I have a 42" plasma on a small wooden cabinet with a glass door on the front in my living room (it's not a dedicated HT room). The receiver, BD player, and DVR are inside the cabinet, and together they fill most of the space within the cabinet. There are bookshelves on either side of the TV, with bookshelf speakers on top of each. My center channel speaker, I am ashamed to admit, is on a stand behind the TV, facing backwards and upwards so that the sound bounces up and over the top of the TV. Audyssey MultEQ XT told me that the speaker was wired out of phase (it wasn't; this is a result of bouncing off the wall), so now it is wired out of phase to compensate, and Audyssey is happy.
This setup works reasonably well, and my enthusiast-but-non-audiophile ears don't mind the center setup (my OCD brain does, but I have to figure all of this stuff out first). The problem arises when my golden retriever decides to sit in front of the cabinet, thereby blocking all IR signals to any of the devices, TV included (the IR sensor is near the bottom of the screen and the dog is pretty tall), not to mention partially blocking the view of the screen itself.
Additionally, I want to wall-mount the TV, but that only solves a very small part of the problem. My wife said she wants to move the bookshelves to a different part of the house, so it's likely that the front speakers would get wall-mounted as well, and obviously the center too. Are wall-mounted center channels common when the TV is wall-mounted? Does the center generally go above or below the TV? Are there TV brackets that have an additional provision for a center channel? I'm considering the various RF and wi-fi remote control options as well, but once the TV is on the wall, the furniture that holds the components is going to look kinda silly, so I'd nonetheless be looking for a new place to locate them. Note that I don't have any viable options in which the devices could be hidden away in a closet or cabinet -- they'll need to be out in relatively plain view.
I'm looking for suggestions and/or pictures of what you guys have done with your receivers and other source devices that is reasonably attractive and at least 30" off the floor.
This setup works reasonably well, and my enthusiast-but-non-audiophile ears don't mind the center setup (my OCD brain does, but I have to figure all of this stuff out first). The problem arises when my golden retriever decides to sit in front of the cabinet, thereby blocking all IR signals to any of the devices, TV included (the IR sensor is near the bottom of the screen and the dog is pretty tall), not to mention partially blocking the view of the screen itself.
Additionally, I want to wall-mount the TV, but that only solves a very small part of the problem. My wife said she wants to move the bookshelves to a different part of the house, so it's likely that the front speakers would get wall-mounted as well, and obviously the center too. Are wall-mounted center channels common when the TV is wall-mounted? Does the center generally go above or below the TV? Are there TV brackets that have an additional provision for a center channel? I'm considering the various RF and wi-fi remote control options as well, but once the TV is on the wall, the furniture that holds the components is going to look kinda silly, so I'd nonetheless be looking for a new place to locate them. Note that I don't have any viable options in which the devices could be hidden away in a closet or cabinet -- they'll need to be out in relatively plain view.
I'm looking for suggestions and/or pictures of what you guys have done with your receivers and other source devices that is reasonably attractive and at least 30" off the floor.
