When designing an AV system, one of the most important decisions is determining the right type of rack to house all your audiovisual equipment. Should you purchase a pre-built rack off-the-shelf or have a custom rack designed and built to your exact specifications? In this blog post, we will explore the pros and cons of both custom and pre-built racks as well as how using av design software can help inform your decision.
When Designing Your AV System, Software Can Streamline The Process
One of the first steps in designing your AV system should involve using av design software to plan and simulate your overall rack layout. AV design software allows you to easily add and move around equipment visually to see how everything will fit before building or purchasing anything. This early planning using software can help determine if a pre-built or custom rack makes the most sense based on your unique space and equipment needs. Being able to visualize the complete rack setup digitally is extremely helpful for deciding between off-the-shelf vs custom.
Custom AV Racks: Benefits of a Truly Custom Design
A custom AV rack is one that is professionally engineered and fabricated specifically for your project’s requirements. Here are some key advantages of going the custom route:
Exact Fit: A custom rack can be precisely sized and shaped to fit your unique equipment lineup and space constraints down to the inch. No wasted space.
Perfect Ventilation: Your rack designer can implement proper ventilation tailored to the thermal needs of your specific gear in any configuration.
Future-Proofing: A well-designed custom rack leaves room for expansion so you aren’t limited by a fixed size as your needs grow over time.
Aesthetics: You control the look, from dimensions to finishes, colors, and branding for a cohesive design that fits your environment.
Durability: Heavier gauge metal and rigid construction techniques ensure a rock solid foundation that will last through moves and modifications.
Safety: Seismic bracing, bolted rack rails, and other protective measures can be engineered in as needed.
However, custom solutions also carry higher costs due to engineering labor and non-standard fabrication processes. The tradeoff is a purpose-built solution perfectly matched to your long term requirements.
Pre-Built AV Racks: Benefits of an Off-the-Shelf Product
The key advantage of a pre-built or standardized AV rack is the lower upfront price relative to a custom solution. Here are some other potential benefits:
Quick Delivery: Standard rack models are readily available for fast shipment once ordered, no design/build time.
Budget Friendly: Mass produced racks have significantly lower per unit costs versus low volume custom work.
Standard Sizing: Common rack sizes ensure compatibility with standard off-the-shelf equipment that is designed to fit.
Proven Design: Engineers rack designs are tested and loaded with features to handle typical needs out of the box.
Warranty: Brand name racks back their quality with standard warranties protecting against defects.
On the downside, pre-built sizes have fixed dimensions that may require some equipment mounting compromises or cause wasted empty space in your installation. Ventilation, cable routing, and other details may not be ideal for every application. Expandability can also be limited compared to custom.
Choosing The Right AV Rack Type For Your Application
So which is a better choice – custom or pre-built – depends greatly on your individual needs and budget:
Large, complex installs with non-standard gear are ideal custom rack candidates
Tighter budgets favor standard racks for plug and play convenience
Simple home theater setups can often use common pre-built sizes
Expandable designs may start with a pre-built then transition to custom later
Unique aesthetic requirements often demand a truly custom fabrication
Using av design software early and exploring both standard and custom rack options will help you select the right solution for your specific audiovisual system implementation and long term requirements. Consider factors like equipment, space, budget, features, and timeline to determine whether an off-the-shelf or fully tailored enclosure is the way to go. With careful pre-planning, you are sure to end up with an AV rack perfectly suited to your application either way.
Rack Accessories For Customizing Your Solution
Whether you go pre-built or custom, certain rack accessories allow for further optimizing your setup after installation:
Ventilation Accessories
For either type of rack, add-on ventilation accessories allow tailoring airflow beyond the rack’s default design:
Fan panels insert quiet temperature controlled fans for exhausting hot air.
Air diffusers promote cross flow circulation with directional fins.
Blank panels seal empty space while filter panels protect critical gear.
Cable Management
An organized cabling infrastructure is crucial inside any rack – custom or pre-built. Invest in cable management accessories like:
Velcro straps and tie mounts for bundling and dressing cables neatly.
Vertical cable managers snap onto rack rails to wrangle loose cables.
Horizontal managers suspend across the rack for clean cross connects.
Patch panels and load centers terminate cables in an orderly fashion.
Rack Drawers and Shelves
For storing smaller accoutrements, consider pull-out drawers, shelves, and baskets to corral items off the rack floor in an accessible way. This preserves rack space while keeping your gear organized.
Rack Lights
Task lighting attached inside the rack provide useful illumination for installations in confined closets or equipment rooms without overhead lights. Options include low voltage under shelf lights and LED puck lights.
Taking the time to source high quality rack accessories throughout the project will result in a neater, safer, better functioning overall installation whether you start with a pre-configured or fully custom enclosure. Paying attention to airflow, cable management, storage, and other small details completes the solution.
Rack Options For Different AV Applications
While most AV projects fall somewhere on the spectrum between pre-built and custom, it helps to consider general rack best practices tailored to common installation types:
Home Theater: Many home theater needs are well served by compact pre-built racks. Starter models provide structured cable runs and basic storage. Akusto brand wall mounted shelves offer a clean built-in look.
Pro AV: Larger conferencing, boardroom, and corporate environments often require custom sizing for unique gear layouts paired with rugged road case construction. Middle Atlantic and other brands engineer heavy duty solutions.
Houses of Worship: Both preconfigured Econo Rack models as well as Sanctuary Audio’s seismically braced options fit well here depending on budget and sanctuaries can benefit from acoustically tuned enclosure designs.
Commercial: Bars, restaurants and other businesses on tighter budgets are good candidates for affordable pre-wired racks with rollout shelves from Chief and others. Online catalog racks ship quickly.
Production: Custom wheeled and flight case style road racks from SKB and Other ensure safe transport of audio, lighting and video gear to and from live venues and on location shoots.
Home Automation: While some DIYers outfit wall mounted shelving, Savant and Crestron dealers supply integrated touchscreen enabled racks perfectly matching sophisticated smart home designs.
By taking system usage and environmental factors into account, you can identify rack form factors and brands especially suited to your specific AV application from the start of the design process. Combined with considerations of features, sizing and budget covered earlier, targeting options proven for your intended environment streamlines selection of the right solution.
Conclusion
In summary, whether a pre-built or custom rack is best depends on comparing your unique installation needs against the relative costs and tradeoffs of standard versus fully tailored solutions. Factors like budget, equipment, space limitations, expandability, aesthetics, safety requirements, application type and timelines all factor into the analysis. Early visualization using AV design software expedites determination of specifications for obtaining quotes. Overall, properly researching both custom and off-the-shelf rack manufacturers and models will lead you to the choice that optimally houses your audiovisual system now and evolves with your needs for years to come.