty let me get that out and use it. Upon calling Repairmaster I was placed on hold for over two hours without anyone answering. In this time I started searching online and finding out how essentially almost everyone who ever purchased one of these warranties has reported the same experience.
It seems that Repairmaster has engaged multiple vendors to resell their scam warranties to customers. They then share in the profits and no one is the wiser until the customer calls in for service and gets laughed away.
I wrote Dave an email about this and was told that the warranty service «sucks» (his words) but that it was not a scam and I should have called him to fix my TV.
Thank you Dave for selling me something that you think sucks.
To all of Dave’s other customers — I would strongly advise researching anything he tries to sell you. Maybe ask him things like «Do you think this is junk you are selling me?»
Because clearly anything that makes him money is enough for him to screw over his customers…

After deciding to install a flat panel TV and home theater and extend some home networking, I came to Unilocal to locate a contractor. Zion looked really good with all the 5 star reviews, so I thought I would give them a try.
I called David last Friday and explained what I needed done. David asked if he could come over later that night and I said that I would be available after 7:30, David said okay and that he would be there at 7:30. After getting back from the Gym, I got a message from David saying that something had come up and that he was sorry and wouldn’t be able to make it. He then asked if we could meet at 12:30 the following day, I said sure. The next day I came home for lunch to meet David and he pulled a ‘no-​show’. I called a couple times at 12:45 and 1:00 and there was no answer. I finally messaged him later in the afternoon asking where he was and he messaged me back that he was sorry and that he should have called and that there was some family stuff going on… David then said he would like to call me later that day or the next day to evaluate the job. I said fine.
To make a long story a little less long, David didn’t call me back later that day, nor did he call me the next day. At this point I was really anxious to get all my equipment installed so I called another contractor (check my reviews) and that contractor came the next day, upgraded my wired networking, hung my flat panel display, installed my home theater and even stayed to help me finish building my entertainment center! (That last bit was off the clock!)
With all the great reviews David got, I’m sure he’s knowledgeable but I have to rate him very low on dependability. My time is valuable and I don’t have time to waste on cancelations and no-​shows.

I called David for a quote and he took the time to educate me about the process and the considerations behind hanging a TV on the wall.
Although I decided not to just buy a stand instead, I wanted to write this quick note as a thank you for David’s time. If I were to hire someone, David would be the man.