Coverage across a floor, not a corner of it.
Background music, paging and meeting room AV, designed at first fix so the cable routes exist before the ceiling closes and nothing has to be surface-run afterwards.
Audio is a first fix problem pretending to be a product.
Almost every compromise in a finished AV installation — the visible speaker, the trailing HDMI, the rack in the wrong riser — is a cable that was not run when the ceiling was open.
So we set out the backboxes, cable routes and rack position at first fix, against how the space will actually be used and what will actually be booked into it. The equipment choice comes after that, and is the easy part.
Get the containment right and the equipment can be changed for twenty years.
What we design and install.
- Multi-zone audio, with in-ceiling, in-wall and surface speakers
- Display mounting, with concealed cable routes
- AV distribution over structured cabling
- Equipment racks — ventilated, accessible and labelled
- Commercial background music and paging systems
- Meeting and boardroom AV, including display and conferencing
- Integration with the lighting and smart control layer
- Structured cabling and network provision to support it
- [Manufacturer dealerships and approved-installer status to be confirmed]
Bracketed items are awaiting confirmation from Systems360. Dealership and approved-installer claims affect warranty and are not something to state on a client's behalf.
The same cable, a different brief each time.
What changes from one commercial space to the next is what counts as success — and who has to work the system on a Tuesday morning.
In a commercial space
The brief is coverage, intelligibility and reliability. Background music that is even across a floor, and meeting room AV that works without somebody being called.
- Even coverage designed rather than assumed from a product sheet
- Zoning so areas can be controlled and levelled independently
- Meeting room AV specified around how the room is actually booked
- Documented, labelled racks so somebody else can maintain it
[Second commercial application to be supplied]
[A second commercial setting Systems360 has installed audio or AV in — the sector, what that client was buying, and what made it different from the row above. To be written by Systems360 rather than invented here.]
How an AV package actually runs.
Three stages, and the first one is where the money is saved.
Design and first fix layout
We agree what plays where, mark up speaker and display positions, site the rack, and set out the cable routes and backboxes before the ceiling closes.
First fix
Containment and cabling installed with the electrical package, so there is one set of routes rather than two competing ones.
Install, commission and hand over
Equipment installed, levels set, control programmed, and the system demonstrated to whoever will actually use it.
Questions we get before we start.
Can this be done in a finished or occupied building?
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on access. Where there is no route, the honest answer is that the options are surface containment or a wireless system, and we will say which we would do.
Which brands do you install?
[Dealerships to be confirmed.] We specify to the brief rather than to a single manufacturer, and will tell you what a given choice commits you to in terms of warranty and future upgrades.
Will it work with the lighting and the rest of the building?
That is the usual intent. Where the smart control layer is part of the same project we design one control layer across all of it rather than an app per service.
When do you need to be on site?
At first fix, with the electrical package. AV brought in after the ceiling has closed is the single most common cause of a compromised installation.
[Replace with a real review from a commercial client — ideally one that names the audio or AV work specifically.]
Sound for a home instead?
This page is written for specifiers, contractors and commercial clients. There is a separate one for homeowners, covering the same cabling from the other side — what you will see, what you will hear, and how the household controls it.