Entertainment center

An entertainment center (or centre), also known as an entertainment complex, is a piece of furniture designed to house consumer electronic appliances and components, such as televisions. A TV stand is usually a smaller item of furniture, large enough to support an average television of the 1970s or 1980s (with a boxy footprint), often with some additional media components in a cabinet below, such as a stereo amplifier or a DVD player. These were often made of wood and equipped with casters. Wheels allowed access to the cabling from behind, access for cleaning behind and beneath, and permitted temporary relocation of the television for specific viewing scenarios. As televisions became larger, they became unwieldy to move, and less in need of being moved due to better viewing at distance; also becoming at the same time much thinner, and more suited to permanent fixture. During this transition, TV stands gave way to entertainment centers in many homes. A stereo console (or "console stereo," as it was sometimes called) is a stereo system containing audio components (such as a stereo record changer, tape deck, and a stereo FM radio) housed into a stand-alone cabinet, as was popular in the 1960s and into the 1970s. A stereo consolette (as identified by one of its manufacturers from that period, Delmonico/Nivico) is a smaller, more compact stereo console that often stands on splayed legs. The corresponding term for console in British English is radiogram. During the 1970's, some stereo manufacturers began designing more lavish and flashy systems to coincide with the psychedelic and disco eras from that decade. Such as was the case when the New York stereo manufacturer Morse-Electro Products produced some of their units with a built-in light organ display. The multicolored lights in the display would flash to the rhythm of the music being played on the system. Stereo consoles would ultimately be replaced by high-fidelity component stereo systems with separate speakers (sometimes called "rack systems") in the late 1970s, which offered much higher performance without being attached to furniture or being tied to one brand of equipment.