Is it okay to stack receivers on other components?

[DJ in TX]

Some of you are familiar with my recent series of noob questions, so here is another...

When I bought my entertainment center, it had more than enough room for all of my components, with room to grow. But after adding an XBox and Wii, space is limited. If I need to put my 11-year old champ of a DVD player (which seems very solidly built), and my new receiver (Pioneer VSX-819) on the same shelf, is it okay to stack them?

The DVD has no air venting on top so this shouldn't be a problem, but the receiver obviously does, and likely will be pretty warm at times. The receiver is energy star rated if that makes a difference, and I have read that Pioneer's new line of receivers including this one were designed to run cooler. But at the same time, if it is inviting trouble to have the receiver near any other warm components I would rather know ahead of time to save some headaches down the road.

Thanks~

 

[skers_54]

You don't want to place the DVD player on top of the receiver. It will generate a good amount of heat and will get hot enough just being in an entertainment center. Even if it doesn't get hot enough to shut down, you still risk shortening its life span. Could you put the dvd player on the same shelf as the Wii and XBOX?

 

[Nomo]

The receiver needs room above it for ventilation, generally speaking about 4 inches. So stacking the receiver atop the DVD player is the easy answer.

Two issues:

(1)Usually a DVD player doesn't have the depth to support the rear legs of the receiver. You can get around this with some sort of height matching device such as a pair of wood blocks or some other material.

(2) Make sure the weight of the receiver doesn't compromise the workings of the player.

In any case don't put the player, or anything atop the receiver.

 

[DJ in TX]

I was pretty sure you guys would say not to stack anything on top of the receiver, which makes total sense.

As for putting it with the Xbox, I really don't want to do that. As we all know, Xboxes already have overheating issues, and I don't want to tempt the Gods to smite me with RRoD.

My DVD is a 2nd generation from Sony (circa 1998), so it is a little bigger in width and depth than my new receiver, and very sturdy enclosure. I think that with the weight of the receiver concentrated at the corners of the DVD player it should provide good support and not impede the workings of the DVD. And, we only use the DVD maybe 2-3 times a week for 2 hours at a time, so I don't think the minimal heat from it would cause the receiver any issues.

I may go with putting it on top of the DVD player, although I cannot envision any arrangements that will give the receiver 3-4 inches of breathing room. Is this a problem?

 

[DJ in TX]

Well I'm not sure what to make of this...

After posting this last night, I pulled up the user manual for this receiver and Pioneer recommends leaving 24 inches of space above for ventilation. This seems very extreme to me. Who has such a big entertainment center that they can do this? Also, I have seen many photos here and on other sites showing people's A/V setups, and I never see any with much space above the receiver. Am I wrong?

 

[KEW]

The manufacturer is always going to assume worst case and err on the safe side.

How much clearance will you have if you put your receiver on top?
Is there a door or back wall to the cabinet/shelf? If so you will overheat pretty quickly and may want to consider installing a fan to ventilate the unit.
I could imagine a 10" deep DVD which might not block too much of the ventilation to a 20" deep receiver if the heat sources are at the back of the receiver.

The bottom line is you are operating the receiver outside of guidelines and preferred conditions, but the real question is how hot does it get when you do this? As a guideline, if it is too hot to hold your hand on for 10 seconds I would consider it too hot.

But I am no expert. You can get one of these and report your temperatures and I'm sure some of the guys here will tell you just how much of a gamble you are taking.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=IR-THERMOMTR&cm_mmc=GoogleProducts-_-ComputerGadgets-_-TechGadgets-_-IR-THERMOMTR&utm_source=GoogleProducts&utm_medium=ShoppingSites&utm_campaign=IR-THERMOMTR

Last option is "just do it". It should have a thermal overload switch to prevent it from actually cooking (or cooking your house!). If the switch kicks the unit off, you know you are going too hot and have to change something.

 

[DJ in TX]

I just bought the receiver last night, and haven't taken it out of the box yet, so I can't give any real-world impressions of how hot in runs. And until I know this is not a mistake waiting to happen I likely will not unpack it, as I only have so much space to work with.

As for how much clearance it will have... I was initially thinking there would be very little, like less than an inch on top, but if I purposefully arrange things, I might be able to get 2 inches on top. it is in an entertainment center on a shelf, and would have about 2 or 2.5 inches on either side. And probably 3-4 inches in back. The rear panel of my ent center has a long vertical slit cut out that is about 2.5 inches wide running from top to bottom of the entire cabinet so that cords have easy access to the other components and the TV and surge protector.

Does this sound like I will be pushing the envelope a bit? I had a sony receiver in college, and it sat in a small entertainment center with even less space, and I didn't know to give it any ventilation. Maybe this is why the receiver eventually dies and would only flash "Protector". Of course it did last 6 years.

Any advice?

 

[dkane360]

can you just use the 360 for your dvds?

 

[DJ in TX]

can you just use the 360 for your dvds?

Hmmm, well I hadn't considered that. I can tell you that when I got my first Xbox 360 right after launch (December 2005), I was considering making it my full time DVD player, but compared to my Sony, it had a very loud optical drive and was very jittery, and just overall not very good playback. With my newer XBox I haven't even tested this. I suppose the jittery playback issues may be solved, but I would bet that it is still loud. I know it is when I play games from disk. I also would be worried that this added DVD usage could cause it to fail sooner, but who knows, maybe I have one of the good ones that will last many years.

If you all think that the size enclosure that I described above won't provide enough ventilation, then I may have to get really creative. Or, I may have to return the receiver and scrap the plan altogether. I hope this isn't the case.

 

[dkane360]

Hmmm, well I hadn't considered that. I can tell you that when I got my first Xbox 360 right after launch (December 2005), I was considering making it my full time DVD player, but compared to my Sony, it had a very loud optical drive and was very jittery, and just overall not very good playback. With my newer XBox I haven't even tested this. I suppose the jittery playback issues may be solved, but I would bet that it is still loud. I know it is when I play games from disk. I also would be worried that this added DVD usage could cause it to fail sooner, but who knows, maybe I have one of the good ones that will last many years.

If you all think that the size enclosure that I described above won't provide enough ventilation, then I may have to get really creative. Or, I may have to return the receiver and scrap the plan altogether. I hope this isn't the case.

Ventilation shouldn't be a reason to scrap a home theater project You can always get a computer fan to add ventilation if you need it. I'm going add a fan in my system, so I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[sawzalot]

I play movies all the time and my dvd player has never developed enough heat to be a problem stacking with the X-Box and or the PS. I would do everything possible to just have the AVR separate from any other source, after all it is prolly the most expensive piece to the set-up and really needs its own room to breathe, receiver stays solo especially if you only have an inch of headroom if stacked.

 

[DJ in TX]

Ventilation shouldn't be a reason to scrap a home theater project You can always get a computer fan to add ventilation if you need it. I'm going add a fan in my system, so I'll let you know how it goes.

I see where you are coming from, and I really don't want to scrap the plan. I have invested a lot of time researching and asking noobish questions here...trust me, I am extremely thorough. Isiberian and Anamorphic will vouch for me on this.

The problem is that I don't want this to become too involved or complicazted. I really just wanted a simple 2 channel setup for music, that would also be better than TV speakers. If I have to buy a new piece of furniture to allow for more space/ventilation, or find a way to add a fan, it just seems that this simple system would not be so simple anymore.

So does everyone here agree that the enclosure I describe above is not sufficient on it's own? If it is not, how much space would be suitable if there is no fan involved?

 

[DJ in TX]

I play movies all the time and my dvd player has never developed enough heat to be a problem stacking with the X-Box and or the PS. I would do everything possible to just have the AVR separate from any other source, after all it is prolly the most expensive piece to the set-up and really needs its own room to breathe, receiver stays solo especially if you only have an inch of headroom if stacked.

Sorry, just saw your reply. I can definitely go the route of keeping the receiver on a separate shelf, but in this arrangement, i likely will only have an inch of clearance above the receiver, maybe 1.5 inches if i'm really lucky. So you're saying that an inch or so would be enough?

 

[brendy]

Sorry, just saw your reply. I can definitely go the route of keeping the receiver on a separate shelf, but in this arrangement, i likely will only have an inch of clearance above the receiver, maybe 1.5 inches if i'm really lucky. So you're saying that an inch or so would be enough?

Definitely not enough. At least 4" is the safe minimum, especially being enclosed on all sides.

 

[DJ in TX]

Definitely not enough. At least 4" is the safe minimum, especially being enclosed on all sides.

Dammit.

Not to you brendy, just dammit in general at this situation. It's been a long bumpy road.

Thanks for the info though. I would rather know the ugly truth now, then to have a meltdown later. Now it's time to figure something else out.

 

[Nomo]

Sorry, just saw your reply. I can definitely go the route of keeping the receiver on a separate shelf, but in this arrangement, i likely will only have an inch of clearance above the receiver, maybe 1.5 inches if i'm really lucky. So you're saying that an inch or so would be enough?

I would look into a fan or two to place on the receiver. That is not enough room.
Ebay is a good place to start. I'd provide a link, but I believe most of Ebay is blocked here at work.

 

[skers_54]

I think you should give it a try before scraping the HT. Volume levels and video processing will determine how hot it will actually get. And definitely keep it away from the Xbox, which generates more heat than any receiver I've used. If it does get really hot, a computer fan would be simple to install if your receiver has triggered AC outlets. Just plug the fan into the outlet and the fan will turn on and off whenever you turn your receiver on or off.

 

[DJ in TX]

I really dislke the idea of buying and hooking up a fan. It could turn out to be easy (or hard for that matter), but it's annoying to have to take this additional step. Also, my receiver has no AC outlets on back. Sounds like that means we would have to manually turn this fan on and off every time we turn on the receiver.

I am going to take some measurements tonight and see if any configurations that I can come up with will yield 3-4 inches or more above the receiver. If not, then I may have to abandon ship and return the receiver to best buy. I may end up having to give that new Sonos ZonePlayer another look, although it's not really what I want. We'll see what happens. I'll let you guys know.

Thanks~

 

[DJ in TX]

For any of you still interested...

I did some measuring, and I think I can solve the ventilation problem. I believe that one of the shelves in my ent center will lower a couple of inches, but I won't know for sure until I unplug and pull everything out to try it. So I will wait til Saturday to give this a shot as it will take awhile. Assuming I can get the shelf to lower, then I should have about 4 inches of ventilation space above the receiver. My only issue will be that in order to get this extra space and for the receiver to be on it's own shelf, my cable box will be displaced and will need a new home. Not sure where it will go just yet. If only we had TiVo HD, I could get rid of the cable box altogether. So the master plan is back on track. Hopefully this will be the last hurdle.

 

[dapack69]

Fans still might be your best option. Look this site over as they have just about everything you can think of for cooling.

http://www.coolerguys.com/cabinetcooling.html