The most flexible TV wall mounts are cantilever wall mounts. Cantilevers allow offer the full range of movement from your TV; pulling out and pushing flat against the wall, tilting forward and backwards and turning from left to right. It’s no surprise then that they’re also known as ‘
The type of cantilever required for your TV will vary on a number of things, including the type of wall you are looking to mount it on, your TV’s size and weight, whether your TV is VESA compatible, and your own personal preference.
In this article I’ll be looking at the cantilever wall mount that I use for my 46″ LCD TV at home, which uses two diamond shaped arms to bring the TV away from the wall – i.e. when fully extended, the arms move together to form an ‘I’ shape, when half extended they form a ” shape and when flat, form a ‘-‘ shape.
TV wall mounts are made to fit a minimum and maximum TV size, generally around a range of 15 inches. In this case, TV wall mounts that fit 46″ TVs will generally be capable of hanging the range of 40 – 65″. Of course, a 65″ TV is extremely big, so it’s unsurprising then that the cantilever bracket itself is also very large. In this case, the wall fixing plate is almost two feet wide and the bracket itself weighs around 15kg and is capable of holding up to 100kg in weight.
It’s unsurprising then that cantilevers of this size do not fold completely flat against the wall due to the size of armature required, so investigate the ‘flat size’ you will require before purchasing your TV wall mount.
Once up, the cantilever offers an amazing range of movement. It’s incredibly easy to pull the TV almost three feet out and turn it at a 90 degree angle to the wall, allowing me to watch from my kitchen over 30 feet away while I’m cooking.
It also makes for comfortable repositioning when guests are over. I often find that as a guest, sitting on a different sofa or armchair makes for a steep angle viewing angle, especially with LCD TV’s whose non-distorted viewing angles tend to be quite narrow. The cantilever TV wall mount offers a great compromise, allowing the TV to be easily moved in-between the two seats for comfortable and shared viewing.
Finally, the cantilever wall mount easily accommodates glare. By pulling two tabs at the back of the wall mount the user can adjust the
While cantilever wall mounts are more expensive than simpler TV wall mounts, for me, the additional flexibility makes them far more effective fixings for your TV and will allow much more comfortable TV viewing. In my opinion, a cantilever wall mount should be the preferred choice over any TV fixing except those requiring very flat profiles on open walls where the TV bracket can be seen on a day to day basis.