Okay, so I'm up & running. Now I'm just waiting to save some money to buy the sub & rear surrounds. My question is to see if there are any tricks for hiding the zillion cables all over the back of my audio rack & TV stand. The rack came with a tiny tube, but it won't begin to hide what all I've got. The set-up looks nice, but the cables take away from the appearance. Any suggestions?

Well... I have seen people use plastic wire loom to gather 'like' cables in one place and hide them (so to speak). If you have not seen this stuff (and please forgive if you have), it is somewhat flexible tubing that is sliced open down its length. You peel it open and 'stuff' the cables inside of it and the loom sort of 'envelopes' the wires. Loom comes in various diameters and in some cases, colors. Buying in bulk is always better (you might try a place like Allied Electronics or equivalent) from a cost perspective. So...this is one option - even if it doesn't fully hide all the cables per se. One final bit of advice (if you pursue this) - keep all the AC cables away from the small signal cables (i.e. audio / video) so as to minimize the likelihood of inducing any hum into the associated cables. Also...many stands have 'channels' designed to allow you to stuff cables inside and do a pretty good job of hiding the cables - check the web....

JFro,

the backside of components is one of the most commonly neglected area when it come to appearances. You can turn those cables into part of display. I don’t know how good your cables look but I’ve seen many that are aesthetically pleasing. You may use some plastic ties and bunch them together in a way that it forms hierarchy or become directional. You can bring order to chaos. You’ve seen those showcase cars with their transmissions polished, nuts and bolts painted only to be hidden under the hood while driving. But people appreciate it when they see it. Imagine your friends gasping when they see something they don’t usually do. You can even put a mirror there.

Just an option…

I know exactly where you are coming from. Before I bought my Studio Tech Ultra cabinet, (which does a wonderful job hiding wires), I was in the same boat. I bought black fabric from a local craft store and suspended it over the back of the wires, made it difficult to see the cables and didn't block ventilation.

I suppose if you've finally settled down, and gotten all your gear lined up the way you want, then tying various cables together, or hiding them in a variety of ways, would make sense.

Personally, I like the "open clutter" approach where I have the cables etc. from 32 different components (not counting the 13 speakers and the HDTV) zigzagging every which way along the back of my "racks" - which I use as a room divider along one side of my main theatre (making access to the rear a snap). It's easy to separate power from signal cables, and to avoid long parallel runs that could possibly result in interference. Besides, I tried cable ties in the past, but because I seem to change out gear quite frequently, untying and retying cable ties became a pain.

Sometimes there's beauty in chaos.

Jeff Mackwood

Wow!

Just found this site:

www.cableorganizer.com

Just goes to prove, there's a site for everything on this here web.