I searched around for ages to find a new AV cabinet that’d hold a lot of equipment, be IR friendly and have good air flow all while looking great. Turned out to be a tall order and I thought I’d have to give up until I discovered the BDI 8937.
For my delivery the main unit arrived mostly constructed, with just a few additional extras to add on such as the handles and the bottom frame.
The overall dimensions listed on the BDI website are:
22.5H x 65W x 22D in
57H x 166W x 56D cm
Make sure you’ve got room for this unit as it’s a big boy! Size wise it’s absolutely perfect for my room and once all the equipment has been loaded on it looks fantastic.
Given just how much equipment it can hold the most impressive feature is one you don’t see: cables! It’s got a great cable management system and if you put the time into getting everything installed in a tidy manner you won’t spot any cables on the floor at all.
Good cable management is well worth investing the time in setting up thanks to one of the best features I’ve found: wheels! Even fully loaded I can pull the 8937 out to gain access to the back of all the equipment, making it really easy to add in a new bit of tech or change the wiring of existing tech.
There is loads of space available, you get left and right draws which each have a shelf in giving you 4 spaces. The shelf can be set to multiple positions and rather than sit on a metal pin it actually rests on rubber to absorb any vibrations.
The decent height means you shouldn’t have any problem fitting in a chunky AV Receiver, I’ve an Onkyo Amp and it fits in perfectly. I was concerned a new unit might not provide decent air ventilation (the amp can get rather warm), but that’s not been a problem for the 8937, it has lots of heat vents to ensure good air flow.
In the middle are two wider, single story, draws. The top draw is one I use for storage of controllers and game pads, but it can be converted to hold your soundbar/front facing speaker. The glass panel can be replaced with a speaker panel and this would give you a really clean look if you didn’t want anything aside from the TV sat on top of the unit.
Don’t worry about your equipment being behind glass, it’s IR friendly and allows commands to pass through without a problem.
This also comes with a very interesting feature I’ve never seen before, a TV brace. The cable, which is attached to the 8937, attaches to your TV via wall mount screw in the back of your TV, then should someone accidentally knock it, or if you’re moving the cabinet, the TV can’t be tipped forward and fall over. Given this can take TVs up to 75″ I think this is a great safety feature.
As you’ll see in the video review, the 8937 does come with back panels, but I’ve chosen to leave those off to provide maximum airflow and cable access.
I thought long and hard about which unit I wanted, I hadn’t intended to get a premium unit but realised lowest cost cabinets just weren’t going to cut it. I’m really glad I went for it, it looks fantastic, holds all my equipment, is well built, has loads of good ideas and is a lot tidier compared to my previous unit.
Available from Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2ibl4oM and USA: https://amzn.to/2ibq1OD but if you’re in the UK I’d actually recommend getting it from Nintronics.co.uk who happened, at the time of review, to be the cheapest and they offered excellent pre-sales service taking the time to answer of lot of questions from someone who hadn’t even commited to buying anything from them.
BDI Avoin 8937 Premium AV Entertainment Cabinet Video Review
