Help with Tosh 50H83 and Component Storage Shelf (1 Viewer)

[RobertSing]

My wife won't let me get a new TV unless I figure out where the components are going to go. She doesn't want a rack next to the TV (too cluttered, she says), and the Toshiba model I want doesn't come with a shelf underneath. The guy at the store said I could put some stuff on top of the TV (it looked solid enough) and mentioned Crutchfield sold a shelf unit that would give me more room on top. Has anybody heard of this? (I couldn't find it on their site.)

What do you think about this? I would need to put the center speaker, DVD, receiver, and DTV box up there. I've read some threads from people concerned about too much weight on top of their RPTV. Just eyeballing the dimensions it looks like it might work.

I saw something in the instruction manual about making the TV act as the center speaker only - does this work okay? Does that mean you have to route everything through the reciever first? My wife doesn't want to have to turn the receiver on to just watch TV.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

 

[Citizen87645]

My solution was to get a pair of component racks to act as speaker stands for the mains. Speakers go on top and all the components go on the shelves underneath. It cut down on the accumulation of furniture around the television. I went with the Sanus AFA audio rack in maple. I have JBL S38s for the mains, whose horizontal design works well in this set up. Speakers that are taller than wide would definitely look odd sitting on a 36"+ rack.

 

[JohnnyG]

The top is pretty solid, but not very deep. Also, with an average sized center speaker, there probably isn't enough width left for a receiver. If you want to put shelves over the TV, you'll probably find a whole bunch of ideas at your local Home Depot, etc. I've never been big on using the TVs center channel speaker option, but it's something you can try. You do need a PRE-AMP out for the center channel on your receiver though...you cannot feed it a speaker-level connection.