I wanted to share my experience with the Dynamic Mounting "Down and Out Swivel Mount". I recently purchased a 60" Panasonic TC-P60ST50 plasma TV and as a proud father of 2 incredibly active boys, my wife and I (well, my wife mostly) decided to get all of the audio/video equipment off the floor. A significant part of this project was finding a location for the new TV that would be somewhat out of the way, but that would still give us the option to view the TV at normal viewing angles. We have a fairly tall mantle, so permanent above the fireplace mounting was NOT an option. I stumbled onto the Dynamic Mounting website after some internet digging. I couldn't really find many reviews, so in many ways, I just took a leap of faith. It's certainly not an inexpensive mount, but for the functionality it offered, I was willing to give it a go.
The mount shipped in a single cardboard box, which did get a little battered in transit. Luckily, the mount is very sturdy and substantial, so the mount came in good condition (although the paint was chipped off in a few areas already). In the box were the mount, the swivel plate, the attachment arms, various mounting hardware, a handy little wrench and the instruction/installation manual.
The instruction manual is quite good, with some detailed diagrams, charts and pictures. It can seem a little daunting once you first look at the manual, but after a little reading and planning, everything made sense. Bear in mind, that this mount requires at least a couple hours of pre-planning before installation. You want to get the measurements 100% correct before you drill your first hole. Primarily, you need to measure your mantle depth, the distance required for the TV to clear the mantle when swinging out, and the amount of "drop" you want to attain with the mount. You don't really want to aim for maximum drop since to attain the max drop, you need to mount the TV quite high, which sort of defeats the purpose of the mount. the other critical measurement is the distance from the bottom of the TV to the bottom of mount since you need this to make sure you can clear the mantle.
Like I said, the mount is VERY sturdy. I have no doubt that the mount will last, with the only real concern being the gas shocks. The owner of the company (Kurt) said the shocks should last 5 years, and then slowly lose pressure over the next 5 years. I suppose 10 years is a reasonable amount of time, but I would feel better if I could pick up some spare shocks just in case.
I made all my measurements, and with my 8" mantle, I wanted about a 27" drop, so I ended up installing the mount about 7" from the top of the mantle. Luckily, this worked out perfectly for me. I triple checked everything so I felt pretty confident going in. the bottom of the TV is about 4" off the mantle, and when I drop the TV, I get a very comfortable viewing angle (about the equivalent of placing the TV on a standard 22-24" high TV stand).
The swivel feature is nice as it allows us to view the TV from the kitchen. I can't say we get full benefit of the swivel feature because of the 60" panel size (I would estimate we get about 10-15 degrees of swivel in the up position and about 20-25 degrees in the down position), but like I said, we can now watch TV from the kitchen/dining room, which is much more than we had before. I used the "left" swivel position which allows the most swivel to the left. This also gave the slimmest profile, but it also led to a slight issue getting the TV level. Luckily, Kurt walked me through this a bit and it's *almost* level now (off by 1/16"-1/8", so not bad).
Overall, I'm very happy with the Down and Out Swivel mount from Dynamic Mounting (http://www.DynamicMounting.com). It's the ONLY mount I could find that allows you to drop the TV in front of a fireplace.
Pros-
- Sturdy Construction
- Easy to drop and lift TV as long as counter-balance is set properly
- Simple to adjust tilt settings
- TV automatically "locks" in the up position, and is easily dis-engaged
- Only mount that offers this functionality
- Swivel feature is great!
- Good customer service (Kurt is very responsive. He picked up the phone on the 3rd ring when I had questions!)
- You'll be the envy of your friends
Cons-
- Cost ($$$)
- Somewhat complex installation
- Paint chips off pretty easily (touch up pen recommended)
- I had a little difficulty getting the TV level in the "left" swivel position (but Kurt walked me through this). If you use the standard swivel settings, I doubt this will be a problem
Here are some pics of the mount-
Edited by pso71 - 8/21/12 at 1:09pm
The mount shipped in a single cardboard box, which did get a little battered in transit. Luckily, the mount is very sturdy and substantial, so the mount came in good condition (although the paint was chipped off in a few areas already). In the box were the mount, the swivel plate, the attachment arms, various mounting hardware, a handy little wrench and the instruction/installation manual.
The instruction manual is quite good, with some detailed diagrams, charts and pictures. It can seem a little daunting once you first look at the manual, but after a little reading and planning, everything made sense. Bear in mind, that this mount requires at least a couple hours of pre-planning before installation. You want to get the measurements 100% correct before you drill your first hole. Primarily, you need to measure your mantle depth, the distance required for the TV to clear the mantle when swinging out, and the amount of "drop" you want to attain with the mount. You don't really want to aim for maximum drop since to attain the max drop, you need to mount the TV quite high, which sort of defeats the purpose of the mount. the other critical measurement is the distance from the bottom of the TV to the bottom of mount since you need this to make sure you can clear the mantle.
Like I said, the mount is VERY sturdy. I have no doubt that the mount will last, with the only real concern being the gas shocks. The owner of the company (Kurt) said the shocks should last 5 years, and then slowly lose pressure over the next 5 years. I suppose 10 years is a reasonable amount of time, but I would feel better if I could pick up some spare shocks just in case.
I made all my measurements, and with my 8" mantle, I wanted about a 27" drop, so I ended up installing the mount about 7" from the top of the mantle. Luckily, this worked out perfectly for me. I triple checked everything so I felt pretty confident going in. the bottom of the TV is about 4" off the mantle, and when I drop the TV, I get a very comfortable viewing angle (about the equivalent of placing the TV on a standard 22-24" high TV stand).
The swivel feature is nice as it allows us to view the TV from the kitchen. I can't say we get full benefit of the swivel feature because of the 60" panel size (I would estimate we get about 10-15 degrees of swivel in the up position and about 20-25 degrees in the down position), but like I said, we can now watch TV from the kitchen/dining room, which is much more than we had before. I used the "left" swivel position which allows the most swivel to the left. This also gave the slimmest profile, but it also led to a slight issue getting the TV level. Luckily, Kurt walked me through this a bit and it's *almost* level now (off by 1/16"-1/8", so not bad).
Overall, I'm very happy with the Down and Out Swivel mount from Dynamic Mounting (http://www.DynamicMounting.com). It's the ONLY mount I could find that allows you to drop the TV in front of a fireplace.
Pros-
- Sturdy Construction
- Easy to drop and lift TV as long as counter-balance is set properly
- Simple to adjust tilt settings
- TV automatically "locks" in the up position, and is easily dis-engaged
- Only mount that offers this functionality
- Swivel feature is great!
- Good customer service (Kurt is very responsive. He picked up the phone on the 3rd ring when I had questions!)
- You'll be the envy of your friends
Cons-
- Cost ($$$)
- Somewhat complex installation
- Paint chips off pretty easily (touch up pen recommended)
- I had a little difficulty getting the TV level in the "left" swivel position (but Kurt walked me through this). If you use the standard swivel settings, I doubt this will be a problem
Here are some pics of the mount-
Edited by pso71 - 8/21/12 at 1:09pm
