Path to HDTV

Step 2 - The compromise

Back in step 1, we covered the decision process that lead to me realizing I was going to put down a somewhat sizeable chunk of change into an HDTV. As we ended that piece, we led lightly into something that would come into it... a compromise!

Up until we had actually seen the Toshiba unit in person, we weren't positive whether the base was an actual part of the unit or not. Being confronted with the gorgeous set, the realization that it was indeed a part of it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew something was going to be said about it. So, I looked at my wife and just knew it was going to be said.

"You're going to have to do something about this".

Last year, when we still had our 27" Zenith TV that I had bought expressly for laserdisc playing (to get close captioned subtitles back in 92!) we had gone out to Caldor's and got a good deal on an entertainment unit from Sauder. I've bought lots of Sauder furniture over the years and continue to buy pieces that are well made and last a good amount of time. Anyway, we needed something good like this unit since we had a lot of gear. A receiver, DVD player, laserdisc player, VCR, Nintendo 64 and a Sony Playstation. This unit had six bays on the bottom for things and a nice little shelf up top for things like the cable box. So this bad boy covered us in every angle and we were very happy with it.

Flash forward to a year later and my trusty Zenith decides I'm no longer ready to have any red in my picture and all people must now be green. I thought perhaps it had been taken over by the Matrix. This happened while we didn't have any cable and were watching DVD's and a couple of taped shows (since we were moving a month later) and most of our stuff was packed. So what did we do? Off to Best Buy we go where they give credit pretty easily!

So a couple of hours later after an interesting journey of putting a 36" Toshiba TV in the back of a Ford Escort wagon, we had our new TV at home. With being such voracious movie people, we figured it was time to get a larger set so why not do it now. Unfortunately, the entertainment center we had just couldn't handle a 36" set.

So, off came the sides and the top of the unit. I admit, it's not the greatest looking thing in the world, but the things some of us won't do for home theater! The 36" set pretty much dominated the field of view, so it's not a bad thing. But I'm sure many of you can see where this is now going.

Flash forward ahead about 6 months and here I am looking to buy the Toshiba HDTV unit. And as mentioned, it's got that base unit. So I knew even before she said it, I'd have to do something about it. Well, we talked about it and knew we'd have to find some other kind of AV cabinet that would handle our needs (since we also have a Dreamcast now). And it would have to be done in a relatively short space of time and handle certain conditions:

1. It should hold 7 pieces of gear.

2. It should be relatively cat-proof.

3. It should be baby safe

And did I mention within a reasonable price? Well, that should be a given to begin with. So off to the net I go to get the information and see what others have since many are buying this HDTV unit lately. The first option that came up was the DIY Flexy Rack ("Do it yourself"). Frankly, it failed in 3 categories: It's not cat proof, it's not baby safe (sharp edges) and it takes a time commitment I don't have. However, I do find Flexy racks to be very interesting and am sure there are anime fans would find this knowledge to be extremely useful, which is why I'm telling you to haul your butts over to this archived thread on the Home Theater Forum that discusses them in detail. Especially if you're short on space as so many of you seem to be.

After shooting that down, I got a few other suggestions, but a lot of them tended to be Flexy rack ideas. The other half of the responses were "Oh, tell me what you find out, I'll be in the same situation soon too!". Yup, that was a lot of help. So I did a fair amount of web searching trying to find something in all the various home theater online stores. Very few seem to have any furniture that would aesthetically please a family oriented household. Most seemed to be aimed at the serious gear people, especially the commonly found piece here on the right.

Can you imagine how fast something like this was shot down by my wife? Heck, I just showed it to prove that I was looking and finding very little. In fact, the only thing that I had seen in the past that came close was something I wasn't willing to spend money on.

Our local chain, Cambridge Soundworks, has had over the years some great Mitsubishi TV's displayed on their floor and have some fantastic looking solid wood component cabinets that are pretty much made to work with these kinds of TV's. The unfortunate part is that they often run at least 400-500$ if not more. That's much more than I want to spend on this kind of thing at this point in time anyway.

And then the suggestion came in... check out this company called Tech Craft. It may have what you want was all the email said. So I checked out the link to Stereosource and was intrigued. It was fairly affordable, met most of my criteria... and yes, the wife seemed to approve of it as well! So I posted about it in the Home Theater Forum to see what those who had it had to say about it.

With luck, there were some responses, including one very intriguing one; a national electronics chain carries it and for less than the online site! But the moral problem is that it's sold in Circuit City...

But the component cabinet has much going for it, including the "Matches Toshiba Projection TV's" line. I mean, c'mon, it's yelling at me that it's the right piece! Granted it's short two shelves, but we figured we'd find a way to deal with putting the Playstation and N64 somewhere else (especially since the Dreamcast is my console of choice at the moment). With the knowledge that we could see it locally and decide, we went to the nearest Hellmouth.

I'll be honest, months after the end of Divx and I still despise the place. I hate the feel of it, I dislike the sales people and the attitude that's still projected from those I've dealt with. And I hate the way they try to redirect me to something else ("Toshiba TV? Why would you want that... check out our lovely Proscan models..."). Ugh. Regardless, we pushed forward and found the information for the cabinet. 199.99$ plus tax. Much sweeter than the 249.95$ from Stereosource and we could have it right away.

If they had it in stock. Argh! A quick push of the salesman to check other area locations showed one just outside of Boston, so we headed off to buy the unit there, still sight unseen. In fact, we didn't see it until we put the thing together a couple of days later!

So we snagged the thing, brought it home and finally put it together. It's a great unit, though a bit bigger than I thought it would be. It measures a height of 51" but has a great depth of 21" which is useful with the huge old laserdisc player I have. And there's two really great things about it:

It's on casters so it moves really easily. This is a definite plus when you add in the second great thing in that the back has a breathable cloth that's attached with Velcro, making it incredibly easy to slide the unit out and fiddle with wires, connections and everything else you normally do. It's perfect!

And thus, the compromise was completed and all that was left was to actually purchase the set.