Sanus Systems NF 30b Natural Series Speaker Stands (Black)

I read many reviews of various speaker stands before buying these and I am certain that I made the correct choice (many thanks to all the Amazon reviewers of various models).There are many options in bookshelf speaker stands: hardwood, metal, particle board (i.e. compressed wood). Once I determined what would be the best height for the stands I began looking into options. I did not want to spend allot of $$ but I also did not want to have a cheap looking product in my living room. These are hardwood stands and DO come as a pair.These arrived not in a shipping carton but just in the retail packaging. The box was a tad beaten up, but the stand were in undamaged condition. The box was also smaller that I imagined it would be.Sometimes it's easy to forget just how important speaker placement is to getting the best sound from your system. I had been placing my bookshelf speakers on the TV cabinet for the sake of convenience and because my wife thought that speaker stands would look tacky.These stands assemble easily and quickly. I waxed the included wood screws before screwing them together (a tip I picked up from a saavy Amazon reviewer). I placed my black Polk Audio T15's on them and they look great. Even my wife has no objection to their appearance. Pretty classy with a high quality medium gloss finish. Not an "IKEA" look at all.All in all, I am quite happy....a pair of $60.00 speaker stands isn't going to alter the course of anyone's life, but I find that we are listening to more music and watching less TV.Many thanks to the reviewer who mentioned using Blu Tack to secure the speakers to the stands.I great idea (I had never hear of Blu Tack, but it works GREAT)

Let me begin by saying this product deserves 5-stars. However, it came to my home with a damaged part (even though everything was carefully wrapped inside), and for that, I have to deduct two stars. More on that in a moment.I spent quite a bit of time researching stands for my new Sonos Play 5 speakers. If I had bought the stands Sonos sells, I would be paying $150 apiece. There were a lot of stands on Amazon that fit the bill, but also very expensive. In the end, I didn't want to go too expensive but nothing too cheap. I was looking for the best value for the buck.Sanus would have fit that bill. I own lots of Sanus furniture and for the most part, it's quality stuff. However, reading through the many Amazon reviews for this product I was concerned over the method of shipment and how people were receiving these stands with damaged boxes and in some cases, damaged parts.I thought I was the lucky one. The box came double-wrapped. So, upon opening the Amazon outer box I was pleased to find the Sanus stand box practically unscathed. Opening that box, I could see that each of the enclosed pieces was wrapped in some sort of thin styrofoam protectant. I laid out all the pieces without really inspecting any of them before I started my build of the stand.I worked on building both stands at the same time. The instructions are pretty straight-forward, and I suppose it took me under 30 minutes to assemble both. All you need is a Philips screwdriver --- an electric one would suit you much better as some of these screws had to be somewhat forced into the pre-formatted wooden holes.One thing to note, as it isn't easily depicted in the manual -- the top square plate gets installed upside down.So, I am about 3/4 of the way through the install when I notice that one of the base plates has a huge chip on the edge. Worst still, it's in the front. I took some heavy black magic marker and was able to blacken out the wood. I am including a picture of the damaged part below. It did a reasonably good job of hiding the damage, but I am still going to go after Sanus and have them replace the part as it is unacceptable that anything inside the box should arrive damaged.I will report back and let you know how good Sanus support actually is and if they replace the part.The stand itself looks quite nice. In fact, it doesn't look at all like a stand that would still fall under the "budget" category. By the time you get finished putting this together you will have a lot of screws and parts left over. The reason being, Sanus gives you several options on how you may want the stands assembled from different mounting plates to a choice of wooden or carpet spikes. I used carpet spikes for my medium-pile rug. I also opted to use the stick-on rubber mats instead of pins to hold the speakers themselves in place.If you are a Sanus Play 3 or 5 owner, these stands will have no problem holding their weight. The Play 5 speakers, in vertical position, fit wonderfully atop the square mounting plate with less than an inch of overhang on each side. That speaker, by the way, weighs just under 15 lbs.The stand is also sturdy. I don't have any fears of it tipping over.So, to sum up this review --- it is absolutely a 5-star product, however, a damaged part has knocked off two stars from this review. I will update all of you if I hear back from Sanus.

Overall, these stands are very decent quality, especially given the $50 price I paid (not including shipping). With the option of spikes or pads for the top and bottom plates, it gives you options for all types of speakers and locations. I'm using the carpet spikes on the bottom and neoprene pads on top with my Yamaha NS-333's which are being used for satellite duty. These speakers are on the heavy side (>12lbs) so traditional smaller satellite stands will not work. While not rock-solid stable, these stands work well enough for my "out-of-the-way" corner locations. They can take a light bump, but wouldn't hold up to a small child grabbing hold and yanking (or an overly excited labrador). With my older carpet and padding, the stands sit up on the spikes quite a bit, even at the lowest settings. They are however adjustable, so if anyone complaints about the overall height on carpet, please try adjusting your spikes (or replacing your carpet).In case anyone was still wondering, there are two stands in the package. I received all parts listed in the instructions, though the blister pack that contained them had been opened and resealed with tape. Most likely there was an early quality control issue with parts being left out and this was corrected in the factory before being shipped to distributors.The instructions are useless as it consists only of illustrations with no written instructions, but this is not rocket science. The screws all fit without splitting or excessive effort, which might have been another factory correction as I've heard other complain of splitting smaller holes. As others have stated, the most difficult part is installing the wire channel. The illustrations indicate bending the "film" for the channel and inserting both sides into the slits in the back of the stand. This is impossible, but there is an obvious that the way it needs to be done. Simply, leave the top unattached and slide the bottom edge of the film into the channel from the top and move it down slowly. I took my time and bent the film into the approximate shape and slid it down about 2-3", then I used one palm to keep pressure on the already inserted part (to keep it in the track) while using my other hand to squeeze and slide the rest of the film in 1-2" movements. I did not have any issues using this technique and highly recommend using pressure on the already inserted piece, because the finish on the back could be damaged if the film were to slip out. The pieces of film get very hard to install at the end, so I used a flat piece of wood to push it down the rest of the way. NOTE: there are two pieces of each size of film, and you need to use one of each size per stand. Total install time for both stands: 20-30 minutes.The neoprene pieces are small and should really be a little thicker to allow the speakers to sit up a little more for use with thicker speaker wire, but this is not a major concern.I have oily palms and I noticed that the finish on these stands show those oils, however some furniture polish should help give the stands a little more luster to reduce that effect.Given the options with these stands, I'd say it's an excellent value and well worth the extra time for installation. However, if your local UPS people are less than delicate with stuff, beware the packaging!