This stand is affordable, attractive, stable enough for a turnatable and relatively non resonant. I was able to fill the supports with sand that further improved the unit.

Given the price I am not sure that these are really weaknesses but here are some observations on what could be better. 1. The shelves are quite solid and attractive but they are also quite slippery. I have used products like Black Diamond Racing cones to great effect in the past but at this point I am not sure that they mate well with the slick surface of these shelves. Further experimentation and listening is in order. 2. Filling the struts with sand was actually quite easy but I would suggest the manufacturer provide some kind of sealer to keep the sand in and instructions for the neophyte. 3. The design of this unit has metal rods which run from top to bottem. They are screwed into the underside of the top shelf and eventually pull the whole structure together when the feet are tightened. I think that this particular design could be improved with larger rods anchored from the top side of the top shelf. This would make the whole unit even more stable.

Many of the reviews of this manufacturers product have been less than enthusiastic. I believe that this is an excellent product for the price. The packaging of these unit seemed to be an issue but I can report that the Plateau XT-A4 audio rack that I purchased from General Audio was extremely well packaged. If this is the present standard I do not think that prospective purchasers should have any hesitation about the packaging. I had been looking for an affordable audio rack for a number of years. The Plateau stand caught my eye while I was auditioning a CD player. The unit seemed stable,non resonant and was very attractive. I have not been disappointed since bringing it home and placing it in my system. While this stand is not the ultimate stand it is very well designed and contructed. I am using it in a high end system and have found it to have a very pleasant sonic signature with both CD and analogue.

Similar Products Used:

I have not used other commercial products in my system although I have observed many of the available stands. Some of these like the Naim Fraim are awesome but very expensive. Others like the cheape

Quality furniture solution for a price consumers can afford

It can be time consuming to assemble. Product is not designed to ship UPS or overnight carriers.

As the National Sales Manager for PLATEAU I am deeply concerned with the reviews this product is receiving on this site. PLATEAU sells thousands of the MX-series products every year across the U.S., Canada, and some export countries and have very few calls for service parts or damages. If any of our customers have a problem with their PLATEAU product and call us directly, that phone call gets channelled through my office and I deal with it personally. If David, Tom or Eric would like to have their issues resolved they can call me anytime. I know our competitors product as well as anybody, and can assure all audio enthusiasts that every manufacturer has an unsatisfied customer somewhere in the world.

I appreciate hearing their reviews and apologize to them for their experience with the PLATEAU product line. I encourage all you audio enthusiasts to try PLATEAU, it truly is agreta product for a very reasonable price.

Thanks

Steve

Similar Products Used:

Atlantis, Bell 'Oggetti, Premier, Sanus, Target, Lovan, Contours

I too am quite disappointed with Plateau's construction. It's not that sturdyespecially my 6 shelf audio rack, and it's poorly constructed. The shelves
chip easily and all but 1 shelf out of a total of 9 were chipped directly from
the factory (no damage to the boxes.) I think the reason for this is horrible
packaging job (Plateau: did you ever hear of bubble wrap??)

Now my real complaint is for the lack of quality control on the stuff. I bought
the matching TV stand and there weren't any holes drilled for the support brace.
No biggie, so I took out the DeWalt and drilled 4 holes in the shelf only to
find out the metal support brace was missing 1 of the 4 access holes/screw
holes!! Ended up drilling that and instead of a 2 hour assembly job it ended up
taking over 4 hours!

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS STUFF! Yes, it "looks" nice, but in reality it's
not worth it even if you get it cheap like I did. Spend the extra money and
either go with Premier Racks or something nicer like Target. You won't regret
spending the extra money after closely examining the Plateau stuff. I highly
don't recommend this stuff as you will be severly disappointed with the
quality.

I also hope Plateau takes note of this and cleans up there quality control.

stability,looks,price

none

I bought a Plareau Z4A in 1995 and it is a great product.The shelf brackets are welded and it is solid.Great price for a great product.
Flash ahead 7 years.I need a new rack and wanted very much to buy a Plateau DS-6A.My local dealer no longer sells Plateau and Plateau will not answer my e-mails.Am unable to find a dealer or other source for rack.
Decided,after many recommendations,to buy Vantage Point.
Soooo long Plateau.

Keith

Okay, here's my contribution after having used this great web site for input on different products as I upgraded my system.
I'm generally disappointed with Plateau's system, a modular product of "melamine" (thick, heavy, coated particle board) shelves, finished steel brackets for the shelves, and finished steel rod-and-bolt sleeve/posts. While it looks good, it was overpriced considering the Canadian/U.S. exchange rate, near completion lacked some the of hardware (nuts and screws) required for assembly, and had an incomprehensible assembly instruction sheet.

I chose this product because it appeared to serve my needs at an affordable price. But it took three evenings of assembly to complete this simple set of shelves. Some pilot screw holes were incorrectly aligned, longer screws were missing, a reinforcing bracket for video shelf was bent and shoddy, and required locking nuts were short by three. Rather than hold up final installation for added weeks, I chose to eliminate a shelf that I did not need, and now it's completed and operative.

Materials overall are satisfactory, but Plateau needs to improve its quality control and assembly instructions. "Wire management" on this product turns out to be nothing more than plastic panels with punchout holes which are supposed to add strength by "triangulation", according to the instructions.

On completion this product is performing well, although is a bit wobbly. I chose the most attractive product for the money I wished to spend, but in retrospect I feel I was overcharged. Customers wanting a functional, attractive stand at a moderate price should exhaust all options before going the Plateau route.

BTW this Canadian company does not have a web site.

NA

NA

This company DOES have a website - www.plateaucorp.com

Do a little more research next time..

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NA

Looks great when assembled. Flexible system that allows infinite configurations/setups.

Packaging from the factory is it's achilles heel. Assembly takes a while due to the modular nature of the system (needs to be built up level by level)

As many of the reviewers here have stated, my shelves too came severely damaged, either from the factory or while shipped. And I completely concur with the cause: TERRIBLE packaging. Really, really inadequate for something of this cost and weight. Plateau guys: go to Ikea and buy a few pieces of assemble-yourself furniture. Study the packaging carefully, and make the necessary changes. MDF/Vinyl is a fairly fragile material, it should be packaged as such.

I called Markertek, and they immediately (with some prodding) sent me another box and arranged for pickup of my damaged goods. I got lucky, and the damage to my second set was tolerable (just a few corners dinged a bit.)

Once setup (which was somewhat time consuming), I really like this rack. I haven't had to move it to another house yet, but I am concerned that moving it would best be done by completely disassembling it.

It does stand

construction

I agree that Plateau racks are horrible. I purchased one of their racks because they looked nice and they were cheap. Most of the shelves came chipped and scratched. I was also missing numerous parts for the assembly. Calling Plateau was annoying because they said it would take 2-3 weeks to send me the correct parts and get this, they would not guarantee that the parts they were sending would be free of scratches. They were right, when I finally received a couple replacement shelves, they were just as bad.
Let me say that I am not terribly picky. I understand that some nicks might occur during shipping, but we are talking about gashes in the shelves as well as many missing pieces.
I highly recommend buying from a different manufacturer. I hate giving this a 1 star, I wish there was something lower. I recommend buying a Target, Bellogetti, or any other manufacturer. I don't feel anyone should buy Plateau products. If you don't have enough money to buy a better rack, then save. It will be worth it.

Price, flexibility, styling

Appalling packaging

About 3 months ago I purchased a Vantage Point Euro four shelf audio rack from Audio Advisor. The product arrived a couple of days later. I was amazed at the amount and quality of the packing material. This thing could have fallen off of the delivery van between stops and would have come out unscathed. I was later disappointed when I found that they didn't manufacture an audio/video rack that met the needs of my new home theater. About two weeks ago I was thumbing through the latest J&R Music World catalog and saw a picture of the rack I had been searching for, the Plateau/Camber MX-1. Just what the doctor ordered. I placed the order (with a whopping $105 delivery charge!) and it arrived this past Monday (10 July). The boxes had the usual small surface scrapes and tears, but looked pretty good nonetheless. Well, I was shocked when I began to open the first of the three boxes. Ultra thin cardboard and a few small pieces of Styrofoam were all that was protecting my substantial investment from the moving van. Plateau uses the lower half of a cardboard egg carton to keep the nuts and bolts together. There was no plastic wrap surrounding this "container" so all of the pieces were scattered about. Because they were scattered throughout the box, they completely destroyed the finish of the top shelf during transit. Also, since there is only Styrofoam on portions of the top and bottom of the box, there is no protection for the corners. This product is made from MDF surrounded by vinyl. Because there was nothing to protect the corners during shipping, they were almost completely rounded by the time it got to my house. The following two smaller boxes revealed the same problems. I have no way of knowing how well this product looks or performs due to the fact that the packaging was so extremely bad. I'm really disappointed because I now have to go through the painful steps of getting this product returned to J&R. Of course they will try and blame the movers, but to be honest, the blame should be directed only at Plateau. I haven't decided to completely abandon this rack as J&R promises that if I decide to replace (and not return) this rack that the next one will arrive on one piece (yeah right). Maybe Steve Gairns should try to have his product shipped to him. Maybe he won't rush so quickly to defend it. Overall rating unknown.

Similar Products Used:

Vantage Point Euro EAW409-B Four Shelf Rack