# My basement theater equipment install



## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

I thought I’d show off some of the progress in my basement entertainment room. It’s not a “theater room” because it isn’t designed to be strictly a theater room, but more of one large open space for watching TV/movies/sports, the kids playing, entertaining, etc. This thread is mainly focused on the A/V rack and its related equipment. One day when I have time I will possibly make a thread on the rest of the project – it started as a completely unfinished basement.

I'm just going to jump into it here, as to go to the very beginning I would have to go a long way back.

Power inlet installed to feed power to the projector power outlet. This lets me be sure that the projector is on surge protection and conditioned power.









Wiring up the jacks/plates.

















Where the AV rack will go:









Labels for everything:
















Subwoofer Box built with ¾” MDF, Titebond III, and #20 biscuits. Port-tuned to 31hz with 2x 12” Polk subwoofers.









Subwoofers installed in-wall:









Ceiling plates for the projector:









***Picture Limit Break***


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Projector mounted, this was before the black cables were replaced with shorter white cables.









Starting work on the AV Rack:








I test-fit it all together. It would work with only one board framing the whole surround, but the problem is the oval screw-holes do not completely sit on the board. You could screw it in, but there would be a gap that you could see through/behind the face. Fits better with 2 boards on the right side.








Shot from the back side.








I moved to one of the most looked-forward-to parts of the whole basement, building the AV rack. I put the front and rear frames together with basic mitered cuts, glued the joints and clamped with corner clamps to be sure everything stayed exactly square and perfect. Front face is typical colonial case molding in poplar, back is poplar 1x3s.









I clamped them to the wall, made sure the alignment was perfect, and attached them to the poplar frame boards, using 18g brads for the front case moulding and 16g finish nails for the rear 1x3s. 








Perfect fit.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

To accommodate non-rack-mounted equipment, I attached dual-track shelf brackets on the back side. This allows me to adjust the height of the shelves so everything fits well.








These are mounted through the face-frame and into the stud behind it - no worry about it falling off.









Mounted up. I held the equipment in place and marked where the screws should land. Then I took it out, drilled about 1/4"-3/8" deep holes, just to keep the front of the wood from splitting when I installed the screw. I didn't drill all the way deep so the screw would have a nice tight grab. These are mounted with 1" #6 wood screws and a finish washer.









With the equipment on shelves, it was time to start making the face panels. I wanted to build them out of aluminum, but due to having 99 other things I need to do, I figured I could do the same with hardboard and get a good result, and some day when I need something to do I’ll start metalworking.








They were a process. First, I ripped a 2x4' sheet of 1/8" hardboard to 18-15/16" I tried to keep the height of each panel to a number of universal rack-mount size (1.75"). It wasn't easy. Also had to keep cooling and circulation space in mind with the components and future equipment. 

So, with the dimensions, I went and cut down the panels, one at a time. I measured the component size and marked off where to cut in the center of the panel, which I did with the jigsaw - very slowly. Of course, they didn't fit with only that. So a lot of time was spent with a file to gently work the opening to a perfect fit.










All panels cut and test-fit:









I sprayed them with black primer, then black satin paint. Meh. Don't really like the paint finish, some dust or something settled on them while drying and some have rough patches. Could have been affected by the cold too. I still want to put the aluminum panels in someday, but for now these will work. I think in a while I'll take them off and plastidip them. That will smooth them out in appearance. I have enough other things to work on for now.
















Put some black vinyl tape over the spaces in the AV rack panels, so that no light will come through when the closet light is on. Worked even better than I anticipated.









Started to put some flex-tubing on the wires. That white extension cord will be replaced with a short 1' extension cord from Monoprice that I'll order when I order the speakers.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Here is the screen frame. I brought it inside last night. The dimensions are bigger than a 102" screen, due to making room along the edges for 2" of black felt, and 3/4" of moulding, while still retaining the 102" viewable size. If you build any bigger than this, you'll want to consider assembling it in the room. I had a hard time getting it in the house and down the stairs. Not a big struggle, but if it were much larger it wouldn't have made it down the stairway









It's 3/4" MDF, assembled with #20 biscuits and Titebond III. Then, I glued some rectangle scraps of 1/8" hardboard on the the back at the joints, just because it seemed like a good idea. It's very rigid, and I'm not afraid of it falling apart. Also, the nice thing about MDF is I won't have to worry about anything warping over time.

I spray-painted the moulding that will go on the edges satin-black. This is just typical 1" outside corner moulding. Primed with black primer, then a few coats of satin black paint.








Here it is laid on the frame. It won't be attached until after the screen material









Screen material installation. I have a pneumatic stapler, which I planned on using. I only had 1" staples for it. So, after finally tracking down some 1/2" staple, I thought I was ready to begin. No. The narrow-crown staples just rip right though the material. Need to use a standard staple gun. Ok, started with that and was having good results. When pulling tight, the 54" wide material easily stretches to the edges of the 55-3/8" frame. About 10 staples in, I run out and can't find my box of staples. Find a box of staples, which don't fit my staple gun. Had to go buy some more. Aside from fighting staples, it was easy to do. Just start in the top-middle, put in 3 staples, go to the other side and stretch, put in 3 staples across. Then, moving in one direction (to one side), I'd put in 3 more staples, walk around and put in 6, walk around put in 6, etc. Secured the top and bottom, then did the sides in the same way.


















Since the pneumatic was too powerful/too narrow to work well, I was using a standard staple gun. I didn't quite have the power to drive 1/2" staples into 3/4" MDF and sit them flush. So, I had to give the staples a quick tap with the hammer and they all went home.









Clamped and drying.

















This stuff is awesome, by the way. No runs or drips - stays right where you put it.









Two hangmen attached to hang the screen. I highly recommend this method for hanging.








***Picture Limit Break***


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Matching hangmen on the back of the screen. 









Back of screen form distance.









Screen is on the wall. (final wall color still needs to be decided).


















That’s where I am today. I have 2” black felt tape ordered that will trim out the inside of the frame. This does 2 things: gives a nice even frame around the picture with light-absorbing material, and also increases the perceived contrast ratio of your eye. So they say.
I still need to order the speakers (5 go in the front wall, 4 in the rear ceiling), and build the frame/grill that covers the subwoofer. My plan for the rest of this week is cleanup. We have new furniture coming for upstairs next week, so the upstairs furniture is coming down here this weekend. Even though the basement isn’t finished, I want to clean it as well as I can before putting the furniture down here.


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## handyman_20772 (Jun 28, 2006)

Cool..!!


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## r0ckstarr (Jan 8, 2013)

Awesome! Nice work!


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

Looks good.....

I totally agree with leaving the back open for access to the wires.....would like to see some close up views of your wiring looms in the back.

How much power total does your system pull?


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

The wiring is not complete yet, I still need to add all the patch cables for the 9 speakers going between the receiver and wall panel. (I need to put the speakers in the wall first). When I get that done, I'll snap some updated pictures of the back side. Going to order those speakers shortly.

With just my test configuration with 3 speakers on the receiver + two subwoofers on the other, 2 computers, projector, network switch, HDHomerun, I pull somewhere around 9 amps [with it cranked-up]. When I'm actually powering the full compilation of speakers and replace the 2nd receiver with a real amplifer (Crown XLS1000), I'm sure it's going to go up a little. There are 2x 20a circuits feeding the outlets behind the AV rack. Each circuit has an Ethereal power conditioner/surge protector plugged into it, after which all the components are plugged into that. The power conditioners are only rated at 15a though, not the full 20a of the circuit. That's ok. It's still 30a of available power, which would be well over 3000w. Besides switching the 2nd receiver for the Crown amplifier, I'll also be putting in some other things, like HDMI distribution, equalizer, and DB meter. One day when money permits, I'd like to switch to a pre-amp + amp combination instead of just a receiver, but I have a long way to wait until things like that come into play.

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The felt arrived a day early. I put it on at lunchtime.


















I had to get really close to even see any light being shined onto the felt, does exactly what it is supposed to do in absorbing light.










The vertical height is about perfect. The horizontal distance leaves me with just under 1/2" on each side. One thing I forgot to account for - with the screen is on the wall the projected surface is closer to the projector. So my 102" image is now like 101-1/4". My projector is at max-zoom, so this is as big as I can get without moving the projector further back - which is not an option due to ceiling layout. So, for now I'll leave the white space on either side of the screen, but could always put another small strip of felt down the sides if it bothers me too much. I haven't actually watched anything - only had time to display the Windows desktop, so I don't know if the whole "perceived contrast" thing has a big impact.


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## drtbk4ever (Dec 29, 2008)

Looking very nice.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

What speakers are you ordering, and what projector do you have? How is the image quality?


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

For left, center, right speakers, I am using the 7604 speakers. Rear and surround will be in-ceiling 4103 speakers. Originally I was going to use 7604s also for the front-height channel as well, but am now wondering if that is an overkill and if I should just use the 4100 instead of the dual-woofer variety. For movies/TV they will get the job done, but if I run all-channel stereo, however, I might be able to take advantage of the expanded speakers.

Picture quality is good-enough for me for the time-being, on a DIY projector screen. The Epson Powerlite Home Cinema 705HD is an LCD projector, so its contrast is not as high as some of its DLP brethren. The projector I purchased was recently discontinued, and at a good price. It is a 720p projector, which is fine for sports and TV - as no broadcast uses 1080p (it's all 720p or 1080i). There are some satellite providers that can send pay-per-view content at 1080p, but it will be a long time before everyone broadcasts at that level - just not enough bandwidth to do so. The $1000 question was whether or not 1080p was worth a few blu-ray movies. I decided it was not at this time since TV and sports are primarily what it will be playing.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

Have you heard these speakers yet? They look decent and have respectable specs, but I'd be leery about buying speakers that I didn't audition myself in advance. I have a 5.1 Definitive Technology system with BP2002 powered towers, a PF15TL powered sub, a CLR2002 center, and a pair of BP2X surrounds in my family room along with a Panasonic PT-AE500 LCD projector (720p) and a 96" pull down screen. I've also got a small Definitive Tech 3.0 system with a pair of ProMonitor 800's and a ProCenter1000 in the living room used with a 42" Panasonic plasma. Lastly, I have a pair of Definitive Tech UIW55 in-wall speakers in the bathroom. All of the Definitive Tech speakers have far exceeded my expectations and continue to amaze me with their sound quality. I hope your speaker choice proves to be something that you enjoy. (an old screenshot from the INHD channel from years ago)


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

I haven't ordered them yet, but from the reviews and man, many [hundreds?] of people on AVSForum that use them, I'm not worried. I don't want to put a multiple-thousand dollar budget into in-wall speakers for general room / TV purpose. If it were a standalone theater, perhaps I'd look higher end on the components. DT definitely makes some good stuff, but you pay for it.


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## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

You know, after my last reply I looked further into those speakers specifications and ratings and I am now officially impressed. Kevlar speaker cones and butyl rubber surrounds? One would not normally get that kind of quality until the price point reaches at least a couple hundred bucks. And now that you mentioned that the guys and gals at AVS Forum use them, I'm doubly impressed. I'm a member of AVS Forum as well. When you get them installed please let us know how they sound.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Ahead of installing the speakers, I had to paint the wall. Done. 










The speakers are due to arrive tomorrow, but I want to paint the grills and frames before I install them. I'm also putting in flooring on the other side if the basement, so I'm not sure when I'll actually get them installed.


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## SquishyBall (Mar 19, 2013)

This is really awesome. I like your adaptations to install rackmount equipment in a custom wood rack. If you want metal, why don't you buy 2U, 4U actual rack fillers? It might add the refined all metal look you wanted. Also switch out the white outlet w a black one. I'm building an entertainment center in our basement and have been teetering on going w the wall plates w the HDMI connectors or just chases thru the wall and you've got me thinking to just go all out. This will look really sharp when you have flooring in...


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Good point on that white outlet. I'll add that to the list of minor details that I'm sure I will be chasing down for years to come. 

I considered the metal rack fillers as they are cheap enough, but to custom-order rack facing for the equipment I have is like $100 a pop. I don't want to intermix different materials and thicknesses, as that will throw-off the uniform look. Which is why I figured I'd cut my own out of easy(er) to work Aluminum paneling. For about $30-$50 I can have enough material to do the whole thing and have it match perfectly. For now though, the 1/8 hardboard is doing its job and letting me try to get some other things done.

The speakers came in yesterday, but I haven't even taken them out of the boxes. I'm trying to finish off the flooring for the hallway and bar area before I get to them. Otherwise I am going to focus on the speakers and have 2 half-done projects going at once. I might put up the ceiling rear & surround speakers though, since they don't need to be painted. Only the 5 that go on the front wall need painting.


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## jackie treehorn (Jan 27, 2009)

Looking nice! I perused quickly, but are the Polk subs from car audio world?


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Yes they are. Polk Dxi 124svc. 4ohm single voice coil, 50-360w RMS, 720w peak. Its a lower end subwoofer, but I think the requirements for power for some of the higher end things don't translate well into home audio.


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## jackie treehorn (Jan 27, 2009)

I was just thinking, you could use some sintra plastic for your panels on your rack, or even abs, cuts easy and paints easy. Granted I guess if you want to do aluminum then you'll probably just wait and do it that way. Another option would be chemetal metal laminates instead of real aluminum. Not sure if there's a cost benefit when not doing big amount.


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## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Wow that's a very awesome setup. I like the use of rack mounted equipment in the wall, that's pretty neat.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Good thoughts on the Sintra or ABS plastic. I was thinking aluminum so the metal facing would blend in with the metal on the equipment, but I suppose plastic could be an option as well.

I haven't updated this in a while, so let me pull up some pictures:
Speakers painted and installed. I'm going to shoot the grills with an airbrush, as the foam roller didn't get all the crevices very well - at certain angles you can sometimes see a spec of white here and there. I also need to build the grate for the subwoofers:









I bought 2 digital thermometers with probes on eBay that will mount in a blank panel no the rack face. The probes go to each of the receivers. I'm not really worried about the temperatures, just more or less doing it because I can.









Since then, I've been putsing around on finishing the stair railing. It's nice(r) outside now, so my desire to work down here is very low. I'm much more inclined to be working in the yard or garage at this time of year. Progress will probably be slow until it's super-hot out and I'm hiding from the heat, or fall rolls around.
Stairs current progress:


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## jackie treehorn (Jan 27, 2009)

Looks good!


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

While cleaning up Monday, I looked at the opening for the subwoofer and decided - just get that done. So I cut and glued-up a basic rectangle frame with a brace in the center. I used some 3/4" x 3/4" Poplar scrap I had laying around:








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Yesterday, I took it out to the garage and used the beveling feature on my Bosch power planer to put a 45-degree bevel around the outside corners. Set at 1/16", I made 2 passes. I was going to stretch the fabric, but then decided the frame should be painted black first. So, I did that at lunchtime. Beveling the edges after it was already assembled turned out really well - I may use that method to make some bass traps or something.

Here was yesterday at lunch, right after a quick coat of paint. You don't really see the frame through the fabric, but the nature of speaker fabric is at certain angles you can sort-of see though it, so I didn't want the light wood to be visible.



















I stretched the fabric last night. After doing the screen, this was super-simple. Same methodology used as for the screen, except instead of stapling on the face, I wrapped it around, behind, and stapled it along the inside. Then trim the excess.









To put it on the wall, I put 6 small finishing nails into the back, then clipped the heads off the nails. Lined it up on the wall and pushed. No hammer or mallet required, it's just a skinny nail going into drywall. You can see in this picture that the beveled edges are absolutely necessary for giving it a finished look and not looking like fabric wrapped around a board.



















I turned the subwoofers up to +12 (normally I'm at +3 with a LOT of bass) and cranked some hood music. No vibrations. Looking at the whole wall, I might actually build matching frames to put over the other 5 speakers. Maybe next week when I'm off I'll actually airbrush the grills to get rid of the white spaces and go from there.


...and becuase I need to update, here is the semi-finished stair railing. It needs the cove moulding installed along the cap, a final sanding by hand, then stain and poly, but that's for later.
















(the wood pieces laying at the bottom were the fillet strips installed on the underside of the handrail, before it was put in).


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## jackie treehorn (Jan 27, 2009)

Using the nails to hold grill on Sheetrock, clever.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Been slowly working on new covers for the 5 front speakers.

4 of them are up. Need to stretch the fabric over the frame on the last one and put it up.


New look:


Original, with 1 coat of paint:


They do not disappear into the wall as the fabric is slightly darker, but I think the fabric covered grills look more complete than the plastic and metal of the speaker in the wall. Not only do I think it looks better, but while removing the old grilles I had the following thought: This grille is stamped perforated metal. Maybe 50% metal, 50% holes. So that would translate to 50% of the sound being blocked by the grille - no? They do not disappear into the wall, but I think the fabric covered grills look more complete than the plastic and metal of the speaker in the wall.


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## csmonte (Apr 25, 2013)

sub woofer panel you made looks fantastic. I have some gear myself, but due to my room design and future for quiet some time my theater, has to be in my "diamond" shaped living room with vaults. It is extremely limiting. I have 5 in ceiling 6" speakers and my baby a velodine miniV 10.


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## csmonte (Apr 25, 2013)

as for the woofers, I really don't understand why its not common or much of an option to use car audio speakers for the subs. It doesn't make since to me. I'm not an electrician but it seems like car subs are so much cheaper and should work well. As a teen I used to bring them inside and hook them up to stuff and it seemed pretty good.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

From what I've seen from the audiophiles, it seems a lot of car subwoofers are designed for punch, rather than great sound quality. This doesn't transfer as good into the home theater experience. That's one reason. The other is that a lot of them take a butt-load of power to run properly. They also like lower resistance (ohm) rating than a lot of home theater equipment can reproduce. Of course, the way to feed something 1000w RMS @ 4ohm is to turn to the professional audio / dj / live-music equipment. That can have its own set of headaches, however, and still not let you use some of the big-name/high-quality car audio sub-woofers that are 2ohm. Using a dual-voice-coil 2ohm sub, and wiring to 4ohm will let ou run some more options, but also require more power out of your gear. In short, car audio is power-hungry.

From my experience though, I'm giving them about 1/3 of the max RMS wattage and have to have the bass turned down to keep from vibrating my house to pieces.


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## GregsBarn (Apr 29, 2013)

Nice work... looks very expensive.


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## Fix'n it (Mar 12, 2012)

i use a europower ep2500 to power my 2 CCs sd12's. 
there are several pics of my stuff in these pics. 
https://www.google.com/search?q=css...jnyAHI3IDQCw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1333&bih=748


i want to step up to 2 18" with my other ep2500. 
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=293-666


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Have you looked into the newer Crown XLS Drivecore series amplifiers? They are the way I'm leaning when I get to the point of upgrades once I finish initial construction.
http://www.crownaudio.com/usa/xls-drivecore.html

I'm slowly making small progress. In reality, all that is left to do to call this room finished is:
box in the support poles
finish baseboard
paint doors & trim
stain stairs
buy carpet and have it installed
install bi-fold closet doors
cabinets & sink (easy, except for paying-for it). 

It's close to the end, but time shrinks down to nothing during the summer months. Plus my almost-2-year-old twins are killing me. 

I was able to box in one of the 3 poles last week:

Used 4x poplar 1x6s. Ripped 2 down to 4" and biscuit-ed 3 sides together. Put it over the pole and shimmed it level/plumb. Shot Great Stuff into the gaps, being careful for it to have enough room to expand and not pop the wood apart.



Put Great Stuff in what would be the gap on the final side and put on the 4th face. Clamped the bejeezus out of it, not only for glue joints to dry, but to make sure the foam didn't expand it in a way I didn't want.



When it was unclamped and shims removed, I can put my full weight into it, and it doesn't move. Perfect. Used filler where needed then sanded with 150 then 220.



There will be crown molding on the top that will cover the gap.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

I should also mention: back to the theater equipment side of this thread, I am looking for a spectrum analyzer to mount in the AV rack. Not for anything more than some visual eye-candy. About all I can find is stuff attached to equalizers, and I'm not positive I want to put in a whole equalizer (that I won't use) just to get the little display of dancing bars on it.

So I'm considering a DIY approach.
In a blank panel on my rack, I can cut an opening and attach one of these LED spectrum displays:









Not sure if it's too much though (that one is about 8-1/2" wide by 4-1/2" tall). $45 is also somewhat expensive when I can get a whole EQ with display for not much more and not have it look DIY. Not sure.


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## jackie treehorn (Jan 27, 2009)

Wow, you got lucky with that expand foam, we used to build little foam bombs out of mdf boxes, I think it even broke a clamp or two, of course it was small area with way too much foam.

On the eq, I'm sure you could make something look nice based off previous work, but how much is "not much more money" for a real eq? I'm just guessing with twins that if it's not too much of a jump in price that it might be worth adding a real eq for the hassle of adding on another to do item on the list.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Yeah, the foam is nowhere near enough to occupy all the space. I basically just put a blob in the top and bottom corners, than ran a thin bead along the center of the area between the pole and wood. It would have to expand many, many times over before it ran out of places to go.

For an EQ with a display, we're talking $65 new on eBay. Again, I don't care about it's sound quality or anything like that - it's just rack bling for the dancing spectrum bars.


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## Fix'n it (Mar 12, 2012)

hyunelan2 said:


> Have you looked into the newer Crown XLS Drivecore series amplifiers?


i know of those. but i would have to buy them. i already have the ep2500's.
i also use a dcx2496 eq


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

I think I really like the color we picked for doors and trim. Here is the first door finished with it's 2nd coat of paint. Still wet in this picture, but good enough to snap a picture of.



2 more primed doors to paint, plus the door I previously painted white that goes to the laundry room. I'll need to sand/scuff that one first.

Now, onto more interesting things. The AV rack. I think I'm going to DIY a display. Here is the plan.

1. I am ordering a custom cut piece of solar gray acryllic from TAP plastics. The downside is that any size you get has a minimum of $10. So, although a 5.25x19 piece works out to be less than $5, it's $10. So, I can get 2 for $10 for 3 for $14. That gives me an opportunity to mess it up. I was thinking of getting a couple different sizes, but each different size results in the $10 minimum. So, if I wanted 3 sizes (let's say 1u, 2u, 3u), I'm paying a minimum of $30. 

2. I will tape off the "window" that I want to show this stuff, and paint the rest satin black to match the rack. I don't yet know if I'll paint the front or backside of the acryllic.

3. I will mount the spectrum analyzers and thermometers (maybe) behind the acrylic. This will give me a smooth face and when I shut them off, they will disappear behind the solar gray windows, leaving a blank panel. 


Now... the question. What size and what configuration? I have a 2u and a 1u blank panel in place now. There is no room in a 1u to do anything with a specturm analyzer that I can get. So the question is to use smaller ones in a 2u or fill the whole space with the information panel?

This is where it will go, below the 2 Ethereal power centers:



Skethup concepts:

2 large 24*16 spectrum analyzers in a 3u mount. This takes up all the space of the 2 blank panels. Cost will be about $80, and I'll need to find a place to put the thermometers still.


1 24*16 spectrum analyzer and thermometers in the entire 3u space. Cost will be about $45. Can display a single channel, or be "split" to basically be two 12*16 displays for each channel.


2 smaller 12*11 spectrum analyzers and thermometers in a 2u space. Cost will be about $50. This is the way I am leaning. It will not have the same bar height of the larger display, but that's necessary to fit in the smaller 2u panel.


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Very slick.


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## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Well, version one is built. I say version one because I bought 3x the plastic face panels, so I can redo this in a different way in the future. I will probably make the next version with both a power button that will trigger the whole system on/off, and a little window that I can mount the IR receiver behind for the PC (unless I end up with a RF system).

Taped off the "windows" and sprayed the back side with satin black paint, then started mounting the equipment behind the windows. They are light and may be redone, so black vinyl tape worked for this:









Most of this stuff comes from the PC world - the thermometers have molex connectors for a PC power supply, and the spectrum displays are powered by USB cables - all 5v stuff. So, a handy old 5v wall wart for a phone charger made a convenient power supply without needing to involve one of the computers.

I had tested everything by simply plugging it into the headphone jack of my phone and it worked well. The receiver did not cooperate so much. Since I am using digital audio signals, the receiver is not putting anything to the analog outputs that need to power the spectrum displays.

My workaround was a solution from the car-audio world. A line-out converter that is meant for adding amplifiers to factor car stereo systems worked perfectly:


















----don't know if you can embed youtube videos on this site---
A video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=0IbYsqwAlW8
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I also mounted a second display. Using a 1x2 HDMI splitter/amplifier, I installed a 21" LCD monitor that my brother gave me. Needed to use an HDMI->DVI converter to hook it up, but I had one and the net cost of adding this display was the $6 wall mount from eBay.









I would like a bigger one over there, but for now, $6 spent is good.


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