Hifi and interior design

The topic of audiophile is mainly about how good the sound and what kind of gear suite with the audio. List goes on for which ever rabbit hole it might lead. The thing is , people don't listen with their eyes close. The visual part of the listening area and anything that can be seen while listening is also important to be considered. A pleasing environment most certainly improve the listening experience. This is more so if the listening area is in the middle of the home. 

Having the hardware that can be like another piece of furniture or a decorative piece at home can be a daunting task. Need to take into consideration the home theme before going with the design and finally getting the pieces in place. The theme I am going for is more natural look with the main material of wood to have the feel. Having that in mind, the wall and flooring will be the next biggest piece for consideration. 

To match the walnut colour of the wood, the feature wall with blue is use to have the contrast with the feel of depth. Large piece of featured wall can be a little overwhelming. To soften things up, fluted panels are use on both side of the walls. Fluted panel is also good in absorption of sound rather than reflecting from the wall. 

With the background taken care of, next piece of furniture to consider is the console. The depth of console is quite important as amplifiers could be quite bulky in size. Also to consider how many pieces of equipment to be seating on the top of it. I have considered on custom made console or simply some cabinet could work. Scouring through internet for some ideas, I have notices quite a bit of IKEA furniture being tweak into a more elegant piece. Having that idea in mind, went to IKEA to pick some simple white cabinet (BESTA). The cabinet size is 180cm x 40cm x 35cm. The good thing about it is the door has plenty of options to choose from. With the wood them in mind, I went with the fluted door panel. This not only match the wood of other pieces but the fluted panel will be closely match up the wall too. Plenty of space in the cabinet as well to be storing of CD or LP. 

Originally, the cabinet top is plain white as the whole cabinet is white. IKEA do have long piece of top sold separately that could be install on top. I have a different thought of having live edge wood. Gotten a "belian" hardwood with live edge. Gotten the piece from a shop online. Quite a heavy piece of wood, weighting 20+ Kg. Good enough for even heavy piece of amplifier. Some what heavy wood is the preferred material for equipment rack. 

TV is another piece of hardware like a necessity for every home. The thing about TV is after turning them off is like another black box. Samsung Frame TV is the answer for having an art piece on the wall. With the interchangeable bezel, the TV itself looks identical to any other photo frame. The art feature of the TV is the 'magic'. With the art feature turn on, practically can leave the TV on 24 hours. To avoid too many colour mix, white is one of the choice or black can be another one. I prefer white to have less cluttered feel of things. Even the router I gotten a white one to blend in.

Coming into the audio hardware, walnut wood colour again is the theme. Having the Leak 230 and Mission 700 speakers are the match in heaven. Being an open space the pair do work well. The cool thing is both hardware pieces comes with walnut colour. The Leak 230 comes with Phono input for MM only. I have the Audio Technica LP2022 50th anniversary turntable hook up to it. Pretty neat as it is all transparent turntable that easily fit in to any type of deco or design. The blue carpet throw is another extra touch of more comfy feel to the room. Overall, I call this a success of blending in audio with cosy home setting.