apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We have the same plasma tv. Very minimalist design.

WOW! Love what you have done with the apartment. And this is the FIRST TRUE COOLEST TECH setup. Other people just put a piece of furniture under the TV but you put all the equipment far away in the closet. Looking at the pictures of the installation is amazing. How long is the cable run to the closet? Great job. Love it.

Very nice-looking setup. I like the decor in the first pic better than many in the NYC Smallest Coolest contest. Do you get enough channel separation from your 3-in-1 speaker?

Thanks for the nice comments.

Designaddict: The cable run is about 50 feet including the closet. We went straight down from the TV inside the wall, horizontal until we got under the dropped ceiling, straight up to the dropped ceiling, across the dropped ceiling to the front of the closet, and through the wall and ceiling into the closet. See installation pictures (comment #2). Running cable was obviously the hardest part, but I patched up all the holes myself (which i had never done) and it looks great! You just need to take your time. (The entire install took me 3 weekends as i work crazy hours in the week) We also future-proofed the cabling which is why there are so many running through. We even left a couple of Cat 5s as spare.

Ondrej: We get very good channel separation and incredible sound from the Pinnacle LCR. The combination of the Denon and the Pinnacle create very good virtual surround. And the subwofer is unbelievable. I have it at HALF the volume and it still shakes the apt when watching movies. Since I knew I could only do 3.1 speakers that's why we spent a little more on the Pinnacles (they're a bit expensive but worth every penny).

rene

Very nice, and clean. The only thing that'd bother me is having to go to the clost to change DVDs, but maybe I'm missing something in the pictures and it's actually really close.

Still gets the top rating IMO though. :)

Mat, You do have to go to the closet to change DVDs, which is all the way to the right of the TV. But that only happens if you're watching more than one movie back to back, right? It's not a big deal. We thought about it but preferred that compromise since we can control everthing else with the remote and the setup gives us the clean look we wanted (as opposed to the standard electronics underneath the TV).

rene

Rene, this setup rocks!!!

This will really add to the resale value of your home. Thanks for sharing, it's helpful!

Nice set-up! I like the use of RF. Its great to tuck stuff away. Do you worry about heat build up though on the reciever thats a pretty tight stack.

Your setup is quite nice as well, RandallB. It's all a matter of taste obviously, my wife doesn't like seeing the equipment so that's why we hid it. Heat build up in the stack hasn't been a problem yet but I will be building out a rack in the closet anyways to further expand the system so it will be addressed this summer. Any recommendation on the HDDVD player? Which one do you have? And why HDDVD over Bluray? (That's my next purchase).

BTW, can you unscrew the handles on the top of your TV? Just a thought. I took them out of mine once installed. A small screwdriver will do the trick.

Rene,

Thanks for the compliment. I never knew the handles come off, thats embarrasing! Off they go.

As far as HDDVD vs. BluRay I have both, the PS3 plays BluRay too. I think in the long run BluRay will prove dominant as the studios havent wavered yet in their support, but HDDVD wont ever fully die. I think we're going to have some level of coexistence. Anyway reco. I have a Toshiba A1 first generation player. I LOVE it. Toshiba has been great about firmware updates, and the player is an excellent standard DVD player. I picked up my A1 for $350 new, so the used market should be good. The second generation players are faster to load (my A1 can take a minute to load a disc), but the build quality is more plastic. But the second gen plays great like the first gen. I would buy an A2 unless you can find a deal on a A1.

On the BluRay side I would get a PS3. It performs VERY well with BluRay some say the best out and its the cheapest. It also uses Bluetooth for remotes, so its easy to tuck away in your closet BUT it pumps out heat.

Long winded way at it, if you want to go with a HD disc source now, I would prob go BluRay as they have the studios, but if you can get a cheap A1 its a no brainer for $250-300 to jump on it too.

should do something more interesting with the closet space. Also the kitchen has no tech. And office space is not very inspiring.