Concealing Components

A Note About Concealing Home Theater Audio Components

As part of your design plan for your home theater,you may want to conceal some, or even all, of your home theater components. This can be an excellent way to give your home theater a truly clean and uncluttered appearance. However, you'll need to consider a few things about concealing your home theater like potential issues with user control, cable management, heat control.

With today's electronics being so sensitive - and expensive - it's a good idea to thoroughly plan your system for how you want it to be used when installed.

Some home theater components don't perform well when concealed, so please make this a question to ask your installation expert.

Preventing Home Theater User Control Problems

To avoid user control issues when you conceal a home theater, you'll want to make sure all of your home theater system components can be controlled by IR. Infrared controllers are fairly commonplace, so finding a home theater unit controlled by infrared shouldn't be hard to do but don't forget to ask about user control issues with you concealed home theater components.

Cable Management for a Concealed Home Theater System

Cable management for a concealed home theater system can be accomplished easily by using mostly wireless components. In truth, you can have almost every component installed wirelessly, and can be the best option for your installation. However, for reliability of home theater performance, it is usually best to use cables, carefully concealed in walls and floors.

Heat Management for Concealed Home Theater Systems

One commonly overlooked issue with concealed home theater systems is heat management. Electronics are very sensitive to heat, as most are controlled by microprocessors and other computer-like features. So, it's a good idea to make sure the component case or cabinet is well ventilated, whatever means you use to conceal your home theater.