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Ahanix D5 Media Center Enclosure
VL writes "Ahanix has delivered an enclosure that gives you everything you would desire in an HTPC. The versatility of using MicroATX or Standard ATX motherboards, the look and feel of high end audio/video equipment and a VFD information center that gives the added information of what is playing. It comes at a hefty price tag mind you, but in this particular situation, you get what you pay for." Now that's what I'm talking about. Anybody know of any other commercially available cases as well suited to putting in a stereo system?
Ahanix has delivered an enclosure that gives you everything you would desire in an HTPC.
Everything but PRICE!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
My only problem with it is that it can only fit one hard-drive. I like my 500+ GB MythTV machine and it just wouldn't work in this case.
Considering the size and shape of hard-drives, you'd think they would add a couple mounting spots. They don't take much room and there's usually tons of empty space in these cases.
I hadn't considered assembling a HTPC before mainly due to cases (or lack of AV looking cases) and the fact that I have a ReplayTV. This case looks almost identical to my Denon receiver and Denon DVD players! Kudos to them, I may get one just to put my ReplayTV in! :)
-m
http://www.invisik.com
Compared to the standard SFF's out there, it does look good. Unfortunately, it looks better than most of my regular tv-top items; XBox (with Media Center), Cable Tivo, Directv Tivo, etc.
Heh, a blunder
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the Home Theater Personal Computer is no disease so rest assured you can breath again.
Now I understand the use of having a computer as part of your home entertainment system, and I see the merit in wanting it to "blend" with the rest of the objects in said entertainment setup.
Here's where I get a little fuzzy...
Am I the only one who just tossed their pc behind the entertainment center all together? With remote control (SSH/VNC/ATI Remote/Wireless Mouse) do you really need it sitting out and about?
As far as DVD goes, I already have a standalone player so there was no need to use the computer for dvd playback.
And as far as gaming goes, my gamecube with the wavebird suits me just fine.
So I guess I'm just wondering what this is useful for.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
As ever, Coolermaster make some very nice cases also with more reasonable (circa $100) price tags that would be suited to such a PC. Here and here are some links. You do, of course, still need to add a PSU to these cases.
Well... I've been busy finding such cases for the company I work for to build Media Center PCs... but personally, after seen, touched, feeled and used a lot of these cases, I can come only to one conclusion... Nothing beats my black 19" case media center
It's not completely quiet, but then I've got a Duron 1300 in there. AMD fans are loud. Liquid cooling would probably quiet the thing down, but that's more trouble than I want to go to. I'd really rather underclock a faster CPU to the point where I could use a fanless heat sink, but AMD's anti-overclocking also prevents underclocking.
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Other nice looking HTPC cases can be found at Silverstone http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm
A 'case' is just some sheet metal and a bit of pretty plastic..
Just make your own.. If you cant work with plastic, wood works well as a subsitute..
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This case has been out for over a year. I bought one last winter, and threw together a HTPC running MythTV. I love it. I needed more space then 2 HDs, so I mounted 3 drives in another machine, and shared /mounted them via nfs(and another via samba)
1+2+1+1 || 1+2+2+1
I have been looking for a nice case to build a MythTV box in for some time now, and those few which are available and look good cost a lot - $100-200 at least. Too damn much.
Then the other day in cheap electronics shop I noticed number of new DVD players $30-$40 range(Xoro, Yakumo, shit like that). Nice cases. Should be possible to throw out the the original innards and build a pc into them. There would be few problems though, power supply and height - they are about 1U height. Perhaps somebody has already tried that and can share experience? Maybe some specific model is more suitable for conversion then others? (reuse PSU, drive, display panel?)
Hard disks, fans and the medium quality audio components they stick on most PC boards these days.
Deleted
I have the black one. They also have some nice sound dampening options. It costs about half as much as the one shown in the article and it looks great.
a ge _s=&url_place=product_list&p_class=290
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=&Langu
I jumped the gun on this one by a few weeks and have purchased and assembled my new and shiny HTPC. Looks awesome, but I'm missing a few things...
Frontal USB/FireWire, Additional internal storage, a functional built in remote system, (have to use an external receiver).
I was given the impression this would be the ultimate case for me, but I was wrong. Not that I don't like it, I was just slightly mislead on the actual functionality... Now you can buy an add on kit for a new VFD that has the IR Receiver built in, but that is another $150 or so... But does come with a great remote.
I'm all for these cases, but I was shocked to see what it was missing. Now the D.Vine6 is amazing as it is fully packed, but is restricted to the microATX board...
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/slim_pc/slm /pro_slm_detail.php?UID=546
I saw this at Fry's recently - was pretty impressed, includes motherboard, Linux support unknown.
They may have the look and feel of high end audio equipment, but a component that uses fans is not acceptable. And hard drive noise just makes matters worse. It would be more interesting if it at least incorporated some sort of baffling and sound deadening to mitigate the problem. But as is, it seems like a lot of money for pure looks.
I have the Ahanix D4 which is similar but larger, and it is not all it is cracked up to be.
- I had to replace the "silent" power supply with a quieter one,
- the VFD software they ship is terrible,
- the build quality -- for anyone who owns actual high-end audio equipment -- is not actually that good,
- there is no dampening material in the case,
- getting the top off is near impossible and is bettered by other manufacturers, Ahanix esentially mackined a nice faceplate to put on a crappy old fashioned case,
- while the D4 says there is room for 5 total drives, I managed to get 3 in mine (partly because usinf an ATX board fills up on drive bay while other internal wires fill another),
- the front door just falls open rather than glideing smoothly (like would an actual high-end piece of equipment)
- the company lists it as shipping with 2 silent 80mm fans, instead it shipped with 1 loud 60mm fan
Anyhow, it works and it may be better than most things out there, but it is kind of crappy.
Not cheap, but you're not really doing this to save money are you?
I was pricing some Gb stuff a few weeks ago, you can pick up sme Gb cards for <$30, and you can pickup a 5 port switch (if you don't want to just cross-over cable it) for <$100.
Actually for just 1 stream, 10Mb/sec would almost be fast enough. I playback videos(XBox frontend, my desktop computer backend) and the link is only about 300-400 KB/sec(only Byte thing in this article, rest are bits), but the machine encoding them goes straight to MPEG4, and not the internal RTjpeg format. So 100Mb/sec would proabbly be plenty fast for just a stream.
When or if I get around to building a HTPC (college student with no parts budget)I want a box with an unfinished aluminum enclosure. That way I can anodize/die the case whatever color I please.
r ency=2
Being that I'm an ME student I could just build such a box from sheet aluminum, and that VFD can be had through the mini-itx comunity. http://www.mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=9&cur
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The cases shown in the first link you mention only take MicroATX motherboards, which limits your options significantly.
To me, this is just a little but too large. I would much rather see something in a pseduo-rack mount chasis (e.g. low profile) with a rise card for the expansion slots. Personally, I have pretty limited height in my "media center" so I opted for a nice black mATX case that sits on it's side.
And as many have mentioned already, I think the price is a big issue here as one could buy an older Tivo/ReplayTV and mod the crap out of it for under $50. If you mess it up or can't get it to work it's no big loss.
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I opt for quality whenever possible. http://www.atechfabrication.com/. You do pay for the quality, but I figure this case will be with me for a long time. The company is basically a one man outfit, but the nice part is you can always send the case back for new modifications. Of course, I'm already salivating over the touch screen option which I didn't get...!
And was not terribly impressed for the following reasons:
- Has an annoying "PC/HDTV" button on the front that's a remnant from when they sold it in Asia with an HDTV "tuner module" that you can't get here
- The HDTV tuner module sat in a slot the size of a power supply in the back. This is now an empty area covered in a sticker!
- I've never been able to get the IR remote/VFD and ATX power to work the way I expect.
- You can't do simple stuff with the VFD like remote the annoying startup banner. Definitely not on par with Matrix Orbital VFDs.
- The case is way over-sized considering it is built for ATX!
There's probably a couple of other bits. Oh, and Ahanix sales were USELESS. They didn't even know their products particularly well, although the tech support guy was quite helpful.
-psy
..the cases from Uneed. I even read somewhere that Ahanix produces Uneed's cases under license. Take a look for yourself, for example at this case - the same 8mm front bezel, the same VFD module..
It's a metal box.
However pretty it may look, it's still just a metal box.
Where did they get the idea anyone would pay $200 for it?
For great justice.
Not that I have any rack-mounted computers just yet ;)
;)
:) -- but from at least a few of the comments in this thread, looks may be the biggest thing it's got going. However, the "high end look" I'd prefer is that of Acoustic Research's amplifiers. Hmmm, looks like AR got bought out by Audiovox, so make that "the look of AR's amps circa 10 years ago." If stereo equipment -- and computers -- would just all be made with 19" rackmounting in mind, the world would be a brighter place, and children would never sing off key, and I would never sing at all, just in case.
I do like the look of some high-end stereo equipment -- in fact, the visual aesthetics are (I put forth as an idea) what gets a lot of people interested in that whole nutty domain. I'll concede otherwise when Stereophile is available only as an audio magazine delivered in a plain brown wrapper
This case doesn't look bad -- hard to go wrong with brushed metal and right angles
timothy
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Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
I picked up a Silverstone SST-LC03 (black) to use as my HTPC enclosure. It's a beautiful looking case, and while expensive, it's not nearly as bad as the one in this article. They also have the SST-LC03V which has the LCD display on the front, if that's your thing.
I'm very happy with the SST-LC03. It takes a full-sized ATX motherboard and power supply. I picked up a quiet power supply and a Zalman AlCu heatsink and the unit is nearly silent.
Silverstone also sells the SST-LC02 which is similar to the LC03 but a lot thinner. It too takes a full-sized ATX motherboard, but unfortunately the small size didn't go over very well with my Athlon XP 2000+. It's a fantastic case as far as looks go, but it's just too small for a modern hot chip. I still have the LC03 by the way, so if anybody's interested in buying it off me, let me know.
Anyhow, I strongly suggest the SST-LC02. Great case.
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/dg1.asp
I don't have one but they look pretty nice... I've had good experiences with their Slimpro series.