Having a rack to hold all of your AV gear in a centralized location is a wonderful thing – if done correctly.  Here is a before and after picture of an AV rack on a recent job.  The before picture reflects 6 years of additions and changes of gear.  We came in, re-vamped the whole system,  re-wired the rack and the after picture is the result.

This retrofit installation was rather unique.  The room was large, open, and awkward making the TV placement difficult.  After a couple of designs involving a large custom cabinet to the right of the fireplace to house the TV, it was finally decided that the best place for the TV was over the mantle above the fireplace.   The cabinet idea was kept but redesigned to become bookshelves with cabinets underneath to hold the AV gear.  The builder removed stones creating a pathway for power and AV cabling.  Once the cabling was in place the custom bookshelfcabinet was installed.  The TV was mounted with a tilt mount bracket to provide a better viewing angle.  A receiver, Blu-ray player, DSS receiver and Klipsch subwoofer were installed inside the cabinet.

The client wanted better sound than the TV provided so along with the subwoofer a pair of KEF 6000 ACE speakers were mounted to either side of a 55″ LED TV.  This provided big sound to match a big picture.  An RTI universal remote controls this system and the house wide audio system.  No matter how difficult the installation there is always a solution.

Just how do those incredible installers magically run wire from one end of the house to the other?

I’ll never tell!

On the latest cabinet modification we did I had to laugh. The old television was over 3.5 feet deep and the new flat panel we replaced it with was a whopping 1.2 inches deep. What a dramatic difference. To make everything  look seamless we made some minor modifications. Check out the before and after photos below.

Before

After