Looking for guidance on a corner cabinet

[thekl0wn]

I'm looking to build a nice corner cabinet for some of my AV stuff. Here's the rundown of what I'm planning so far:

-Upper & Lower cabinets with doors on both. (cats + AV equipment bothers me)
-Open section in the middle for center channel speaker.
-Upper cabinet will house a 40" LCD and have doors which open and slide back into the cabinet to hide themselves.
-Lower portion will house a nice AV rack. I'm thinking somewhere around a 24" tall rack.

The catches/snags/constraints:
-I don't know right now what screen I'll be using... My roommate is supposed to be buying around a 40" LCD, and I'm supposed to be coming up with something to house/mount it.
-I'm not exactly sure what all equipment will be housed in the AV rack. As of right now, I'm running some fairly low-end equipment, but have bigger & better future plans... Mainly on the HTPC end of things!
-It's a corner cabinet... being a 90 degree corner.
-7' tall maximum.
-The center channel will be built for this cabinet. I doubt it will be a "part" of the cabinet, but it will be built to the space constraints of the cabinet.

Other than those snags/catches, design is open to suggestions! I'm wanting something functional and "nifty". As far as the AV rack goes, I'm wanting something that will either slide out or hinge out in some manner. As far as mounting the LCD goes... I'm at a loss. I'm used to CRT's & DLP's and their much bigger footprints, and have very little experience with the flat panels. Event the material is up in the air at the moment... It will more than likely end up in flat black or white MDF or in a dark-stained semi-gloss Red Oak.

Now, if you were building something of this sort, what would you include, exclude, or advise otherwise? Any "nifty" ideas to add to this? Has anyone bought/built something similar?

[bpape]

I would advise to build a 'faceplate' for the center channel to stick through. Have the center stick out 1" and cover the faceplate with absorbtion and grille cloth. Having no faceplate will result in a lot of resonances. Faceplate and no absorbtion will change the response of the speaker since you're changing the baffle width (and the xover SHOULD be designed with baffle step in mind).

Bryan

[thekl0wn]

bpape wrote:

I would advise to build a 'faceplate' for the center channel to stick through. Have the center stick out 1" and cover the faceplate with absorbtion and grille cloth. Having no faceplate will result in a lot of resonances. Faceplate and no absorbtion will change the response of the speaker since you're changing the baffle width (and the xover SHOULD be designed with baffle step in mind).

Bryan

Something I've already toyed with... For "looks" sake, I can't decide which would be better. I figured that being a more permanent part of the cabinet would be better, but haven't had the exact "brain-fart" I need to figure out the "look" for mounting the center channel. I might do some mock-ups this weekend...

[John Simpson]

Corners are always such tricky places to base the centre of your HT system, Lee. You invariably have the left and right mains in the wrong plane, and the surround speakers often don't work out either.

Does the unit *have* to be in the corner? Not to put you off (it sounds like a great project), but you might be better off finding a blank wall somewhere, and work out from there?

Certainly, draw up your room and ideas, and post them up. I might have the wrong idea of what you're doing all together!

[thekl0wn]

I'm not a corner cabinet type of person either, but the way the room sits, and the way the furniture pretty much has to go, it's pretty much the only option. We've tried arranging the room differently, but nothing seems to work well, and we keep going back to the corner configuration. I'll get some drawings up, soon as I remember to bring them to work...

[Ethan Winer]

thekl0wn wrote:

I'm looking to build a nice corner cabinet for some of my AV stuff.

Big mistake. You need to keep all corners free for bass traps. You also need to keep the side walls between your ears and the speakers free for first reflection treatment. The best type of gear "cabinet" is open shelves with as little mass as possible. The best place for it is behind you, or at least out of the way of corners and first reflection points.

--Ethan

[thekl0wn]

Ethan Winer wrote:

Big mistake. You need to keep all corners free for bass traps. You also need to keep the side walls between your ears and the speakers free for first reflection treatment. The best type of gear "cabinet" is open shelves with as little mass as possible. The best place for it is behind you, or at least out of the way of corners and first reflection points.

--Ethan

I don't know how to put this that it doesn't sound rude (it's not meant to be), but the cabinet will be going into a trailer... Correct sound stages are going to be nearly impossible to begin with, with the layout of the main room. This isn't going to be a "true" home theater nor audiophile setup... I mainly need someplace secure to locate and hide my amps and need a decent method for mounting the TV, and the current corner setup is not friendly towards anything other than the large CRT we currently have.

In the future, when I actually turn loose of some money on a house of my own, then I will worry with the correct method for designing of my own HT... As for now, I'm sticking with the corner cabinet idea for our house on wheels.

[bcahill]

Let me address the cabinet design issue.

The doors you describe are called "pocket doors" and must travel perpendicular to the face of the cabinet to the open/stored position. That will require your sides to be approximately ½ the width of your cabinet. The hardware design also limits the travel to about 4” less than the length of the slide; a 20” slide only travels 15-1/2”. So to put that in practical terms, a 40” wide cabinet with 2-20”wide doors could have sides that are 20” deep and the doors would stick out of the pockets 4-1/2”. Or the sides could be 24” deep and the hardware would travel 19-1/2” and the doors would be almost flush with the front of the cabinet. Here is a link to the Accuride Hardware site, they make quality pocket hardware. http://www.accuride.com/uploads/prod...32-r6-0407.pdf

I believe the corner cabinet you describe will need to project farther into the room than you envisioned due to your desire to have pocket doors. The cabinet will need to be rectangular in design even if you make the back project into the corner. Imagine an entertainment center turned at 45 deg. and placed in the corner. It cannot have a front that goes to each sidewall of the room and have pocket doors. You can make the pocket doors into bi-fold doors and decrease the depth of the cabinet side but that is a more difficult construction and requires a much higher skill level in cabinetmaking.

I do not mean to throw cold water on your design. Scale out a cabinet on the floor in the corner and see how far it can practically project into the room without interfering with seating and viewing angles.

Brian

[mifydnu]

bcahill has the best idea so far. Take some painters' tape (or any tape I suppose) and mark out the area on the floor required for your design. Be realistic - don't forget that your cabinet walls will have real thickness. I know we are only talking about inches here, but if your are in a trailer AND you want to go at 45 degrees across a corner, you are eating space very quickly. Keep in mind the pocket door requirements outlined above.

While it will add a little time to your project, I would sketch out a rough design (as you have), tape off the floor space, and get a piece of masonite or other light sheet goods and fix it in place to mimic the front face of your proposed cabinet. See if you can live with that for a day or two before proceeding any further.

If so, you should come back to the forum, tell everyone you know what your doing, and please could we all help with a design. :-)

Cheers
Andy

[thekl0wn]

I won't be using pocket doors. The name of the doors I've looked at (for the top of the cabinet) is escaping me now, but they swing open like a normal door, but then will be pushed back into the cabinet, towards the corner. I've seen them on a few cabinets before, but haven't ever paid much attention to the mechanism that makes them work.

We currently have a corner unit in there, and it extends 4' down each wall. There is no problem with going more or less.

[bcahill]

Pocket doors in cabinets are different than pocket doors in home construction. In a home the door slides into a pocket in the wall like a sliding patio door. In a cabinet they swing open like a normal door and when they are perpendicular to the front they slide into a pocket in the side of the cabinet. Some people call them flipper doors.

If you have a cabinet that extends 4 ' down each wall then you have may have 2 cabinets that are in a corner. That is different than a "corner cabinet". I believe the confusion is in terminology. A cabinet in a corner is not necessarily a corner cabinet. A corner cabinet is a cabinet that is triangular in shape, a right triangle, with the hypotenuse as the front of the cabinet. If I knew how to post an attachment on this forum I would attach a basic CAD drawing of a corner cabinet. If you can attach a drawing, or sketch, of what you want I could better understand your design and be more helpful.

Brian

[Sonnie]

bcahill wrote:

If I knew how to post an attachment on this forum I would attach a basic CAD drawing of a corner cabinet.

Go to Go Advanced or Post Reply and below the message area you will see a section for file attachments. Just click on the button labeled Manage Attachments, upload your attachments and use the little gem clip above the message posting area to insert each attachment where ever you desire.