Sanus DFV49 Build Quality

Many times when Audioholics reviews AV furniture it is from an enthusiast's perspective. An enthusiast is someone who regularly gets behind his or her gear to add, subtract, or just generally play with the objects of their addiction. The fact is that most people buy a display, maybe a home-theater-in-a-box, and a DVD/Blu-ray player and they are done. Add a cable satellite box and maybe a game system and they may not touch their gear until the next format or game system comes out. It is very much a once a year or maybe less event that they are forced to add or subtract to their home audio setup. These are the same people that buy a display once every 5 years.

That doesn't mean that they should have to crawl inside of their component cabinet to make those changes. How many people have bought a piece of furniture from a big box store just to find out that the only way to access the back of their gear is to pull the gear out? Most manufacturers are looking to make access easier and easier all the while maintaining an aesthetic that will sell. Sanus has long been a leader in the AV furniture, display mounts, and speaker stands markets. Their latest offering, the Designer Foundation Series, is intended to mate looks with functionality.

Build Quality

One of the reasons I was interested in the DFV49 is its width. Most AV stands designed to hold displays these days trend toward 60" long. While this is fine, I've found that I need more room for speakers. This was especially true when I was doing the $1500-$2000 speaker shootout. On top of that, if I ever want to have a second sub (or review some of the larger subs), I'll need more room up front. The extra 12" will allow me a little more wiggle room. The weight rating of the DFV49's top shelf is 150lbs which should hold any display that you'd want to put on top of it (unless you are still rocking an old CRT).

The Designer Foundation (DF) series of furniture was designed by Cramer Studios for Sanus. The series consists of two different designs, a three shelf display stand and a taller but thinner four shelf component rack. Both of them feature tons of glass with just a few pieces of mocha stained wood accents. This review will focus on the DFV49 - the three shelf display stand.

The DFV49 arrived as all Sanus equipment has, plastic wrapped to a pallet. There was a bit of damage at one of the corners but peeling back the box, it looked like there was nothing but cardboard underneath. Honestly, in almost all of the internal boxes, there were large cardboard buffers between the edges of the box and the internal pieces. Later on, I did find one of the metal shelf pieces a bit bent but was able to get it back in shape with some pliers. I can't be sure this was from the external damage but it seemed likely.

When it comes to packaging and wrapping, other manufacturers could really take a lesson from Sanus. Inside the large box, there were directions and two smaller boxes the same size but half the thickness of the exterior box. The top box had all the hardware and everything you needed for the first few steps of construction. You literally did not have to open the second box until the very end (it only had the shelves and doors in it). Also, all the hardware was in individually separated packages. This made keeping everything separate very easy.

Each of the pieces of the DFV49 were well wrapped and protected. I was particularly impressed with the black powder coated shelves. They were wrapped in both a thin layer of foam and plastic wrap. With a finish as nice as the powder coat, you don't want it scratched in transit and in spite of the damaged box, these were in perfect order.

The DFV49 AV Stand has wood corner posts, metal shelf supports, and glass doors, shelves, and sides. The sides have wood accents but these are not structural in nature. The back is a series of four metal panels that are screwed to the metal shelf supports. There is a large cutout in the center where two black plastic panels can be bowed between in order to run wires or removed to access your gear. While the rear panels are technically removable, it will take a screwdriver to do so. What is nice is that the four metal panels and can be left off for additional room or just for permanent access. This makes the DFV49 stand quite versatile. In a proper setting, you may be able to leave off both the bottom panels for convenience or one of them if you have a particularly deep piece of gear. Most stands don't give you this sort of flexibility.

Each of the shelves is glass and sits upon rubber nubs. The internal shelves sit on nubs you insert into the metal frame while the top shelf sits on top of rubber that cover the screws that attach the endcaps onto the wood corners and a pair of rubber rectangles that you stick onto the metal supports across the front and back of the unit. In my particular installation, I appreciated the fact that the top is not permanently attached to the unit. As I'll only have a center channel on top of the unit, I can easily remove the speaker, the top glass, and access any gear on the top shelf. This does make moving the unit more difficult as your first instinct is to pick it up by the glass top. Instead, you need to slide it along by pushing on the wood corners. A fully loaded DFV49 will be nigh impossible to move (especially with a display on top) so I suggest you get it into place before you start loading it with gear. The endcaps are plastic but will probably scratch a wood floor. You'll want to buy some sort of aftermarket carpet/wood slides for under the endcaps to protect your floor. I'd like to see Sanus provide additional foot options either included or at least as an add-on for their furniture.

The idea of all the rubber under the glass shelves is to protect the glass from chipping or breaking but also to eliminate any vibration noise. With the metal back panels secured by six screws each, there is little chance that you'll be hearing noise from that side. The glass doors are buffered by sticky rubber stops you attach to the front of the metal shelf supports so that is dampened as well. The only real problem I found was that the side walls, which slide into slots cut into the wood corner posts, may rattle a bit. You can rig a DIY fix by using some scraps of the sticky rubber nubs and pushing them between the glass walls and the wood.