Salamander vs. BDI vs. Furnitech - Fight!

I have a BDI rack that I used for 18 months, the quality seems very good to me. I’d still be using it if it would fit in my current design; I’ll be building my own rack.

I sourced mine from craigslist.

BDI makes the tv stand i want but it costs almost double in Canada

Salamander here!
What did you end up going with tedcousens?
A few things to keep in mind with our products
One is that they are handbuilt in the USA out of real wood, MDF (for rigidity and vibration dampening) and extruded aluminum. You may pay a little more but if you do enough searching around the internet you will see that most people love their cabinets from us and use them for years and years.
Two, some of our furniture (Synergy) is completely modular so when your needs change so can the furniture with the purchase of a couple parts you can make an entirely new stand.
Three, our very popular Chameleon line is very "wife friendly" with 9 styles to choose from, they look more like furniture but are designed with equipment storage in mind.
Four, no other furniture manufacturer that I know of offers more accessories to enhance the usability of the stand with your equipment than us. Whether it's the pull out shelf for a turntable or media server or the extended rear panels with or without active cooling, We even have a power conditioner mounting kit to mount a power conditioner on the back of the stand instead of it being in the way on the floor or inside your cabinet.

There are many other reasons but check them out yourself at a local audio store near you and see for yourself.

I'm researching now but have found only one solution that fits my own needs. I prefer to have a few options.

Gear:
TV: 55" diagonal, ~80 lbs
Receiver: 17.13w x 7.28h x 17.36d", 33 lbs.
Center Channel: 20.5w x 7.5h x 13.5d”, 30 lbs.
Additional gear that I'm sure will fit with little problem: Oppo 93, DVR, Mac mini, Apple TV, X-Box 360.

The apparent trouble is that I'm looking for a unit that's about 52" wide. Better still something that can work in a living room corner. I was (naïvely) hoping to keep the cost at or south of $1,000, but it seems $1500-$2200 is more realistic.

Thus far, BDI's Novia 8421 seems about perfect, but I don't like buying the ONLY thing I can find and that's the case at this point. I haven't seen this particular BDI unit in person but saw another model in-store, so that helps me feel better about the quality. I'm uncomfortable spending this kind of money based on Internet images and reviews on merchant sites since physical limitations make potential disassembly, re-boxing and returning very troublesome.
Edited by IronWaffle - 4/11/13 at 12:26pm

I'm new to this game and haven't seen any Salamander stands but just this week I put my trust into a BDI stand and I couldn't be happier! The quality of the packaging and the way it went together (only had to put the feet on) were by far some of the best I've seen. I was scared to buy online, sight unseen, as well and luckily found some BDI gear at a local shop so I could check out the quality. It's well vented, well made and looks great, so all in all I'm very happy with it.....oh and the wife loves it! BONUS

+1 for BDI. Beautiful and well crafted.

I purchased a Furnitech FT61SCCC shaker styled corner unit last year and I couldn't be happier.

The craftsmanship was nothing short of outstanding, the finish is far more brilliant than the advertisements suggest, and the cabinet easily supports my 60" flat screen. More than adequate storage for DVD's and my children's X-Box

It was also the best by far value for a corner until that I could find and the $1,000 price tag was about 1/2 of what I expected. I truly is worth twice that amount

Thanks, all!

I've found some less expensive alternatives, but until that Furnitech FT61SCCC (though the finish is darker than I'd like), I haven't had much faith in them. While I like the BDI, it simply eats too much of my budget. I'll keep checking here but will probably pull the trigger within a week.