What's that saying? "Necessity is the mother of invention?" I have only a 51-inch Samsung plasma on its standard base. My tv stand (in the lower pic) has two shelves. On the first shelf I had my Yamaha Rx v1600 which I love,my regular xbox and blu ray on top of the xbox. On the lower shelf was my center and my xbox 360. Now the center always seemed to be lacking and I'd bump the center volume up with the amp. Even tried it on the first shelf. The center and the receiver couldn't share the shelf. Its a JBL Northridge that matches my JBL ND 310 ii fronts. Anyway it's a decent sized center. This will certainly be frowned upon and/or ridiculed but it works like a charm for me. I'd been looking at threads for mounting centers to flat panels and noticed some brackets for $50 or so. My tv is a good two feet from the wall.(rear access). The brackets for wall mounting seem too short for my needs. The others mounted to the tv itself. Didn't strike me as a great solution. So I was thinking.."It has to be a shelf/platform sturdy enough to hold the center and be supported by the tv stand and the floor. Three adjustable legs seemed like the way to go. I found the two things I was looking for almost right under my nose. I'm such an unconventional person. But I'll take function over form/looks. Grabbed a no-longer-needed camera tripod and a $5 laptop tray from Ikea. Put two legs of the tripod on the backside of the tv base and the third one on the floor. The laptop has a "lip" at each end. One is about an inch, perfect for putting over the front edge of the tv without blocking the pic at all. And the other is about four inches,I assume to give your laptop an ergonomic position. Placed my center on it and it holds it perfectly. I also don't have to worry about kids but they'd be hard pressed to bump it the way things are set up. And there's no playing in the livingroom when they're here. Gotta love respectful children. I've jiggled it and it's surprisingly quite stable. It'd take a fairly hard knock to cause any mayhem. Yes I know it's as ugly as sin but it works for me. I think something along those lines of a "device" might actually turn out to be a good idea.
