Gear Review – AC Infinity Cloudline T6 and Aircom T8

So ever since I built my theater in 2014, I have struggled with one thing above all else.

Cooling.

I did a year worth of research into the theater build, itself prior to construction, the room is perfect sonically, with diffusers and bass traps and sound treatments on all my first reflection points.

But one thing no one ever spoke about on AVS Forum was the need for cooling in a AV room.

So it has been a constant battle over the last 5 years. Without any cooling at all, my Rotel amps would hit over 100 degrees and shut off channels to preserve themselves.

I tried an in room air conditioner that was both loud and added about 50 a month to my electric bill.

I tried a bathroom exhaust fan and tried piping the fan into the house cold air return, with the mindset of using the HRV to suck all the warm air out of the house, only to result in all the cold air return vents pumping out hot air.

So it was not til January of this year that I come across the slim AC Infinity Aircom T8’s that are meant to sit on top of your gear and suck air from under them, and vent it out the back. They also make an iteration that will vent out the front if you prefer.

The devices run about $110 on amazon.ca and they, in conjunction with a AC Infinity Cloudline T6 they have changed my room temp by close to 20 degrees cooler.

I have installed one on each of my 3 amplifiers, as well as my receiver.

They have all sorts of bells and whistles for automated cooling.

The way I have mine set is they come on via power regulated outlet, that when the amps power up, they all switch on as well, so they are not sucking up power for no reason.

But they have the ability to do temperature monitoring to switch on automatically if your gear gets too hot. They have a built in alarm that you can set via a high temp mark.

They also have 6 fan speeds, which you can either set manually, or allow the device to regulate on its own via the temp sensor. I personally avoid this one and opted to have them run at about 80% speed all the time, this lets my gear stay between the 80-85 degree mark almost constantly.

They also have a fault alarm in the event that they malfunction, which is great if you are like me and have a closed room where your AV equipment resides.

Lastly they can be linked together with up to 6 other devices and controlled with one master interface. Personally I didn’t see the point, I really want them to all function independently.

To top it all off, once the heat is blow from the components out the back of the rack, that is where the AC Infinity Cloudline comes into play. It is at head level and sucks like a vacuum on steroids, yet does so near silently.

It snags all the heat coming out and blows it out of the AV room through an exhaust port I cut in for the air conditioning unit I used years ago.

This unit I leave on 24/7 as the room still holds a lot of other equipment, from the home automation, to my media server and home theater PC, all of which never turn off. So it still gets steamy if the door is closed and it is not vented.

This unit has a temp probe of its own, and a head unit that can control 2 Cloudline devices at one time if needed.

This one I do leave on smart monitoring though, as it can judge bu room temp how fast to run the fan if needed.

Prior to installing these devices I had to keep my cabinet full of PC fans and have the door open 100% for it to remain in the low 90s temp wise.

Now with the compliment of AC devices, the room remains closed and is about 80 on most days now.

A pure win in my books.

All told it was a $600 endeavor to come up with this solution, but well worth the cash in my opinion.

It is worth mentioning there is also a dumb variety of the AC Infinity series as well for a lot less money, these devices work exactly the same, but have no programming like temp gauges and such, they are straight on and off devices. So if you are strapped for cash and have a heat issue, there is an alternative as well.