Fitting alcove units - what ventilation do I need?

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We just had a carpenter round to quote on building some alcove units very similar to this;



Inside will be;
- Marantz SR5012 (w/ 2 usb fans on top blowing backwards)
- SkyQ box
- AppleTV 4k
- Harmony hub
- Sky router
- Hive hub
- Some cheap unmanaged switch (yet to be purchased)

I'm currently deciding if my Panny GT60 will stay and get wall mounted, or it's time to upgrade

Question is, what do I need to do regarding heat? I'm thinking definitely some vents/slots at the top back as a minimum but would you insist on having some airflow coming in from the front? Perhaps a lattice or cane panel on the door, but then you'd see all the LEDs?

 

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Will overheat if no proper holes to let a convection current happen

Indeed. My current Besta unit is totally open at the back, and I have two of these AC Infinity fans blowing backwards and the unit still feels very warm inside.

Here's some more food for thought: https://acinfinity.com/pages/hvac-setup/cabinet-cooling-and-ventilation.html

Thanks for the info, ideas and links. Where did you get the speaker grille fabric? We're toying with the idea of a grill like one of the first few listed here but the problem is where exactly to put it. If you look closely at the pic above.. we'll definitely want skirting so there's no real gap anywhere to put holes in the front The back I'm not so worried about - we'll just have a big slit/slot along the back (like in your pic) and hope it's not too visibly. Probably won't be with the telly in front of it anyway. I'll also get him to put a million slot holes in the shelves I guess!

 

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Their web site has been redesigned and there's far less ranged in the way of parts for the custom builder. You can search eBay though and find plenty of options in various colour, including white and cream.

Thanks. An out-there suggestion could be a square grill in the middle of each door as a feature. But I'm not sure how much airflow will actually come through? (And it might look absolutely tragic )

Is that picture in the first post close to what you're aiming for, or do you have a slightly different design in mind with mentioning the skirting?

It was a quick Google but actually super-close. We want floating shelves above like the pic (not built in above). And byes skirting is going to be a big decision. We have taller skirting around the room and it's plain. So what is in the pic would look great... but the question remains where to potentially fit grills. My other half was suggesting putting them in the skirting/plinth a bit like what you get underneath a built-in fridge. But again, we'd have to be brave and make them a feature. For reference, the room will be dark green/blue/teal, it has brass plug sockets, a black traditional radiator and white-ish fireplace surround (around a cast iron fascia). So it's going to be a dark-ish room with white woodwork and brass elements. So a brass grille could look great in the skirting. Or could look naff

Because they have little or no experience about it, they can't design for it. What that means is you'll get pretty boxes, but they're an absolute ba****d to work with.

I get that and essentially I will be designing it, I suppose. He was asking about cables etc. so he does have some idea. I read somewhere else that pull out shelves (on runners) is very useful. Maybe just for the amp? At the end of the day though, this isn't a particularly high-end setup. It's just the amp I want to take proper care of

One issue with the depth of the unit will be how deep the existing alcove is. In practice these things are usually fine if there's a chimney breast, but AV amps with banana plugs hanging out the back quickly take up space.

Depth should be fine. My amp and cables fit fine in the Besta and the depth can be slightly deeper than that. Granted I won't be able to get around the back of it though which makes things more difficult.

How about a false bottom where the skirting is and having the bottom shelf on runners for the amp? With a grill in the skirting there would be some cool-ish air coming in.. Add some nice slots in the shelf itself to allow air to rise backwards (get sucked up by the fans on the amp). Have the shelf above with air slots as well.. and a big cutout(s) at the top/back where the wall is to allow heat to escape.

Would you look at mounting another fan on the top of the unit to help suck everything out? That could be covered in a nice grill too (girlfriend approval pending )

 

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Ok guys well I've just been thrown a massive curveball here and feel rather stupid.

What I was assuming from my AV knowledge circa early 2000s (lol ) was that soundbars plug into AV receivers. I have now been told that they are all active speakers and do no such thing

So in short, the living room layout dictates that a soundbar is the only way forward. There's nowhere to put even left/right front speakers. It's a small room. So, does that dictate that I may as well get rid of my Marantz receiver? And if I'm going to do that... I barely need to have a conversation about cooling the built-in alcove units do I?

 

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Shame to get rid of the Marantz, is there anywhere you can set it up for music duties while you figure out a proper cinema room?!

Well, we bought our place in London 18 months ago. And, it's London and a small terraced house and I'm not a millionaire so we can't afford anything bigger I also have my old Marantz stereo amplifier in the loft which I was holding on to for musical duties. But now I'm in long-term-relationship-compromising-stage of renovating the house I think it highly unlikely I'll win the argument to wire speakers around the dining room/kitchen living area either. Active wireless speakers seem a more likely option (we're currently making do with Google Home minis, for reference).

Who are you going to for advice? Their knowledge seems poor.

It's my knowledge circa 2010 Before I had any idea I would end up buying a place for myself in London I had grand plans for a proper 7.1/Atmos setup and sniffed at those poor souls that "made do" with soundbar setups. But now I live in the real world where I feel very lucky to have my own place, but a cinema room it certainly isn't!

For reference, here is the lounge about a wek after we moved in. We'll get built-in alcove units like the picture I posted above.


The room is barely 3.5m wide, the telly shown is the aforementioned 42" Panasonic GT60. And the alcove itself behind the TV is just over 1m wide. So any new TV is going to be a 43" max.

That can mess up the control from your Harmony because the remote will be trying to drive the system but CEC will be interfering and trying to work its own way.

I think I turned CEC off on the TV I'll have a look tonight. But if the Harmony goes, it goes... I understand they're end of life with Logitech anyway now?

Passive sound bars are in effect the front three speakers in a single speaker cabinet. If you have a look at the Monitor Audio SB-4 you can see the idea. It's a centre, a left, and a right, with three sets of speaker connections at the rear. This connects to an AV amp exactly the same way as three ordinary front speakers. This leaves the option open to use conventional surround speakers towards he rear of the room, and even ATMOS in-ceilings, rather than relying on bounced sound from a sound bar where all he speakers are built into one place.

Thanks for the info. Realistically though, wouldn't I get a better experience with an Atmos soundbar with (possibly) small rears and a sub? Rather than 5.1 on a passive soundbar? On that subject, looking at the room and layout (layout will be the same), would it be possible to put a front-left speaker on the far left bookshelves? And the front-right would be pretty much above the TV. If I did that and maybe got a centre to mount under the TV, and small rears... would Audessy actually be able to tune them all properly? Or would it be weird with the left speaker so far out? Wires would be an issue (argument) though...

Anyway I will certainly investigate passive soundbars... In fact I will wander to Richer Sounds shortly as there's one near my office.

 

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Appreciate the points there @lucid . I started down another rabbit hole "what if I got a 3.0 passive soundbar, then found some wireless atmos upfirers for the bookshelves.. and rears, and a sub". But then I would have spent £1500+ which is totally not worth it for this room (and huge point to make - my girlfriend is so paranoid about noise re. the neighbours we'll never watch anything at what I'd call a 'decent' volume anyway) plus the expected £1,000 on the TV and I just can't spend that right now. Unless you can find me a passive 3.0 soundbar with wireless rears, subwoofer, and atmos up-firers for under a grand all in?

Also, in complete laymans terms if I want to wall mount the TV and soundbar then it'd going to require trunking some cables against the wall from the receiver up to the soundbar and that's jusst a lot of effort for something that probably wouldn't pass the girlfriend test. lol

I'm pretty set on TV choice if I go this route. Probably Panasonic but maybe Sony. It's the soundbars I know nothing about. I think I need to start a new thread entitled "spec me an Atmos soundbar <£600 with a sub, and the ability to add wireless rear speakers at a later stage" ...

 

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and whether it supports HEOS wireless rear speakers, which it doesn't, sadly. Not that that would have got you Atmos rears. That isn't a feature of the HEOS speakers yet, AFAIK.

That's a good point. Having only used the amp for 2.0 setup with my floorstanders I've never really investigated HEOS capability. I've just done some reading but couldn't find anything about HEOS surround, what did you find that makes you think it's not possible? I actually just sent a ticket to Marantz support to ask them. Shame that Atmos isn't supported though.

but you will need to trunk power for both the TV and sound bar (unless you have power sockets installed in wall), and you'll have HDMI cables from the ATV box and Sky Q box up to the TV. There'll then be a HDMI cable from the TV ARC socket to the sound bar.

This occurred to me during a very boring meeting at work. lol. I don't know why I hadn't realised that before. So actually on the flipside a passive soundbar might mean less cabling up from the unit to the TV arm. As it would be just the TV and soundbar - from the amp. As opposed to every single device (Sky, ATV, Bluray etc.).

I am now re-thining the idea of keeping the receiver and finding a passive soundbar. I'm not sure I could convince my girlfriend but we still have builders in doing all sorts, and for one he is in next week doing skirting in our dining room (we've had walls taken down, a new kitchen etc. it's a long story). So potentially asking him to replace the skirting from the alcove unit round to behind the sofa (maybe 4m worth) with rebated skirting i.e. a channel for speaker cables is entirely possibly and I'd like to think not a huge cost either. That could all feasibly be done before the decorators come in and it hence could be done very well and hidden.

So that leads me to more questions... (arrgh!)

1. If a wired 5.1 setup using my receiver and a passive soundbar would be better than an Atmos soundbar/sub/rear setup. Or if I'd miss Atmos.
2. Or even, going back to basics, would a 3.0 passive soundbar with sub actually sound better than an Atmos soundbar with sub (and no rears)
3. If the above setup would be better for music (meaning the passive soundbar)
4. If there would be any way to add Atmos speakers without running more cables. (I ended up in a rabbit hole of looking at the Rocketfish wireless speaker kit etc.)

Lastly, back to the original question about ventilation (lol), the carpenter was round taking measurements earlier and his suggestion rather than grills on the front of doors, was to open up the skirting on/against the floor. A bit like this but on the cupboards (not the weird middle thing they've got going on here); https://imgur.com/Td4prg8

 

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Hi @lucid I very appreciate the detailed response again. Sorry for the slow reply.

I spent the weekend looking closely at a lot of the passive soundbars out there and I think the decision has almost been made for me. Or at least, has confirmed the way I was leaning anyway. The alcove is only 1m wide and none of the top/available passive soundbars are that short anyway. But I think there's a lot of plus points for going the soundbar route;

• We don't actually listen to much music in the lounge (more kitchen/dining for louder/proper listening). Music is generally just out of the Google Mini (mostly radio in the morning).
• I can get something that supports Google Assistant/Cast which will be an improvement on the Mini for those occasions we do listen to music.
• I can ditch the Harmony Hub/remote which will make my girlfriend happy.
• We don't need to compromise the aesthetics of the cabinet for cooling (e.g. no holes in front).
• New TV required, but we can put the Panasonic up in the study as a second TV when required (something we'll occasional need, and I do have a SkyQ mini gathering dust too).
• No paying for new rebated skirting/work around the lounge to hide wires for rear speakers/sub.

With that decision made I don't necessarily need to decide on gear right now although I understand now-ish might be a good time to get a deal on last years TVs?

 

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I said it on Friday in post #16, you are heading for a sound bar

Pah

(snip) It's like comparing a Desktop PC you've built yourself to a mobile phone.

I get all that and appreciate the input. But as I've mentioned above there are no passive soundbars <1000mm wide (size of the alcove). Even if there were, I'm not sure I can warrant laying wiring all around for sub/surrounds etc. to even make it a fair comparison against an active soundbar setup (with sub and rears).As-in, I'm not sure I can firstly win that argument with my girlfriend, and I'm just not sure it's worth the cost and aggro given the amount of movies we actually watch, and at what decent volume anyway.

I'm aware it's not a great viewing environment anyway. It's a small room with the TV at an angle. Trying to squeeze a separates system into what is supposed to be renovated into a very traditional-looking reception room is just not going to work

 

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Looks like the tv will be really high if you put it above the fire? (if you want examples look at r/tvtoohigh)

Could you get a small tv in the alcove or one of those wall mounts that could pull "down" infront of the fire when it's not on?

The TV absolutely won't be going above the fireplace. It'll be a 42/42" OLED wall mounted in the right alcove.

EDIT: Thought I may as well ask here as we're finalising the drawings for the alcove units and trying to figure out height of where the TV will sit etc. Obviously need to include space for the soundbar so what's the average height of these things? What should I allow from top of the cabinet?

 

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I would just get the height of a sonos arc and then allow a touch more for wiggle room/carpenter errors.

As for tv height about 1m off the floor to centre of tv is pretty good, that could be a touch higher depending on your preferences.

Currently we settled on the base cabinet to be 600mm high. I took a straw poll of soundbars and they range between 55-95mm height, TV (LG/Pan/Sony @ 42") are 540-564mm.

So rough sums gives me an eye level (middle of TV) of 945mm which I believe is what the carpenter actually measured when I was sitting on the sofa

Working backwards, the lowest shelf (immediately above the TV) was pencilled at 1400mm. So 1400-600 gives me an 800mm alcove to work with. Adding the average TV and soundbar height gives me ~140mm gap. Hmn.

What I need to judge is (a) is 600mm the right-looking height for the cabinet itself. And is 800mm enough to work with or will it all look very squeezed in. I'm thinking it's not quite big enough - everything will look a bit squeezed in. So the shelf can probably go a bit higher. And we'll hope it doesn't look too weird on the left alcove, as obviously there will be an 800mm+ hole without the TV or soundbar. But ya know.. plants, a lamp etc. can easily fill that up I'm sure.

EDIT: Heck that's a lot of maths for a Friday morning