Daily Blog – Brian Florian – February 8, 2008: . . . BUT WHERE DOES THE CENTER CHANNEL SPEAKER GO?

This past Christmas was a real water shed for LCD and Plasma flat panel TVs.  Of the bazillion people who brought one home last month, I wager about 99% of them did NOT hang it on the wall like the slick, colorful brochures would have us think is the norm.  Wall mounting an expensive 70 to 300lb piece of equipment is not like hanging a picture.  Its an undertaking.  And of those few who do brave it (or more likely, and most often wisely, get a professional to do so), even less go on to hide the wires in such a way as to make it all worth while.

No, most people brought their new TV home, slapped on the included stand, and plunked the thing right down where their old TV used to be:  On an AV rack/stand, or perhaps in the proverbial and woefully dated “entertainment center”, some even end up on an old hope chest.

The question is: Where does the center channel speaker go?

Chances are, it used to be happily perched on top of the ol’ faithful CRT TV which just got the boot.  That oh-so critical speaker has no place to go.

Sure, I’ve seen all the clever ideas.  Use a wall mount intended for a small CRT TV to float a big center speaker above the screen.  Put it on a short stand out in front of the screen.  Bah!  That’s no solution.  At least not for me.

I toyed with the concept of building some big cabinet around my TV for the sole purpose of accommodating the center channel speaker when I had a revelation I’d like to share….a speaker stand that fits behind a flat panel TV.

Really, this is nothing more than a conventional speaker stand with with an “outrigger” base to it so that it can straddle the flat panel TVs own stand, and thus position the speaker RIGHT where it needs to be.  At first glance it seem ungainly, but watch what happens when the TV gets put in place.

Dim the lights, and it disappears completely.

Since this is such an adaptable design I wont share with you any details of my build except to say I used kiln dried knotty pine 2x4s, 2x6s, and 3/4″ plywood for the top, “screwed and glued” as the saying goes.  Overkill, but I wanted it that way.

On reflection, this concept makes so much sense to me its a wonder someone hasn’t come to market with one made of steel with nut-and-bolt assembly so that the stance, height, and even the forward to back position of the top plate is adjustable.

Then again, sometimes its nice to actually do something yourself.