Audiovisual consulting and design-build for New York hotels, restaurants, offices, and retail. We design the system, specify it, install it, and support it, working alongside your architect and GC from the drawings forward.
On a lot of New York projects nobody owns the audiovisual scope. The architect puts screens on an elevation without knowing where the speakers go or how loud the room needs to be. The IT team wants the simplest system that stays off their desk. By the time anyone asks the operator what the space is supposed to do, the walls are closed, the conduit is wrong, and the change order is expensive. Then the system gets installed anyway and nobody can run it.
An AV consultant is supposed to prevent that. We come in as the audiovisual partner on the project: we ask what the space needs to accomplish, design the system around that answer, and hand your architect and general contractor requirements they can actually build to. Then we install and support what we designed, so there is one company accountable rather than a designer blaming an installer. We have been doing this since 2008 across hospitality, corporate, and retail work in the five boroughs.
What We Do Here
Every system is designed, installed, and supported by our own team in New York City — never subcontracted.
01 / NEW YORK CITYAV consulting from an audio visual consultant who joins at the architectural phase, designs the technology into the plan and steers the project around your business outcome.
AV Consulting in New York Cityarrow_forward
Design-build AV control systems: one iPad, wall panel, or browser runs every display, audio zone, lighting scene, and source in the room. Programmed and supported in-house.
AV Control Systems in New York Cityarrow_forward
AV programming that starts with the right design: a vetted, interconnectable stack unified into one control system, so the whole room runs from one simple interface.
AV Programming in New York Cityarrow_forward
04 / NEW YORK CITYCommercial sound system design and installation: multi-zone audio engineered around how your space is used, wired and tuned on site, and supported as a partner.
Commercial Sound Systems in New York Cityarrow_forward
Conference room AV designed around the people using the room: video conferencing, Zoom and Teams Rooms, displays, and audio, installed and supported as a partner.
Conference Room AV in New York Cityarrow_forward
Design-build digital signage for hospitality and enterprise: commercial displays, content management, and installation that keeps your screens selling and current.
Digital Signage Services in New York Cityarrow_forward
Commercial video walls across LED, LCD and Direct View. Designed, integrated, installed and supported by a national design-build AV integrator.
Video Wall Solutions in New York Cityarrow_forwardWho We Serve
Spaces we've wired across New York City — each built and supported by the same local crew.
From Midtown towers to Brooklyn storefronts, we consult on audiovisual design for New York hotels, restaurants, offices, and retail, and we plan the install around how buildings here actually let you work.
Outdoor dining runs through the cold here, so anything outside is weather-rated, on its own zone, and specified for freeze and thaw rather than moved indoors each year.
Rack space in New York buildings is usually tight and rarely cooled, so we specify cooling to keep the room at or below 75 degrees, because heat and dust are what actually shorten equipment life.
Freight windows, after-hours rules, riser access, and building management approvals shape the install schedule, so they get planned into the design phase.
Protected buildings and storefronts limit what can be visible or penetrated, so concealment and mounting get resolved before anything is specified.
How we work
There is no reason your technology partner is not at the architectural phase. By the time the venue is being built, the mark has already been missed.
A project a year out does not need a large upfront spend. It needs the technology requirements in the architectural plan, because you cannot submit a clean permit set or get an honest GC bid without them. Leave them out and the GC plays catch-up, which is where change orders and badly built infrastructure come from. In New York that penalty is worse than most markets, because you are usually inside an existing building with tight ceilings and difficult riser paths, and reopening a wall means another approval and another crew. So the moment to bring us in is the first floor plan: we model what the space needs and send the requirements back for the plan set, and the GC bids against something complete.
Most of what goes wrong later gets decided in a short window early on. The GC needs conduit sizing, pathway plans for open ceilings, blocking behind every display so nothing is mounted into nothing, power for the rack, and cooling for the AV room. Getting that over early is the highest-leverage thing on the job. Getting it late is the most expensive. New York adds its own layer on top: building management approvals, freight elevator windows, after-hours rules, labor coordination, and landmark review if the building or storefront is protected. We plan around those in design rather than discovering them the week we mobilize. For timing, engineering runs two to three weeks after contract, equipment thirty to forty-five days, and a new build nine to twelve months to opening.
What we consult on
Most of our New York consulting work sits in four places. In each one the design question is different, and the equipment list comes last.
A New York hotel is several venues in one building, and treating it as one system is the usual mistake. The lobby needs sound that sets a mood without competing with the front desk. The restaurant and bar need their own zones. The meeting floors need conferencing that works for whoever booked the room. So we design it zone by zone: distributed audio where each area sets its own level and program, displays specified for the light they actually sit in, signage for wayfinding and event boards, and meeting rooms built around the platforms your guests bring rather than one you picked. In landmark buildings nothing can be visible, so speakers and screens get concealed into the architecture without giving up coverage.
Two things tell you a New York restaurant's audio was never designed: you cannot hold a conversation, or you cannot hear what the operator wants playing. Both come from speakers placed without accounting for direction, height, and a room full of hard surfaces, often run around the perimeter so the middle has no coverage and the edges are too loud. So audio gets zoned, with the dining room, the bar, and the sidewalk each tuned to the concept instead of one master volume. Displays get placed off sightlines so a screen is a content source rather than an intrusion, and control stays simple enough that a manager can change the room without calling anyone. Sidewalk and patio service means weather-rated equipment on its own zone, because indoor speakers do not survive a winter outside.
Corporate teams usually arrive with a platform already decided, which is fine, and with a room size assumption that is usually wrong. Manufacturer marketing sells a system sized for five people into a room that seats twenty, and everyone at the far end of the table spends a year being unintelligible on calls. So we design from the space: the dimensions, the acoustics, whether the walls are glass or concrete, what actually happens in the room, and which platforms your people and your clients use. That produces the microphone and camera coverage the room really needs, displays sized for the furthest seat, and control that behaves the same in every room so nobody needs training to start a meeting. Where an internal IT team owns the network, we work with them on it rather than around them.
Retail and large public spaces have the opposite problem from a restaurant: the space is big, loud, and full of hard surfaces, and the message has to land anyway. Distributed audio gets designed for intelligibility across zones rather than volume, and paging and public address systems get specified so an announcement is understood in a crowded concourse, not just heard. Where the environment is acoustically difficult, we analyze the layout before selecting anything, because the room decides the speaker type and placement. In high-design environments, including galleries and flagship stores, the requirement is usually that the audio is present and the hardware is not, so equipment gets concealed and coverage gets solved with placement instead of more boxes.
Plain answers
Consulting means different things at different firms, so here is exactly what you get from us and how we are different from a design-only consultant.
You get drawings and documentation your trades can build from rather than a recommendation memo. That means system elevations and equipment locations, signal flow and single-line drawings, an equipment schedule, conduit and pathway requirements for the GC, power and cooling requirements for the rack and the AV room, mounting and structural backing details, and network requirements. Where it helps you decide, we show the room visually before anything is ordered, which is what stops the change-of-mind six months later. The package is the deliverable your architect folds into the plan set and your GC bids against, and on new construction our drawings go into the permitting set alongside the building's.
Most AV consultants hand you a specification and leave. We design, specify, procure, build, install, commission, train, and support, which changes the incentives. A design-only consultant is not accountable for whether the room works on opening night, and a bid-spec document written by someone unqualified to write it is where most disappointing systems start. Because we support what we build, and because Crunchy Tech began in 2008 as an AV support company before it was an integrator, the design gets made serviceable on purpose: labeled, documented, and laid out so a technician can work in it three years later. We will quote a fixed bid if your scope is genuinely settled. We will also tell you honestly when a fixed number is going to cost you more than the design work would have.
When your architect produces a first floor plan, and earlier than you think. The technology requirements have to be in the plan set before you can submit a clean permit application or get a GC bid you can trust, and in New York the cost of adding them late is higher than almost anywhere else. You are usually working inside an existing building with limited ceiling depth and difficult riser paths, so reopening a wall means another approval, another closure, and another mobilization. Bring us in early and we model what the space needs to accomplish and hand the architect requirements to fold into the drawings: conduit sizing, pathways, blocking behind displays, power and cooling for the rack. Projects that start with us at the architectural phase see far fewer change orders than projects where we arrive after construction is underway. A year out, that engagement is a design fee, not a construction cost.
Both, and we think that matters. A design-only consultant hands over a specification and is not accountable for whether the room works on opening night, which is how you end up with a designer and an installer blaming each other. We design, specify, procure, build the rack in our shop, install, commission, train your staff, document the system, and support it afterward. One company, one point of accountability. If you would rather use us for design only, we do that too, and we will be straight with you about the risk of handing our drawings to a low bidder. We can also review a specification or a quote you already have and give you an honest read on what it is missing.
We plan around them in the design phase rather than discovering them at mobilization. That means confirming the freight elevator windows and after-hours access rules with building management, understanding what the riser and pathway situation actually allows, and coordinating with the trades and labor requirements the building or the project operates under. If the building or the storefront is landmarked, the constraint is usually that equipment cannot be visible or that penetrations are restricted, so concealment and mounting get resolved before anything is specified rather than after a design review sends it back. On new construction our engineering drawings go into the GC's permitting set, so the technology is reviewed alongside the building instead of chasing it later.
Often, with a look at it first. If you already own equipment or inherited a system, we will review the design documents and run our engineering process before saying yes, and the answer ranges from it is broadly right with a few changes to it needs to be reworked. What we will not do is install consumer-grade gear or wireless audio in a business that depends on the room working, because it is built for a backyard and not for a Friday night. Commercial displays you already own are usually fine once we confirm the make and model can be controlled the way the system needs. We also generally do not take install-only work, since we need to understand the design to stand behind it. If you have an incumbent AV vendor, we are happy to come in as a second opinion rather than a replacement.
Client successes drive Crunchy Tech to become better. Below is how our customers feel about us.
Just do it. Spend the money. It’s well worth it. It’s not worth your time, hassle, energy, and stress of trying to make it look right and do it right when there’s somebody who has been doing it for years and has perfected the craft.
You're a great partner with Florida Hospital and this project will make a difference in Children's Health.
Working with Crunchy Tech was a fantastic experience from start to finish. They handled the sale and installation of all our sound and TV equipment at The County Bar in Aviston, IL, and absolutely nailed it. We were on a very tight deadline, and they not only met it—they delivered top-notch quality and service the entire way. Highly professional, responsive, and easy to work with. We couldn't be happier with the results.
Crunchy's AV Services are outstanding. Staff members are experts, who really extend themselves to find the right technology for helping us reach our marketing goals in creative ways. The best thing about working with Crunchy is collaborating with the staff – they are patient, responsive, knowledgeable, and available.
Crunchy has been great to work with. They communicate well and deliver as promised.
The work Crunchy has been doing is a game changer for this industry.
Being able to reuse the existing structure created a much lower cost for the client and they were ecstatic.
Crunchy has done an amazing job on our A/V install. The sound is perfectly balanced throughout our many zones and the entire system is super simple to use.
Just do it. Spend the money. It’s well worth it. It’s not worth your time, hassle, energy, and stress of trying to make it look right and do it right when there’s somebody who has been doing it for years and has perfected the craft.
You're a great partner with Florida Hospital and this project will make a difference in Children's Health.
Working with Crunchy Tech was a fantastic experience from start to finish. They handled the sale and installation of all our sound and TV equipment at The County Bar in Aviston, IL, and absolutely nailed it. We were on a very tight deadline, and they not only met it—they delivered top-notch quality and service the entire way. Highly professional, responsive, and easy to work with. We couldn't be happier with the results.
Crunchy's AV Services are outstanding. Staff members are experts, who really extend themselves to find the right technology for helping us reach our marketing goals in creative ways. The best thing about working with Crunchy is collaborating with the staff – they are patient, responsive, knowledgeable, and available.
Crunchy has been great to work with. They communicate well and deliver as promised.
The work Crunchy has been doing is a game changer for this industry.
Being able to reuse the existing structure created a much lower cost for the client and they were ecstatic.
Crunchy has done an amazing job on our A/V install. The sound is perfectly balanced throughout our many zones and the entire system is super simple to use.
We don’t sell you what we have. We design what you need. That line is the operating principle I’ve built Crunchy Tech around for the last 20 years. And it’s the single sentence that separates us - and the small handful of firms like us - from the other 97% of the commercial AV industry.
Read article arrow_forward
There’s a pattern I’ve watched play out for 20 years in hospitality AV, and it always ends the same way...
Read article arrow_forward
"Where's my quote?"
Read article arrow_forwardTell us about the project: the address, the phase it is in, who the architect and GC are, what is decided and what is still open. If construction has not started we will work from the drawings. If it has, we will walk the site, confirm what the building and the jurisdiction will allow, and come back with one engineered consulting scope instead of a parts list.
