Welcome back to AV Truth, a weekly series where we dig into what really happens behind the polished AV systems.
Last week, we uncovered the truth about audio DSP tuning and why silence often speaks the loudest. This week, we’re stepping into a space most clients never see—the rack room.

Let’s be honest:
You can often judge the quality of an AV system by one thing—the back of the rack.

If the cables are messy, the labels are inconsistent, and someone zip-tied a power cable to a data run, that’s not just poor practice. That’s a system waving a red flag.

Because if it’s sloppy in the rack, it’s probably sloppy everywhere else too.

Where Rack Design Goes Wrong

• No planning, just patching: “We’ll just make it work for now.” You won’t. And someone else will pay for it later, usually in hours of rework.
• No cable management strategy: Rack dressing isn’t about making it pretty. It’s about making it serviceable.
• No documentation: Port maps, color codes, labels, these aren’t optional. If you need 10 minutes to trace a signal, the system is already broken.

Behind the Pit Wall: A Rack Room Lesson from Formula 1 Qatar

During the Formula 1 Qatar project, we completed the installation of a huge video wall, and everything looked good on the surface. Until the video wall started acting up during content playback. Random blackouts. Intermittent sync issues. The kind of thing that gets very visible, very fast in a high-profile environment.

We opened the rack and immediately saw the problem:
The video wall cables had been pulled and terminated by a subcontractor. Unfortunately, there was limited documentation and cable management in place, and several terminations lacked proper labeling, making troubleshooting more time-consuming than it should have been.

It took a full day of rerouting, re-terminating, and verifying signal paths to stabilize the system.

Since then, our standard is clear:
The rack should be proud enough to leave the door open.

What Makes a Rack Actually Great

• A printed signal flow diagram, laminated and mounted inside the rack
• Clean, consistent labeling across all cables
• Proper service loops, enough slack to service, but never too much to risk damage
• Clear cable separation, power, data, and audio in their own paths
• And always, Velcro, not zip ties

The rack is where systems speak their truth.
It’s where good design proves itself or falls apart.
And it’s the first place you run when something breaks.

So next time you assess a system, don’t just look at the touchscreen.
Open the rack. That’s where the real story is.