Ideas on an outdoor A/V rack (or something else to maybe hide a receiver on)?

[aphex]

Decided to go a different route for my outdoor speaker system as the splitter on my HT Receiver pretty much sucks. I'm gonna pick up a cheap used ($20-30 receiver on CL) along with an Airport Express to stream music to the patio.

The area the receiver will be is pretty far under the covered portion of the patio (a good 15 feet from exposure). Short of a hurricane, its very unlikely this area will get wet.

Any ideas what to do with the receiver?

I was thinking maybe an outdoor small A/V rack, but all I'll have on it is the receiver. Alternatively, I thought maybe i could find some kind of drink stand to hold beers/wine, while i could tuck the receiver on a lower shelf (though I dunno if i've seen anything like this).

 

[sdifox]

one of those multi tier shelve units and use one shelf for the receiver and other shelves for misc crap?

 

[slashbinslashbash]

I would probably go with having the receiver *higher* than anything else that you might want to store along with it. #1, heat rises... you don't want the receiver heating up the bottom of your cooler. #2, water runs down... condensation, melted ice, etc. would not be good news.

My first thought was to get some cheap shelving L-brackets and a short length of shelving, and mount the receiver fairly high (eye level, maybe even higher?) directly on the wall. High up, out of the way where nobody's going to trip or run into it, where it's even more unlikely that rain will damage it. You're basically using it solely as an amp, so all you need to be able to see/touch is the power button and the volume knob, so it's ok if it's over your head.

What I'm wondering is, what made you choose this particular solution? There are decent, reasonably cheap speaker selectors/splitter (Niles brand) pretty widely available... or you could just set the new receiver directly underneath your current HT receiver, and have its signal come from a tape loop or other output from your HT receiver. Of course, having the receiver outside makes running the speaker wire quite a bit easier, but other than that I'm not quite sure what the benefits are. Another alternative would be something like a mini amplifier which would be easier to mount/hide somewhere on your patio.

 

[aphex]

I would probably go with having the receiver *higher* than anything else that you might want to store along with it. #1, heat rises... you don't want the receiver heating up the bottom of your cooler. #2, water runs down... condensation, melted ice, etc. would not be good news.

My first thought was to get some cheap shelving L-brackets and a short length of shelving, and mount the receiver fairly high (eye level, maybe even higher?) directly on the wall. High up, out of the way where nobody's going to trip or run into it, where it's even more unlikely that rain will damage it. You're basically using it solely as an amp, so all you need to be able to see/touch is the power button and the volume knob, so it's ok if it's over your head.

What I'm wondering is, what made you choose this particular solution? There are decent, reasonably cheap speaker selectors/splitter (Niles brand) pretty widely available... or you could just set the new receiver directly underneath your current HT receiver, and have its signal come from a tape loop or other output from your HT receiver. Of course, having the receiver outside makes running the speaker wire quite a bit easier, but other than that I'm not quite sure what the benefits are. Another alternative would be something like a mini amplifier which would be easier to mount/hide somewhere on your patio.

With the splitter, as soon as I try to use both sets at the same time the sound drops to basically nil (even at high volumes)

 

[CubanlB]

I think just the general dampness of being outside is a pretty bad idea for a receiver. Is this a control issue? A wall plate style IR target put in a weather resistant box tucked under the deck then repeating inside to the receiver location would be better IMO.

EDIT: I see that you're in Florida too, If it's just a 20$ receiver I guess just see what you can get done to get it out of the way but I think the cost of buying anything to accommodate it outside is going to be wasted when the receiver goes kaput.

 

[Fallen Kell]

With the splitter, as soon as I try to use both sets at the same time the sound drops to basically nil (even at high volumes)

That would be the suckage of the built in amplifier. Given that, my next suggestion is to use pre-outs and plug into an external amplifier, but given how bad the amp is, I highly suspect that you do not have that as an option (since pre-outs tend to only be on the highend flagship lines)...

 

[ASTOCADDIDS]

I would say my all time hands down favorite receiver by far would be....a two channel model.......Marantz 2600. OK, Id be just as happy with the 2550.