Audio Video News

Home theater is a wonderful hobby, but it has one recurring problem: where to put all that equipment? Or more precisely: what to put it on?

If your tastes run toward the clean, simple, and elegant, Salamander Designs has something for you. The company's Archetypal racks feature wooden shelves in black or cherry veneer, with threaded steel rods as vertical supports.

The look is extremely clean, and the racks are incredibly strong and stable. The Archetypal TV35, for example, has three wide shelves to accommodate most basic A/V gear: a TV up to 36" diagonally, an A/V receiver, a cable or satellite converter, and a DVD player. No need to worry about overloading the TV35---it is rated to safely support over 300 lbs.

Other equipment stands in the Archetypal series include the narrower 2.0 with two shelves, the 3.0 with three, and the 5.0 with five, especially suitable for integrated music/HT systems. Two of these narrower units can be spanned by one of Salamander's "Bridge" units, ideal for a video monitor, or for turning the equipment racks into computer work stations.

The company makes a wide assortment of dedicated stands as well as accessories to fine-tune your media room---almost all of them compatible with each other, the only caveat being that some of them are available only in black. Careful planning, however, will result in a beautiful system that not only looks great but is earthquake-proof.