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Remote control from the next room

I've been thinking of moving my equipment rack into the next room. (It would allow for better speaker placement.) The rack would be moving, like, five feet from where it currently sits, just around the corner through an open doorway, but would be completely out of sight from the listening position. I'd thought that an infra red repeater -- with a unit in here to point the remote at and something in the next room that would relay that signal to the components -- would be the ticket, but when I stopped by my local Best Buy today to try to get one, you'd have thought I was speaking Albanian. Or that I'd asked if they had anchovie-flavored telephones. An IR repeater is what I'm after, right? If so, can someone recommend a brand and a source? (Because of the setup, I could run a wire from the unit in this room to the one in the room with the equipment, if that matters.)

Thanks for any help you might be able to give me on this one.

Howard
hodu
6 responses Add your response
elevick
2,636 posts
 
Howard, I've got enough niles gear to set up many systems. I really need to unload some of it. I'll be happy to put together a set-up for your needs with lots of expansion if you need. My whole house is wired and this is what's left over (IR eyes, repeaters, IRP units and power supplys).
Email me later today if interested.
Emery
emfoods@yahoo.com
kjweisner's avatar
kjweisner
293 posts
 
You may also find IR repeater systems at Parts Express. These run about $100 and work terrific. I also second the suggestion for the Harmony remote. I am using both types of systems (Harmony RF remote and Xantech IR repeater) on two separate systems. They both perform quite well.
hodu OP
316 posts
 
Thanks, guys. Perhaps I was in a Bad Buy rather than a Best Buy. Or maybe stopping by on the day after Christmas was singularly unwise. I'll hit another store this weekend.
blindjim
3,092 posts
 
Rat Shak... Radio Shack... $40 per pair, and comes with one wired repeater for that hard to buzz component.

it/they works fine. All my gear is in another room already on two racks. Positioning the repeater is important... for a while I had to use two of them... down to one now with the same two raccks of gear.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
you could also get a remote with RF capability such as the Harmony 890, no need to wire the IR eye then, just program it, plug it in, put the flashers on your gear, and you are off to the races.
theo's avatar
theo
2,688 posts
 
If you are going to go to the next room you have a few options one is a wired IR repeater that hard wires from a receiver in the listening room and has flashers that are either in the cabinet or mounted in a vantage point where they can flash the whole system. This would be a Niles or similar and can cost a couple hundered dollars before you are done. The other is a IR to RF receiver in the listening room and a RF to IR transmitter aimed at the equipment. If your cabinet is easily seen by the transmitter this works well and no wires. Expect to spend about 60-80 dollars. I have both in my house, the Niles runs the main system and the IR/RF-RF/IR system is for my SAT receiver to be controlled from to back-fed TVs on in my office the other in my garage and they work well. They look like little cones and you can get them from most electronic stores, radio scrap or crutchfield. These really do a good job and rarely mis fire.
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