Rating : – A tad flimsy
I bought 2 sets of these to mount a 28 pound center channel speaker along with a wooden shelf to hold the speaker. I figured with 4 individual brackets it would be plenty sturdy. Boy was I wrong! After getting the brackets mounted directly to wall studs and laying the wooden shelf (14 pounds) on the brackets, the darn things were already bending downward. I hadn’t even put the speaker on them yet. This meant that each bracket couldn’t even handle a load of 3.5 pounds. No way the speaker will go up. After mulling this over a day or so, I figured the problem was due to the extension feature of the bracket – You can extend the brackets out quite a bit. It is when they are fully extended that they get really flimsy. I had them fully extended but I needed them that way support the wide shelf as I wanted to get the center speaker as close to the front of the TV as possible. These brackets are rated at full extension but I don’t believe it – If I had added the speaker, it would have collapsed onto the floor – No question. Even without the shelf. In fact, I think the 14 pound shelf would have eventually come down.

My solution: I kept the brackets but reinforced them by adding support struts underneath. I kept the 4 brackets on the wall in the extended position and added 2 struts that I fabricated in my garage. The struts attach to the bottom of the wood shelf towards the front of the shelf, that then angle down and back to attach directly to the wall studs. I used 3 foot long pieces of 3/4″ aluminum U channel that I bought from Home Depot and spent 1 hour cutting, drilling, fabricating and painting black. This gives the shelf the outboard support that the brackets themselves were not capable of providing. I have an older rear projection HDTV that luckily had an angle back that allowed me to use the struts.

It is ridgid and sturdy now and probably capable of holding much more weight but I can sleep at night knowing the whole kit N kaboodle won’t come crashing down on someone.

I strongly suggest you steer clear of these unless you are using them with the extension feature retracted all the way and even then I would push a 20 pound load. Yes – I am using them now but only after reinforcing them significantly. I am on unhappy with the product but they are not capable of holding the weight as advertised.

Rating : – Quality control needed
For the price, these wall mount brackets are a good choice for mounting a big and heavy center channel speaker. I recommend you screw them into wall studs for best results. The problem with the set of brackets I received is that when the brackets are extended all the way out, they are no longer level, they twisted a bit which made the speaker sit crooked on them. By using the rubber pieces included in the kit, I was able to level the speaker out enough so that it was not noticeable. So the quality has room for improvement.