Hope Third Time's The Charm
I bought a 46" Samsung a few months ago and finally purchased the Bello PR-12 to allow me to house all my components in tandem with the TV and I bought the cabinet based, in part, on this review. I ordered it from Amazon.com and requested courier delivery but, somehow, they sent it UPS. Being that the box weighed 110 lbs, UPS rejected it and sent it back to Amazon. So I contacted Amazon and requested they do it right the second time around and send it via courier.
They sent it out the next day -- by UPS.
It arrived a day late (Friday) and the box looked about as damaged as the box in the photos contained here. But I hoped for little, if any, damage. I figured a small cosmetic blemish would be a non-issue and be the lesser of two evils (compared to having my equipment scattered all over my apartment).
Sure enough, I managed to open the box and the two front corners were damaged. So damaged, in fact, that the hinges were separated from the body and there were shards of espresso-colored wood-esque material all over the floor as I tore the box back.
After getting past the irritation, I called Bell'o and they told me to call Amazon regarding freight damage, which I did. I spoke to a supervisor (after about 20 minutes) and they told me to return the piece. I told them the box was ripped and torn up and the cabinet itself wouldn't even survive the trip. I was put on hold and when the supervisor returned to the line she told me to discard the cabinet -- after I offered to take pictures of all the damage -- and they would refund my money. I had two guys who work at my apartment building help me to get the cabinet out of the apartment because it was even more unwieldy with half the packaging around it.
When we tried to move it, it basically disintegrated.
Every piece of the cabinet came loose. The two glass doors, the front speaker-grille door, the top glass piece, the back, the bottom, everything.
It took about an hour or 90 minutes for us to collect all the pieces and get it into a wheeled garbage cart and out to the garbage area.
I ordered another unit from a local NYC carrier -- by COURIER -- and I am hoping the end result is better this third time around. I liked the color of the cabinet (it's not a shiny marbled color like the site shows) and it seems well built (if it's not abused by UPS). I still don't know if the center fabric-covered area is remote-friendly, but regardless, I think it seems well made and heavy, so I am just hoping it survives delivery and my eventual move (should be within a year). But the whole process is very disconcerting.
I also looked into Salamander and the Horizon N572 but for the money, this cabinet seems pretty solid. And down the line I'll mount the TV on the wall (in the mean time, it will sit on top of the unit). Everything seems really good about this product, so I'm hoping anyone reading this will avoid buying this type of cabinet from Amazon unless they ship via courier. They handled this situation as well as can be expected (except for the shipment) and I will buy from them again, but be careful when ordering something of this size from them and be diligent about the shipment and inspection of the receivables before signing anything.