Hi Room, I am currently building my home theater into my basement. I have a 50" Hitachi projection TV, Pioneer Elite series receiver, Definitive Tech. Speakers all around.
This is the topic, building a cabinet into a wall to enclose the tv, speakers, and sub/power units. http://www.hallmarkbasements.ca/home.html This link above shows pictures of what I am thinking of doing. Man I am really stuck here… I just can’t decide weather I “should” be building that huge cabinet for the tv and equipment. The only real advantage is that it looks great. But from an acoustic standpoint and sound dynamics I think I might be stirring up a hornets nest. With it just sitting against the wall I have MUCH more flexibility to move things around to get the right sound, especially the sub woofer. Then there’s the fact that these speakers are bipolar and wouldn’t make much sense to have them facing a dead zone built into the wall. There’s just something about building a permanent structure like this without really knowing what the sound will be like. It’s a LOT of work to do without having the outcome answers confirmed. What if I build it and it sounds like crap, the sub makes the cabinet structure vibrate or crack, I am stuck, can’t move it to any other place. Then there’s the issue of ever changing TV’s, then I am stuck again with that enclosure. See, really its just a matter of how is looks that’s driving me. In my head I don’t really think it will sound as good or offer as many future options.
Yes, I used to encounter this all the time with home-theatre clients. The guy wants performance, and his wife wants looks! They are quite often at odds. Hey the guy likes the looks, too - he's just not willing to give up performance to achieve it If you're going to do it, you need to no-compromise. That means new hardware, as required, ie. speakers or whatever. I mean, I feel your pain - I wouldn't be building-in my Bose 901s either; it's not a plan. (I would consider hanging them inverted, though...) But whatever. Sounds like you want a no compromise built in basement, and that's good, that's not a bad thing. Be happy: you have standards, and requirements. Nothing wrong with that. It's just gonna cost you bigger, that's all Regards
Thank you. I might just leave it in the open for now, can always build the wall cabinet at a later date I guess. As compared to having this wall build then finding out it doesn't sound as good as it could. This way I can experiment with both.
You have Def Techs Bi-Pole towers? YOU CANNOT PUT THE SPEAKERS IN-WALL. Yes, I mean to shout. Def Techs are Bi-poles. This means they fire to the front and to the back ( and those with built-in sub, to the side). You paid for the drives that fire to the back, and you want to bury them inside the wall??? Even with direct-radiating speakers, sound will suffer when you put them into a confined space. You can go ahead and build the cabinets and conduits for the electronics, but leave the speakers out of the walls. You want speakers in walls, get in-walls. At least they are designed for that.
have an hitachi 60 hdtv....best buy has a wall unit in 3 pieces...goes around any rear projection..it looks like it is custom made...and only $300