Plateau DS-6A Racks & Stands
Plateau DS-6A Racks & Stands
USER REVIEWS
[May 07, 2003]
Andy
AudioPhile
Strength:
Looks great. Can hold large and heavy equipment.
Weakness:
Poor instructions. Hardware should stay together. Not easy to put together, mainly due to difficulty reaching screws that connect the shelves to the side supports. Right after I purchased my Plateau DS-6A I read the negative review above, and I was scared that I bought a p.o.s. Nevertheless, I was still excited to see it arrive and I opened it right up (the pictures do look good). The DS-6A comes in two boxes, one for the metal side supports and another for the shelves. The supports are also wrapped in plastic, and it's a good thing, because the little hardware bag was not very secure and I had bolts and things strewn along the bottom of the plastic surrounding the supports. Nothing was missing, luckily, but right off the bat I wasn't feeling good about my purchase. After I unboxed and unwrapped everything, I looked over the instructions. You can make sense of them, but I feel for a $260 stereo rack they should actually type up some instructions. All that is included is a couple of pictures showing where everything goes, no descriptions or written guides whatsoever. Strike two, and my feelings worsen. The rack does look good though, and the faux-cherry finish I got looks pretty nice, so I started building it. I pounded the front piece right in, as you should. It holds the two supports together, and the "feet" cannot be adjusted properly if the nuts are on the inside of the supports, so make sure you screw the nuts onto the feet all the way, and then screw the feet into the bottom of the supports. I had some problems installing the shelves, and figured out the best way for me. My drill wouldn't fit, so I pre-drilled the already small holes that are on the bottom of the shelves so I could use a phillips wrench to quickly tighten the shelves to the supports. All the shelves fit great, until the last one. I had turned the DS-6A upside down and installed the top shelf first, and so on, so I could use more leverage. The last shelf, which for me happened to be the bottom shelf, was crooked due to the holes from the factory being off. Because it was my bottom shelf, I just left it. It was only off about 1/8 of an inch and the connector piece on the bottom hid it. Every other shelf fit great. I would suggest test fitting the shelves to make sure the holes line up, and if they don't you can drill new ones or do what I did. Once I had it together, I flipped it over and set my stereo equipment in it. I was worried my receiver wouldn't fit... I have a Sony DA-5ES, and it's fairly big and heavy. It fit just fine, a little snug, but it looks great on the rack. The rack really looks as great as it did in the pictures, and I did not notice any wobble that I feel is beyond normal. Most of the racks I have been around wobble a little. The DS-6A feels sturdy to me. To conclude, I am happy with my purchase. It looks great and all of my equipment fits. It is a bit of a pain to build, but I would do it again. |
[Feb 19, 2003]
jdarius63
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
It's black.
Weakness:
Poorly designed, difficult to assemble, shoddy craftsmanship, and in the end, too wobbly to serve its intended purpose. Every once in a while, you purchase a product so shoddy, that you actually feel dirty and ashamed to have spent your money so foolishly. The Plateau DS-6A is such a product. The pictures on their website look great. Stylish, right? First off, the product is so poorly designed, assembling it is a much bigger chore than it should be. Many of the holes in the cheap particle board shelves are misaligned. The instructions have you pounding a front plate into place (I had to use a rubber mallet and all my strength to seat it), only to show in the next step that in order to install the feet, you need to have access to the area that you just sealed up with the plate. Oh, and each "foot" consists of a nut and a bolt. And the holes intop which these bolts need to be installed are the wrong size. Finally, it's so wobbly that the idea of placing $4000 woth of AV equipment on it makes me laugh. $260 for THIS? I'm sending it back. |