The wood is a laminate but looks very good and is solid.  There are 8 shelves that rest on pegs.  There are holes for the pegs all the way from top to bottom so no shortage of available shelf positions.  I used 6 of them to have the correct height for 2 shelves of blu-rays and 4 shelves of dvd. I assume the 8 shelves would be about CD height if all were used. This is not an extremely deep unit and is rather tall so it is top and front heavy.  It will tip over on carpet with the doors open in some cases unless anchored.  It would probably be ok on hardwood with some weight in it.  I had to use screws from a jar to anchor to the wall as it did not come with any for that purpose.  Over all I am happy with the unit but in my opinion it would have been better an inch or two deeper, wider and shorter so it would be more stable on carpet.