My latest Equipment Rack Pics

[Chris D]

Okay, so I FINALLY got my new equipment rack 99% set up in my new house, with thanks to help from the Parasound guys! (I couldn't find my HRA-4u Halo C1 rackmount ears after my move, for one thing) First, the pic of the equipment rack itself. Wish I could post larger, more high resolution pics.

My new home has what I've always wanted--a small central electronics room for the entire house. You don't see to the side and behind the rack, I have wall panels that house security, phone, internet, audio, and video distribution panels. This equipment rack houses all gear that can be accessed from any room in the house, through Elan A/V distribution equipment and control panels. So, for example, if you're watching a movie in the living room and someone calls, it will mute the audio and ring the phone over the speakers. You pause the movie, pick up the phone, and talk. (you can also do stuff like put the person on hold and they'll listen to a radio station or CD that you select, or page somebody else in the house over the phone) After you're done talking, if you're tired, you can go into the bedroom, plop down on the bed, and resume the same movie you were just watching, right where it left off. Cool stuff. You don't have any A/V gear taking up room around the house, and everything is centrally located right in one place. No longer do I have to walk around the house, asking, "Who took the Toy Story DVD, and where is it?" Now it stays in the room, and can be watched from anywhere.



Okay, on the left stack, starting at the top:
- Cheap TV currently used as a monitor for the equipment room. (this will be improved)
- Just to the right of the TV are two "THX Robot" dolls, not easily seen in the pic as some of my DVD shelves are peeking up from behind the rack.
- Toshiba HD-A35 HD-DVD player. (I'll keep this one for a while)
- Standard CD changer for home audio use
- Standard SD-DVD changer for home video use
- Parasound Halo D3 universal DVD player, mostly for critical audio listening of CD, SACD, and DVD-A
- Behringer Feedback Destroyer, a parametric equalizer for subwoofers, used for the home theater room
- Parasound Halo T3 radio tuner, also used for home audio distribution
- Parasound Zhd HDMI switcher and Zbreeze cooling fan
- Two satellite receivers (soon to be replaced with new satellite HD-DVR's) One for me, one for my wife, so we can record and watch TV on our own DVR's, then access them from anywhere in the house
- Below that is the various Elan equipment for the home A/V distribution, communications control, and a cooling fan
- TrippLite power conditioner and distribution


On the right side is mostly the "power" and "control" of the systems:

- Sitting on top of the rack is my PS3, for various reasons. You can't see it very well because of some of my DVD shelves are peeking up behind the rack. (note that in this kind of setup, you can play PS3 in any room in the house! Even play multiplayer from different rooms, although it's more fun being together)
- Denon AVR-4802 receiver, used to power the living room surround setup on the upper floor
- Denon 2808ci receiver with HDMI 1.3 audio decoding. I really only bought this to use as an outboard HDMI audio decoder for the theater. (more on this soon in the Club Parasound subforum)
- Two Parasound Zbreeze cooling fans (gotta keep this stack ventilated!!!)
- Parasound Halo C1 home theater pre/pro controller (powering the theater)
- Parasound Halo A51, 5-channel amp (powering the theater)
- Parasound Halo A21, 5-channel amp (powering the theater)
- Old S-VHS VCR, kept around for the kids and as a clock.
- Another Elan Zfan cooling fan
- Another TrippLite power conditioner and distribution

And hey, you know how I like the groovy pictures of equipment racks in the dark!!...

[Chris D]

I have a few select other equipment pieces around the house for specialized purposes, (and some I can't show for secrecy sake) but by and large, don't need anything else other than everything centralized right into the equipment room.

For those who are wondering, the slotted plates inbetween the Parasound gear on the right side are Parasound Halo vent panels, manufactured to match Halo gear.

Note that the Parasound Zcustom equipment is actually half-rack size. So if you rackmount it, two units actually fit side-by-side. Those little things are awesome.

Obviously, it looks a little off balance with some silver equipment in the left rack, some in the right. But doing some in-depth planning, I just couldn't figure out how to put all silver on the same side, have it fit right, and still have the rest organized in a way that makes sense. Now... if and when Parasound puts out a new Halo HDMI pre/pro controller, (HINT HINT HINT... I hope they're reading this!!!) I'll be able to make my Denon HDMI receiver the living room receiver and take the other, older, Denon out, making room for me to shift the C1 up, and move the other Parasound gear over to the right stack, making it nice and balanced. Just one more reason I want a Halo HDMI pre/pro NOW!

[Hdale85]

Curious how do the remotes and what not work from other rooms? Is there some sort of complex IR repeater? Also the PS3 controllers work from any room in the house? I didn't think bluetooth would reach all that far?

Also do you think you could make a thread somewhere and show how the audio/video distribution system works? Like panels in the other rooms wiring and what not? Also the remotes and stuff like I mentioned before. I'm a bit interested :B

[Chris D]

Sure thing... I think I'm going to make a duplicate copy of this thread over in our "Spaced Out" forum to talk about stuff like that. In short, there are wired Elan control panels in every room of the house. So on any panel, in any room, you can press the "DVD" button, and your room's audio will turn on, the DVD player will turn on down in the equipment room, the DVD will start playing, video will be output to the video jacks in your room, and audio will be played over the in-ceiling speakers in your room. You can control the volume and source unit from the panel, too. The panel sends commands to the control units in the equipment room, which outputs IR as necessary to the source units.

Some rooms have some variations--naturally, I use box speakers in the theater, not in-walls, and some rooms like the theater also have an IR receiver, wired through the walls to IR distribution in the equipment room.

[Race Car Driver]

*drool*
blinky lights....

[Alaric]

*drool*
blinky lights....

:rf :rf :rf :rf

[Peter Nielsen]

Very nice Chris!

However, the thought of those amps heating up the delicate electronics of the C1 is worrying. Tell me you've got fans there that push the hot air through the vent long before the C1 gets a chance to heat up to more than 85F internally?! (75F is the "critical" ambient temperature accoding to Middle Atlantic's thermal management white paper, more than that and you reduce the life of your digital electronics).

Peter

[Chris D]

Huh... didn't know about the specific 75F temperature. Thanks! No, the fans there move all air from bottom to top of the equipment rack, pulling the cooler air from the bottom of the room. I'm not sure of a better way to do it, though. If I put the C1 all the way at the bottom of the rack, it'd look pretty funny. (and I wouldn't be able to see the control screen at all)