Embarrassed....Audio furniture help


Well, I swore I'd never let a woman dictate my two channel system but here we are.  Wife and I bought our first new home, I've got a small but adequate second living area for my system.  Problem is, as mentioned, my wife.  Setup will consist of CD player, AppleTV unit and integrated amp.  May add a streamer at some point but we'll cross that bridge later.  I'm using a pair of bookshelves and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Here's the rub....She is demanding an A/V credenza, so speakers sitting on the credenza on either side of the TV.  Of course I'd love a vertical audio stand and be able to use speaker stands but it's too open, too many exposed cables, blah blah, you know the story.  

Question of the day:  can anyone point me in the right direction?  I need minimum 18" depth and all the awful Crate and Barrel stuff she recommends isn't up to my audio standards.  Needs something with doors for a clean look but I still need my IR signal to work.  Because the speakers aren't going on stands, I'd like something at least 20" tall.  A lot of the fashionable stuff is 14-16" tall, putting the tweeters way below ear level in the listening position.  

Any help would be much appreciated.  

Sincerely,

Man shaking his head with a borderline resigned look


cjlundberg

Showing 2 responses by kennyc

For most high-end speakers, putting them on a shelf seems to be a bad idea - uncontrolled speaker/shelf vibration interactions, reflected backwaves and sidewaves can muddy the music, speaker height may not be adjustable/ideal.  

@cjlundberg 
If you find the speaker positioning unsatisfactory sonically but cannot change the speaker's location from the shelf, then you may want to go the headfi (headphones/earphones) route.

Some may call it henpecked, others may say it's self preservation.  Usually, it's somewhere in the middle.
+1 @barts 
Because the OP posted on our forum, I'm assuming he is interested in high-end audio quality.  Seems a bit unfair that the OP is giving into his wife's interest, but she's ignoring his.  You could say, "I wanted you to have "X" because it was important to you, I was hoping for "Y" because it's important to me."  Then maybe say "Can we work it out so that we both win?"