Buying a TV stand to match your television is often overlooked in terms of importance. Not only does your TV stand have to look good, it has to be suited to the size and style of your new TV, be it 32”, 50” or even bigger, as well as the weight, is it a brand new state of the art, light weight, thin LCD TV, a slightly older, slightly heavier LCD TV or a good old CRT television.

Design and Material

Design is normally number one on a buyers list when they shop for a new TV stand. How it looks and what material its made of are of great importance to how the stand is going to suit the room its going to be occupying for the foreseeable future. The last thing we want is for the stand to be totally out of place, a modern black glass TV stand in an old country cottage, or the opposite, a traditional oak TV stand in a ultra modern apartment. Clearly this is what we're trying to avoid. As unlikely as it seems, the materials and the construction even have an effect on picture quality. There are many of different details which we will be having a closer look at later.

Dimensions

While considering the design of your new TV stand you have to take into account the space that the stand is going to be occupying. If your 1 bedroom apartment isn't particularly big do you really want a 60” TV with a matching stand taking up all of the space in your living room? Of course the dimensions of the stand have to match that of the TV. A stand too narrow for your TV and you risk having your lovely TV end up on the floor when the stand buckles under the weight. Choose a stand that's too big and you lose out on all important living space. Although having a stand too big for your TV will make it the focal point of your room, should you wish it.

You have to take depth into account here as well, not so much with new LCD TVs, but with older CRT televisions you don't want the deep TV hanging off the front or back of the stand and risk it falling off, its fairly unsightly too.

Features

Most if not all LCD TVs come with the ability to be mounted on a wall, this is a potential feature of many designs. To have the effect of being wall mount but without drilling holes in your wall and having wires running all over the place is ideal. It also leaves you plenty of space on the TV stand for your DVD/Bluray player, games console Etc. Some stands come with multiple adjustable shelves which may be a bonus for you, maybe the amplifier you have for your surround sound system is taller than the average DVD player or maybe its the centre speaker of the surround sound system itself that's tall, will they fit on your stand? If the shelves can be moved it certainly will!

Another potential useful feature could be casters or wheels on the bottom of the stand. Perhaps you're having friends over for a party and the TV needs to be out of the way, either moved across the room or moved out the room entirely. Casters as going to save you a lot of trouble, moving the TV and everything that goes along with it in one move!

To set off the new fashionable gloss black television sets, there's nothing quite like a black glass TV stand. Elegant and classy! They look great in many surroundings, not least the popular minimalist décor of todays living rooms, where their simple understated design fits the bill perfectly while still remaining stylish.

Or your living space is a bit dark the black glass TV stand may be a little to much, this is where the equally stylish clear glass LCD TV stand comes into its own. Helping to keep the space light and making the most of what little light there is by not absorbing it all.

Once you decide what you are looking for there are some more points to consider. How many more pieces of AV equipment do you have that you need to store on your stand? DVD Player, Blu-Ray Player, Freeview Box, PVR, TiVo, Games Console, Surround Sound? The more items you have the more space you are going to need to store them all. So how many shelves do you need? Do they need to be adjustable to fit oversized items? And will having a slightly wider TV stand help you out?

Most glass TV stands come with 2 or more shelves, clearly the more gear you have, the more shelves you are going to want. Unless of course your LCD TV is wall mountable, then, in this case you might consider a stand with universal TV mount, then you can have your TV mounted or “floating” and use the remianing shelves for whatever equipment you use with your TV. The universal mount also allows you, in most cases, to tilt and swivel your TV to get it to the optimum viewing angle for wherever you are seated or standing. Maybe you're in the kitchen making dinner and cant quite see the TV, no matter, that extra tilt and swivel will help you out and stop you from missing that all important moment.

Almost all glass TV stands come with some sort of cable tidy feature to keep all those HDMI and SCART leads out of sight and keep your entertainment centre from looking like a bowl a spaghetti.

One more thing to consider is, if you have spent a lot of money on your home cinema equipment you are going to want the very most out of your purchases. Many mid to high range TV stands incorporate some sort of vibration reduction feature. This will ensure all of your gear is seated on a firm surface for a stable base and in turn perform to their maximum.