When one is considering what chassis to use for their home theater or server build, a lot of factors come into play. In the past a traditional home theater PC build contained a small or desktop (horizontal) style chassis to help blend in with the AV stack, but that has evolved as the demands for storage and silence--as well as big screen PC gaming--has grown in importance. The Fractal Design Define XL R2 does not fit under the SFF category, as it is a full size ATX with tons of bells and whistles. The attraction for our needs is that the Define XL R2 does not sacrifice noise nor aesthetics to achieve its mission. Suitable for either the living room or closet (although what a shame that would be as it is quite attractive), we will be analyzing the merits of it to see if it is suitable of a person with more than your average HTPC needs.