Desk Project

[xortam]

Glad you planned for it. I thought of mentioning fans. Still, I hope that tight unit doesn't throw off too much heat. My equipment rack (two stacked 6 ft. W x 3 ft. H cabs) has the large vent holes in the back but my bottom rack is glass door enclosed. I have my large mono blocked amps in the bottom of the glass enclosed rack and we placed fans blowing up through holes from under the bottom shelf.

[MultimediaMan]

I don't have QUITE that much power going out there, Xortam.

It would be different if I did have a fairly heavy duty HT system: this little AV receiver is only 50Watts x 2 + 20 Watts x2. It never gets even the slightest bit "warm" while bugging the hell out of the wife. I only run it in Multichannel mode anyway, so it's a fairly low heat device.

The back of the hutch is completely cutaway in the back for each of the AV units: something I hadn't yet done in the first pics.

Biamping a complete HT speaker array with monoblocks is a sure way to heat a room. Not that I wouldn't want to TRY!

[KvHagedorn]

The back of the hutch is completely cutaway in the back for each of the AV units: something I hadn't yet done in the first pics.

That's an excellent idea. Venting the thing like this is better than just using a fan.. and quieter too. If you can get away without using a fan, that's much better. I am wanting to stick my fan-laden case in a sound proof room whenever I try to listen to music here.

The other benefit to cutting out the whole back is that you can actually wire it up (assuming you can get to the back easily once it's in place). Since I do this sort of thing on a daily basis, I curse cabinet makers who allow no space to the sides of components, since this makes it impossible to turn them sideways and make connections. My favorite cabinets have doors in the backs for easy access to witing, particularly if the system is somewhat complex.