AV furniture right first time.
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If you are into movie nights and want a media room or home cinema setup then you or your interior designer will find the most challenging thing to source is AV furniture. This piece of furniture will of course have to not only look great, suit the decor and blend with your room but also we can not stress enough when it comes to creating a good AV furniture design it is very very important to take into consideration the equipment specification and its operating conditions. You will need to create the right environment for the equipment to physically fit in and run optimally for its full life cycle, there is no point in having a nice piece of furniture that ticks all the boxes from an interior design point of view but then is left wanting further down the line when the cupboard becomes full of useless heat damaged junk accompanied by a nest of unruley wires that would make your head explode to try to de-syhper. This scenario has no value at all to you the customer or the manufacturers of AV equipment who have dedicated their lives to giving customers the best experience.
Things to be taken into consideration when planning furniture for AV systems.
1. The cupboard has to be deep enough to take a home cinema amplifier! The thing that is missed the most when AV furniture is sourced is that the dimensions of the amplifier do not take into account the AV connections on the back!!! The most slim line home cinema amplifier depth is 350mm one connection that protrudes the most is the power connector which is 60mm so so you are going to be looking at a piece of furniture that’s 410mm deep! And that is rare if you are on a budget and want to buy off the shelf, if you do find a piece of furniture that’s around this depth I can guarantee it won’t be a perfect match for your room decor.
2. Good ventilation is vital for modern ulta high definition AV electronics they have high processing rates they also have a certain criteria that needs to be met so they can live long and prosper, they have to be dust free and maintain a specified temperature when in operation to ensure a long life and give you good performance for years to come. The best resolution for this is to have a vent at the top and bottom of the cupboard to increase airflow and let the hot air escape one step further would be to have push fans at the bottom and pull fans at the top with a thermostat control.
3. As technology in in-home entertainment evolves so does your AV system so the ability to easily access your connections on the back of the equipment is also a big plus when upgrading devices and leads.
4. HDMIs are not industructable they are very sensitive and are critical for optimal 4k/8k HDR video transmission. HDMI cables have to stay level to the port as they come out the back of your AVR cinema amplifier and they have to have a 50mm bend allowance to achieve this, if they become bent or the HDMI port becomes damaged when moving the amplifier in and out of the cupboard over the years then you will get picture drop outs and all sorts of other weird and not so wonderful problems. If you ask any AV service engineer they will confirm HDMI faults are the most common calls attended.
5. Aesthic and discreet AV setups are very on trend. If you want to experience in-home entertainment but you want to conceal the engine and its components behind closed doors then this proves to be another issue. When controlling the equipment from your seating position the most common control technology used in the remotes that come with the equipment is infra red and line of sight, the way it works is the AV device has a receiver window and the remote has a transmitter window and the two have to see each other to send the command you require, if this is blocked by a door then the remote control signal is also blocked. To get around this you either have to have a meshed door front, a vented door front or glass/black smoked glass door front.
