The first thing I want to discuss is my love for rack mount equipment setups. I am truly obsessed with them and have been wanting to do one for years now. My rackmount setup consists of 2 raxxess economy rack enclosures, 1 is 20 spaces and the other 16 spaces. Nearly every piece of gear in my setup can be rackmounted as you can see in my photos. I have modified the Oppo 980 DVD player to be rack mounted and the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players are mounted using the fabulous open top and bottom clamping shelves from Middle Atlantic. I have installed various panel vents to ensure cool operation at all times and have even installed some really nice DJ lights which are really cool when changing media or working in the rack. I have also installed a few other accessories like a nice drawer for holding all my remotes and calibration gear, one thing I am really proud of is the cool laptop drawer that I installed along with a junker Dell PC that I use daily for firmware updates on many components in the rack. I have also installed the nice trim strips which cover up the rack screws and finally I installed some wheels on the bottom of the unit to ensure easy movement for pulling the enclosure out of my closet. My closet has a very large Broan silent bathroom fan installed and it is turned on via a custom 12v trigger relay I made which connects to the Onkyo pre-amp and turns on when the system is powered up. My CRT projector hushbox also has some fans that are powered on via 12v trigger relays which again are powered on when the Onkyo pre-amp is fired up. Finally once again a third 12v trigger relay controls both my SVS subs, I do not like signal controlled on/off circuits, instead my subs turn on and off via the system when the Onkyo pre-amp is turned on and off, 12v triggers are awesome!!!. The components are controlled via a URC remote setup that consists of the MX900 remote and the MRF-350 controller. On the later I have installed 2 IR Flood emitters and each component I have installed the small IR Prism discs which gather IR signals(all from Audioplex and available online at various sources) . I grew so tired of stick on IR emitters, this setup is so much easier and works 100% perfectly.

Next I want to move to my second love and that is custom power equipment. My entire system save for my main amp and subs are on 100% balanced power. My system is built on 2 dedicated 20-amp power circuits and a third 15-amp power circuit that was in my home when it was built. The 15-amp circuit is used for connecting all the noisy equipment like lights, fans etc. The 20-amp circuits are used for all the equipment. I have built 2 custom balanced transformer setups, one is dedicated for the NEC CRT projector and the other for all the equipment. They are supplemented beforehand by 2 very large high VA APC rebuilt UPS power supplys that will give me about 40 mins after a power outage. I hope to have completed soon balanced power setups for my Atlantic amp and the dual SVS subs. All the frontend components are routed thru a custom modified DJ power system unit. You can see in the pics the 10 blue power swiches, each one of these controls one piece of gear, this way if something locks up (like a BD/HD player) then I just flip the switch and it is reset, the unit was modified with custom ferrite cores and capacitors to ensure no component to component interference, one balanced power transformer powers this rackmounted power controller. My entire system uses commonly found shielded AC power cables and all of them have ferrite cores installed. This is not stupid audiophile type stuff, this is pure performance and costs about 8 bucks per cable for the shielded cable and snap on ferrite core. My Atlantic amp currently goes directly to one of the 20-amp circuits as do the subs.

Next I want to take this opportunity to discuss my video and audio chain setup, I have a nearly 100% HDMI 1.3 capable video chain and a completely capable audio chain. At this time I run all 3 video sources to my pre-amp first, this enables the sending and decoding of all audio formats in the amazing Onkyo pre-amp, including Dolby TrueHD, DTS Masters, Dolby Digital Plus and even SACD DSD. The Onkyo pre-amp has a 100% true untouched HDMI video bypass, so one HDMI output from the Onkyo feeds my DVDO VP50pro processor, from there I output to the NEC CRT projector. The DVDO allows separate picture memories so in this case I get the best of both worlds, separate adjustments for each source on the Onkyo for audio and then separate adjustments and setups on the DVDO scaler for each source. The DVDO outputs a very high powered HDMI signal which easily powers a 45 foot HDMI cable to my projector. Once you have tried the new audio formats via bistream you won't go back, they are truly marvelous and easily beat decoding inside the player, which I won't get into here.

One other thing people always ask me about is my custom designed masking system for my Cinemascope screen. This is quite simple, I grabbed a 12 foot long traverse rod from a local store, a motor drapery control device from smarthome.com or etc., some foam panels and black fabric. I then installed the system where the 2 black panels simply slide back and fourth along the traverse rod, I use a X10 controller to move them from fully open (2.40:1) or closed (1.85:1), easy simple and cost effective at about 130$ total.

My room is treated entirely with Auralex products. The wedgies are placed to prevent slap echoes and in the corners act somewhat as bass traps for evening things out. The center channel speaker is isolated with mopads and more wedgies, near will you ever strain to hear dialog in my theater, it is perfect. I furthered that with some additional Auralex foam pyramids on the ceiling where a main reflection point for the frontstage occurs. Additionally the sloped ceiling above each left and right speaker has been treated with more Auralux products. Finally each SVS 16-46+ sub has a GRAMMA isolation device installed under it. All this combined give my system the ultimate level of performance in a otherwise bad room size of 12x12. No echoes/reflections and a truly isolated sub setup.

My decor is topped out with all black furniture including leather love seats and ottomans, a black shag rug, various media signs and three posters from one of my favorite films "The Last Samurai".

Enjoy the pics below and thanks for reading: