MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Well the last piece of the room is the in wall audio rack. I will be starting this Saturday. Was looking for any ideas/suggestions before I begin. I have of course a relative idea how I will go about doing this but curious for any suggestions! I will have access behind the rack as it will be built as a enclosure of solid hard wood plywood ¾ thick and sanded and painted before being inserted into the wall. I will have a 1” space from all the of the shelves in-between the back so the cables can run up and down and the back will be a hinged door so I can open and access everything. I’m going off of PSG’s design and will have molding trim around the enclosure to match that of the molding on my floor. It will have to be 79” tall and at least 20” wide to hold all the equipment and contain 9 shelves all made of hard wood plywood as well that I will either stain or paint after I sand them. I have looked up various threads on AVS to see how many in wall racks were done but wanted to ask any of you for opinions. Ive’ also sent a PM to Psg on suggestions but I really like his design and wanted the same thing and roughly the same size. I can’t leave the back open as it will be entering attic space and get really hot in there so I was going to enclose it completely with the exception of the front so the ventilation and A/C from the room will circulate in the rack as well. Sorry for the long post and I promise his res photos of all the work and room that has been completed as soon as it is complete and I pick up a decent camera. My iPhone is terrible at photographing the room. I will however upload some pics of the area of the wall it will be going into and some rough photos of the room this evening in this post. Thanks everyone for any suggestions. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I thought you liked all those blue lights? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 The faceplates of the equipment will still be visible. Just want the equipment off the floor and in the wall very similar to PSG’s rack is what im building. I have dimmed the lights to off on all the equipment on occasion though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrappydue Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Light ls in a theater room, yuck. Not for me. Lol I built an in wall not too long ago. If you are gonna close off sides and rear I would Recommended looking into some sort of fan setup to circulate the most air possible. I will try and find the pics of what I did. Nothing fancy. But very functional and completely opened in the back as it's under a stair well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khornukopia Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I have an equipment closet with rear access, a front door window and a quiet exhaust fan. May I offer a few suggestions? Use a dark color for the interior of rack, so wires blend into background. If you paint the shelves, be aware that rubber equipment feet may bond to some types of fresh dry paint. Make sturdy shelf mounts. Some adjustable shelves. Ventilated and cross braced amplifier shelf. Oversize conduit for wires, in case you want to add more speakers, or more subwoofer signal wires later. Hooks, straps or clamps to use as strain relief for wires, and to help keep wires organized. You will want good available lighting at back of rack, so you can easily read the fine print at connections. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanm84 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I have an equipment closet with rear access, a front door window and a quiet exhaust fan. May I offer a few suggestions? Use a dark color for the interior of rack, so wires blend into background. If you paint the shelves, be aware that rubber equipment feet may bond to some types of fresh dry paint. Make sturdy shelf mounts. Some adjustable shelves. Ventilated and cross braced amplifier shelf. Oversize conduit for wires, in case you want to add more speakers, or more subwoofer signal wires later. Hooks, straps or clamps to use as strain relief for wires, and to help keep wires organized. You will want good available lighting at back of rack, so you can easily read the fine print at connections. I like that set up. Door for control of the equipment rear access for set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBPK402 Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 We are planning on doing a rack for all of our equipment in our HT... The plan is to make a rack that sits at an angle on the left wall (of the AT screen), and build a 2x4 frame around it that will go from the floor to the ceiling and then make a frame for a door for the front access and cover the door, and the whole angled frame with acoustic fabric. We will still have access from the rear for connections etc. When you look at it it will just be black fabrics just like the masking of the screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrappydue Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 We are planning on doing a rack for all of our equipment in our HT... The plan is to make a rack that sits at an angle on the left wall (of the AT screen), and build a 2x4 frame around it that will go from the floor to the ceiling and then make a frame for a door for the front access and cover the door, and the whole angled frame with acoustic fabric. We will still have access from the rear for connections etc. When you look at it it will just be black fabrics just like the masking of the screen.this is exactly what I did with mine except framed it with 1x4's. ill try and get pics up tomorrow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mustang guy Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Leave space for cooling for any items that get warm and don't have fans. You can also install a fan on them to help. Most equipment manuals give space recommendations for cooling. I have seen them say 8 inches on the sides and top, and 4 inches in the rear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeker Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Its nice to have everything in view to show gear off but some of the high end installs iv been involved in including my sisters and brother in laws considering ventilation the 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom basement with full theater the equipment was in a seperate unfinished concrete room. Operated through a whole house system from alarm to lighting was adjusted only by 2 touchscreen keyboards and room mounted push button mounts. Ventilation is very important. Also when selling a home the built in gear racks usually get overlooked as not needed. Yet again they are sweet when done correctly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 Hmm well this is why I posted this as it serves a great source of info from you guys. My original plan was to build the in wall rack as a complete enclosure with 2 holes at the top rear of the cabinet and leave around 2 inches of space in between each shelf for ventilation. I may sit on this for a little bit and think about other options. I have the space to build and may even build a sold enclosure with open space only from the front. Then I could put in a Mid Atlantic rack on rails that can slide out and pivet/turn to access all the wiring instead of having a hinged door. I could build a nice enclosure and frame it up and add matching molding to it on the trim. Looking forward to your pics Scrappy. I usually leave the equipment lights on and all the equipment on for that matter most of the time and then when im in the room to watch a film I dim them down or to off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 Was going to do something like this with the molding and all as its very similar to mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrappydue Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I think I might make a quick YouTube video so you can see it all. Nothing fancy but better than pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 Thanks scrappy will be most helpful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 A small side not I may end up staining the shelves instead of painting them same with the hardwood enclosure. Could stain them black. I will paint the moldings to match the moldings painted in the room but stain seems the better route to go for the enclosure and shelves. Other option would be to build the enclosure a little large then what I have spec’d out and install a mid-Atlantic rack with the rails that can slide out and pivot to access all the wiring Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrappydue Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Only thing with pivoting racks is wiring has to be perfect. Otherwise you can unplug stuff or pinch wires. All kinds of things can go wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 The more and more I think about this (at work not thinking about work) I have a perfect sized closet that is about 28” wide, 8’ tall that has nothing in it directly at the bottom of the stairs of the theater. It sits directly under attic space. I could potentially get a mid-Atlantic rack and put all my equipment in there nice and neat and run the power cables/speaker cables for the entire room to the top of that closet. It would require me to cut 2 small holes in the ceiling of the closet which would feed into the attic and would have my entire equipment rack in a separate room. The idea is sprouting! If I were to do this how do people control their pre amps/ blu-ray players etc when their equipment racks are in a separate room? This would eliminate the need for an in wall rack and would leave an even cleaner more simple look to the theater. Would anyone opt for this? The cost would be considerably less and I would really just need to order speaker wire to run the lengths needed to the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 To get a better idea of this, my entire rack including the amps, processors, Blu-ray player, etc. would directly below my theater. I would have to order 4 long speakon cables for my subwoofers, and a large sppol of speaker wire for all the speakers which isn’t to bad. Pack of (2) 100 foot speakon cables are 69 dollars on ebay and the speaker cable I would get from Monoprice. I would have to have a long cable for the ARC mic to run ARC from the D2v but this all may be a better solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TasDom Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I just upgraded my Harmony One remote to the Harmony Ultimate for this reason. No line of site needed (RF) to a closed cabinet and STB behind the PJ screen. Comes with two emitters for IR equipment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelandKlipsch Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 (edited) Sounds like a plan. Seen them for around $200 on eBay Edited April 3, 2014 by MichaelandKlipsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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