After much deliberation and a bit of an impulsive buy, I'll be picking up a brand new Pioneer Elite VSX-92TXH from BestBuy on Thursday. Don't tell the sales guy at Tweeter, but BestBuy price matched Tweeter's $500-lower sale price, despite Tweeter not having a unit in stock at the time. It's also on my BestBuy card at 12-months interest-free; not that I'll need the time, but it's a nice bonus for an already sweet deal.
So why the blog post for this? Well, there's only one tiny problem: the Elite 92 is, according to the spec sheet, 7 3/8" tall and the opening in the TV stand Dad and I made is 7". I'm banking on being able to remove the receiver's feet and put on some low-profile plastic adhesive bumper feet instead. While the receiver should fit with this arrangement (I hope), it still leaves the issue of cooling to deal with.
The manual for the Elite 92 recommends 8" of ventilation on top of the receiver -- I'll be giving it 1/4" if I'm lucky. In an effort to keep the receiver cool, prolong its life, and not void the 2-year warranty (though I may've done just that with this post), I've opted to modify the TV stand slightly to provide better cooling. The plan consists of two 3.5" diameter holes which will accommodate fans sucking upward into the compartment above the receiver. This compartment houses the center channel speaker, which doesn't run all the way to the back of the TV stand, leaving room behind for the fans & ducting (as shown below).
The picture above shows the intended fan layout from a top-down perspective. It depicts the receiver size (on the shelf below), center channel size, and accurate dimensions for the fan placement & mounting holes. The black strips represent the supports for the TV stand's top (above the center speaker & fans), which can't be removed, thus the fans must be mounted between them (a 3d drawing would show this much more clearly, but it'd take me hours to draw that with my ancient CAD skills -- CADKEY on MSDOS anyone?). The schematic was drawn in Microsoft Visio (AKA: CAD for dummies).
Originally, I wanted to get some ultra-quiet high-flow fans for this project, but I've since abandoned that idea in favor of a couple of old 92mm PC fans I had lying around. They're complete with the plastic CPU ducting, so they should work perfect to suck the air up and expel it out of the back of the cabinet. The ducts have been painted flat black using Krylon "for plastic" spray paint as shown below:
The fans were wired in parallel to a COTS 12v AC/DC power supply, which will be powered from the receiver's switched AC outlet. This will turn the fans on/off with the receiver. The two fans draw about 500mA DC; here it is wired up on the bench:
Next, I'll be rearranging the living room and setting up the receiver when it comes in. After that, all that's left is to punch 2 giant holes in the TV stand and bolt it all up. Hopefully this will all get done this weekend!
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For auditioning material, I picked up The Chronicles of Narnia and Behind Enemy Lines on Blu-ray. I also plan to pull out some favorite CDs from my collection to demo the system. These will undoubtedly include "Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd, The Eagles - "Hell Freezes Over", and Tool - "Lateralus" -- which reminds me, I need to go buy Tool's "10,000 Days"!
I've been on a casual hunt for SACDs too as the PS3 can play them and they offer higher-quality audio than regular CDs, but the format seems to be nearing extinction. I guess I'll have to wait until Blu-ray audio discs become more popular (I know the NIN's "Ghosts" is available on Blu-ray audio disk as an exact bit-by-bit copy of the original 24bit/96kHz studio master recording, and while tempting, I'm not that into NIN to shell out the requisite $75 to obtain it).
Updates to come, check back for pictures and more details.
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