Like most of the other guys here at OcPrices, I’m a big Hi-Fi fan, and have a full Denon separate set-up. When browsing the pages of Quiet PC for a Zalman CPU cooler I came across something that caught my eye. At first I thought that Glen and Co had branched out into selling high quality amps, but it turns out the lovely item before me was actually a PC case. I have been using my shuttle XPC as an MP3 and DivX addition to my home theatre set-up for quite a while, and although these look pretty stylish in their own right, it certainly looks well out of place next to the champagne coloured amp and DVD player. The large picture on Quiet PC's site showed a brushed aluminium case, but to my delight they also had a gold one available. I knew right away that it had to be mine!
The Hi-Fi case is actually made by a company called Accent and is part of their HTPC (Home Theatre PC) case range. It comes in a stylish minimalist (but very sturdy) box that was further sealed with Quiet PC tape. My particular model is the HT-200 Gold, where the 200 denotes that it is the two-bay version. This allows you to mount an extra drive, or a floppy using a 3.5” – 5.25” converter. All of the Accent cases are the same price, namely £165ex VAT. This puts them in the highest tier of PC cases, along with the Coolermasters and Lian-Li’s of the industry. Let’s hope the Accent is a similarly impressive product.
First impressions of the case are phenomenal. The finish is absolutely gorgeous, with the front and top cover being made from gold-anodised aluminium. The front bezel is particularly thick, and certainly lacks the wafer-thin aluminium that some of the cheaper aluminium cases from the aforementioned companies have.
