Often times we post before and after pictures showing a messy pile of wires and cables that we turn into a completely organized set of wires and cables. It starts as a rainbow of spaghetti and turns into a clean, organized group of cables and wires neatly tucked into their home. This is called cable management.
Yes, we have a compulsion to keep things clean and organized. But more than that, this is an essential part of your home theater room. Whether your theater room is a newly designed space or an existing space—by organizing all of those cables and wires—your equipment will work efficiently, remain easier to access, and give you peace of mind that there’ll be no more dust bunnies collecting amongst the spaghetti mess of wires, and you’ll actually know how everything works.
If you’re planning to do this alone, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that you NEED to make sure your power cables are separate from your low voltage audio and video cables.
Here’s a tutorial to see what you need to do: https://youtu.be/ygDh1ShmgGA
Did you hear him mention an entertainment cabinet? You could still use and have an organized entertainment cabinet while managing your cables and wires. However, they will still collect dust bunnies. But those dust bunnies will be a lot easier to deal with than the rainbow of spaghetti scattering them aimlessly in that space. There’s better equipment out there to make your life easier. A media rack.
We prefer to use a rack to house media equipment rather than an entertainment center. Depending on the amount of media electronics, a rack would be perfect to house your electronics in an organized and sexy arrangement. And, you can hide this rack into a nearby closet. If you don’t have a closet nearby your home theater room, you could always design and build an in-wall cabinet, sized to give the rack a home. This gives your electronics a dedicated space and won’t interrupt your clean and organized room. In fact, it might add to the aesthetics of the room. Either way, your media equipment gets a chance to breath.
It’s important to have air circulating around your media equipment. You don’t want to let the equipment get too hot. If it doesn’t have good air circulation and does get too hot, your media equipment might suffer and not last as long. There are some fans designed to help vent the air for media equipment. Or, you can make sure the media equipment is placed in a way that uses the principles of convention. What’s great about the rack is the design. It’s made to properly ventilate your media equipment.
Now you’ve got good cable management and a dedicated and sophisticated media rack. Next up is the icing on the cake.
This is really the best part. An all-in-one remote control solution without needing the media equipment in your line of site. No longer will you need to worry about multiple remotes. You will need to get yourself a remote IR sensor or a more sophisticated RF or IP-based WiFi control system. This will tell your equipment what to do and when to do it. A great remote control can make or break your home theater, really.
Be sure to allocate time and budget to ensure that all of your media equipment will work the way you want it. If you lack the time and and are worried you might not be able to complete the project successfully, give us a call and we can help you out.
