Home office redesign · working draft · updated Sep 27, 2026
Audio rack planning
Two identical racks side by side under the TV on the north wall (Layouts B-1 and B-2), meeting on the room's centerline. Everything stays below the Q3 tops at 37½″, and the middle of the rack tops stays clear for a future center channel. The receiver is the Marantz NR1608; the Receiver switch shows a Denon AVR-X3600H or an Arcam AVR5 in its place.
North wall, front view
Heights in inches from the floor. Ears sit level with the Q3 Meta's driver center (KEF's drawing puts it 7″ above the cabinet bottom); eyes are taken as ≈1″ higher. The LS50 Metas sit on stands at the same base height as the Q3s, which puts their drivers ≈1¼″ below ear level — fine given the KEFs' off-axis performance. Speaker spacing matches the Layout B floor plans for the selected TV.
Rack detail
- Power / speaker-level
- Line-level / digital
- Control boxes
- Set back or behind
- Runs warm — needs air above
How the arrangement is built
Heavy and hot gear gets its own shelf
The HK Signature 1.5 (47 lb) takes the east rack's bottom shelf, under the NR1608, so the NR1608's pre-outs drop straight down to it. The Classé CA-100 (34 lb) takes the west rack's middle shelf, above the R-N800A, which is fed only by optical. The rack PDU sits centered on the NR1608 on the Furman's ⅝″ rubber feet, and the Douk sub-signal switcher sits on the Buckeye on the west rack's upper shelf. A USB fan behind the racks pulling air out helps.
Power gear west, unbalanced line-level east
The outlet is west of the racks, so the power amps sit on the west rack with short, heavy power cords. The AS-50R sits on the floor under the west rack, near the amps, so its speaker cables come out under the stands and reach it without rising past line-level wiring; the LC30 — with the NFJ&FX PW-6 A/B pair stacked on it — sits up on the west rack's upper shelf beside the Buckeye. The NR1608, the Flex and the ZP3/ZD3 sit east; the Eversolo sits on the west rack's top and the Douk on the Buckeye. Run power cords along the west rack's outer rear post and low across the back; keep RCA runs high and on the east side. Balanced links (the ZP3 to the Buckeye) can cross between racks.
Side by side or stacked — never in rows
Every box has cables on its back, so nothing sits in front of or behind anything else; gear only goes side by side or stacked. The front legs leave 18½″ between them, so the big units sit centered between the legs; a box shallow enough to leave room for its plugs ahead of the rear legs (11″ deep or less — the legs stand 12½″ apart front to back) can slide in from the side and sit partly behind a front leg. Cool units (switchers, DACs, the Flex, the custom controllers) stack on each other freely. A box the page places on a warm unit — the NR1608 with ECO on, the CA-100 — sits on ½″ feet toward the rear, off its hottest area. Nothing goes on the HK. Nothing on the racks is touched in use — every box is on an IR emitter or network control — so any box up to 3¼″ tall can go in the 3⅜″ under a bottom shelf (on the chair mat) when shelf space runs short.
Where the small boxes sit
Boxes whose spots are known are placed by hand: the Buckeye and the LC30 (the PW-6 pair stacked on it) share the west rack's upper shelf; the AS-50R is on the floor under the west rack; the Eversolo — also the Classé's DAC/preamp — sits centered on the west rack's top with the Apple TV on it; the Furman sits on the CA-100, with the Classé controller and the BlueRigger Toslink switch at its left and right ends; the rack PDU (an 8-outlet surge strip replacing the floor strip behind the rig) sits on the NR1608; the Douk sits on the Buckeye; and on the east rack's upper shelf the ZP3 sits at the left, with the IR link receiver on it, and the ZD3 (its DAC) at the right, with the Flex on the ZD3 and its Wi-Fi bridge on the Flex (a USB fan behind the Flex, which runs hot). The east rack's top stays clear.
Estimates to measure
- Classé CA-100 body width behind its rack wings (estimated ≈17½″; the wings are 19″), its depth, and where its heat sinks sit (height measured at 5⅜″)
- Leg width — estimated ≈1⅞″ from the product photo; it only changes the drawing, not what fits
- Luxman AS-50R height with its feet — listed at 3.1″, which leaves only ≈¼″ under a bottom shelf
- LC30 with the NFJ&FX PW-6 A/B pair stacked (≈6½″) on the 7⅜″ upper shelf beside the Buckeye — ≈⅞″ of headroom
- R-N800A and HK clearances — manuals ask for more air above (≈11¾″ and 4″) than any shelf opening gives
Components
| Component | W | H | D | lb | Heat | Power | Control | Notes |
|---|
Inches. Dimensions from manufacturer spec sheets and manuals where available; the Classé and the LS50 Meta driver height are the least certain. Custom boxes and the NFJ&FX PW-6 switchers (7⅛ × 1⅝ × 4⅜″) are measured.