My fiancee and I are moving into a new apartment soon. One of the things that I like about the apartment is that they have fairly strict management (I'm tired of college kids leaving beer bottles around and having egg fights). One of the drawbacks, however, is that I don't believe I want to go drilling holes in my walls to mount speakers. That means I have to come up with some other option. I'm thinking speaker stands are the way to go.

So, my questions are:
1) How high should my speakers be (mains and rears)? Most speaker stands I've seen come up about 1 or 2 feet. Is that high enough? My center channel has to sit on top of my tv, which puts it about 5 feet high.
2) Is it a problem to use some sort of shelving (like what you can buy at Organize Living)? Every speaker stand I've seen has had a pretty narrow platform on it. My mains are JBL S36II's, which are fairly pretty wide speakers. Has anybody used shelving to place their speakers on?

Please, any help would be appreciated.

you can use shelving, it's really not going to make that much of a difference in sound. You want everything to be at listening level though so don't put the shelves TOO high.. I now have my rears on 2 small shelves (seems to be working fine) and my fronts on speaker stands..

this is the stand I use for my fronts except I cut them down to even up the speakers with the tv..

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/product/...42BSL/REG/1788

In terms of positioning, the Front L/R s/d be located so the tweeters are approximately at ear height when seated; they s/d also be w/in +/- 2 feet of the height of the Center speaker. The Rears s/d be positioned at least 3 feet above ear level when seated.

The height of the stands required depends on the speakers—stands are available in many different styles/heights/platform sizes to accommodate a wide variety of speakers. www.audioadvisor.com has a good selection.