Another stand thread

[AnotherScott]

I use lots of heights for gigs. I set up differently for a sitting two-board gig than for a sitting one-board gig, and same for standing two-board gigs vs. one-board gigs. Sometimes, particularly on a one-board gig, I like the board up pretty high, and my throne is set up more like "stool-height." Sometimes I sit down at piano-bench height. When I stand, the same variations exists, plus things might be different depending if I'm wearing boots or chucks, or what I'm expecting to do with pedals (because if I'm standing closer, the board will be higher). So easily adjustable height is actually top of list for me.

Ah! Definitely no 18880 for you, then. The Knox stand I mentioned earlier is good for height adjustment, but it's only single-tier. Though as someone mentioned, it's possibly that something for some other stand might be attachable for a second tier. Or you could set up a pair of them, one behind the other.

 

What's your stand of choice?

[DJkeys]

Check the Thomann US prices for the K&M stands. I ordered the white Omega Pro plus two attachments from there despite the extra shipping--it still comes out much cheaper than any other retailer I found. Same with the Spider Pro and probably the baby spider.

 

As I mentioned above, beware ordering more than 800 dollars and/or anything that was produced in China...you'll be subject to customs inspections and a big import fee respectively. A K&M stand would fall into neither category.

 

Holy forking shirtballs I just checked and it's literally half the price. I ordered one and it says it'll be here by Friday!?! Too good to be true? We'll see when I get the confirmation E-mail. No idea how they can somehow have these at half price but you just seemingly solved my problem for now, so thank you.

 

Is that including shipping and VAT? I checked that too, and the advertised price was half as much as the US, but with shipping and VAT it was about the same-

 

-dj

[AnotherScott]

Is that including shipping and VAT? I checked that too, and the advertised price was half as much as the US, but with shipping and VAT it was about the same-

There's no VAT when shipping to the U.S., and their shipping is reasonable, it would probably be about $40, give or take.

[Bobadohshe]

Is that including shipping and VAT? I checked that too, and the advertised price was half as much as the US, but with shipping and VAT it was about the same-

There's no VAT when shipping to the U.S., and their shipping is reasonable, it would probably be about $40, give or take.

 

Yeah shipping was like $50 so it still comes out way way cheaper. But I am waiting for / dreading the 'your real shipping time will be February 2022' E-mail or something like that.

[Stokely]

The only way their shipping estimates could be accurate would be if they had the units in stock in the US. 3 of the 4 items in my original order said 2 days via ups express (iirc), and I'd be surprised if they were just throwing that out there.

 

Unfortunately that one little part is slowing up my whole order, but I have a few stands already so not a crisis.

[DJkeys]

Is that including shipping and VAT? I checked that too, and the advertised price was half as much as the US, but with shipping and VAT it was about the same-

There's no VAT when shipping to the U.S., and their shipping is reasonable, it would probably be about $40, give or take.

 

OK good to know. I never got that far in the cart-

 

-dj

[MathOfInsects]

What's your stand of choice?

 

I post about this topic all the time. I've spent thousands on stands over the years, and they all have some fatal flaw. The Z-stand is stable but destroys your car and fingers and the legs open during transport. Plus if you add a second tier they can barely be considered foldable. The columns are often unstable and also often overkill, and if you're sitting they also mean a pole at your knees and a post in your face--though are often the easiest to transport. The "V" is sexy AF and completely unusable. The table-tops are fine until you add a second tier, which is never in the right place. Also--why?? All they have to do all day at the factory is figure out the right place for a second tier. K&M table-top, either the height doesn't adjust easily, or the feet don't fold. Why?? (Ibid) Drum racks (e.g., the Pearl racks, not the Gibraltar ones, which IMO are too space- and time-hoggy) are the absolutely perfect keyboard stands based on weight and stability, but they either break down into too many pieces or function as grappling hooks if you don't.

 

I know people like the old Invisible stands but come on. That thing is like building a scaffold at every gig. And again...the feet don't fold. You need a whole separate bag just for the parts. Why??

 

After all these years and all those $$, I land out thinking the much-maligned X-stand is as close to the best compromise we have, until I make my own (which I'm closer to doing than ever). But even with the X-stands...2nd tier is a gangster. Again: why??

 

Right now I use X for one-board gigs and that &^&*%^&% K&M for most two-board gigs. I hate the K&M but tolerate the X. The K&M required probably $500+ total in investment plus I had to hack a fix for the second tier with a chisel and a drill. The X-stand cost maybe $60 and all I ever have to do is occasionally tighten the bolt near the locking mechanism to ensure it stays tight over time, which I could also probably not do and it would still be fine.

 

There's a moral in there.

[Stokely]

^ I could definitely have written that myself, with a slightly different choice of stands in one section. I did many a gig with my 2-tier Z and you nailed the issues with that one.

 

As I mentioned, I'm just too tall for X-stands unless someone makes a bigger one than any I've tried. There's definitely a lot to like--pretty stable (if you have a strap it literally can't collapse), super-portable and easy to set up and "tear down". My buddy has a red one made by ultimate support, it looks bigger and beefier to me than most so I need to take a closer look.

 

I also tried Standtastic, I know those are much beloved but it was a bit more work to set up than I like, and it was deeper than most stands which can be a problem at my mostly-tiny-stage gigs.

 

The worst stand I ever had was a Deltex, it managed to have all the disadvantages of column stands and be unstable if you pushed at certain angles, AND had separate parts AND had the feet that made it hard for pedals!

[Outkaster]

What's your stand of choice?

 

I post about this topic all the time. I've spent thousands on stands over the years, and they all have some fatal flaw. The Z-stand is stable but destroys your car and fingers and the legs open during transport. Plus if you add a second tier they can barely be considered foldable. The columns are often unstable and also often overkill, and if you're sitting they also mean a pole at your knees and a post in your face--though are often the easiest to transport. The "V" is sexy AF and completely unusable. The table-tops are fine until you add a second tier, which is never in the right place. Also--why?? All they have to do all day at the factory is figure out the right place for a second tier. K&M table-top, either the height doesn't adjust easily, or the feet don't fold. Why?? (Ibid) Drum racks (e.g., the Pearl racks, not the Gibraltar ones, which IMO are too space- and time-hoggy) are the absolutely perfect keyboard stands based on weight and stability, but they either break down into too many pieces or function as grappling hooks if you don't.

 

I know people like the old Invisible stands but come on. That thing is like building a scaffold at every gig. And again...the feet don't fold. You need a whole separate bag just for the parts. Why??

 

After all these years and all those $$, I land out thinking the much-maligned X-stand is as close to the best compromise we have, until I make my own (which I'm closer to doing than ever). But even with the X-stands...2nd tier is a gangster. Again: why??

 

Right now I use X for one-board gigs and that &^&*%^&% K&M for most two-board gigs. I hate the K&M but tolerate the X. The K&M required probably $500+ total in investment plus I had to hack a fix for the second tier with a chisel and a drill. The X-stand cost maybe $60 and all I ever have to do is occasionally tighten the bolt near the locking mechanism to ensure it stays tight over time, which I could also probably not do and it would still be fine.

 

There's a moral in there.

 

Good post. That's how I feel.

[16251]

What's your stand of choice?

 

I post about this topic all the time. I've spent thousands on stands over the years, and they all have some fatal flaw. The Z-stand is stable but destroys your car and fingers and the legs open during transport. Plus if you add a second tier they can barely be considered foldable. The columns are often unstable and also often overkill, and if you're sitting they also mean a pole at your knees and a post in your face--though are often the easiest to transport. The "V" is sexy AF and completely unusable. The table-tops are fine until you add a second tier, which is never in the right place. Also--why?? All they have to do all day at the factory is figure out the right place for a second tier. K&M table-top, either the height doesn't adjust easily, or the feet don't fold. Why?? (Ibid) Drum racks (e.g., the Pearl racks, not the Gibraltar ones, which IMO are too space- and time-hoggy) are the absolutely perfect keyboard stands based on weight and stability, but they either break down into too many pieces or function as grappling hooks if you don't.

 

I know people like the old Invisible stands but come on. That thing is like building a scaffold at every gig. And again...the feet don't fold. You need a whole separate bag just for the parts. Why??

 

After all these years and all those $$, I land out thinking the much-maligned X-stand is as close to the best compromise we have, until I make my own (which I'm closer to doing than ever). But even with the X-stands...2nd tier is a gangster. Again: why??

 

Right now I use X for one-board gigs and that &^&*%^&% K&M for most two-board gigs. I hate the K&M but tolerate the X. The K&M required probably $500+ total in investment plus I had to hack a fix for the second tier with a chisel and a drill. The X-stand cost maybe $60 and all I ever have to do is occasionally tighten the bolt near the locking mechanism to ensure it stays tight over time, which I could also probably not do and it would still be fine.

 

There's a moral in there.

 

I liked Ultimate Apex when I played GB. It set up easy and I could bungy to my 4-wheeler. My latest

Griffin Stand is a great value. I needed to add holes to second tier arms but at lowest setting my two boards are close enough and the thing is very sturdy. I also am cheap and made compromises for inexpensiveness. I paid $125. (I know I've talked about this in some other threads but I felt it was relevant to repeat responding to my similar experience as MathOfinsects.)

[Bobadohshe]

Great essay Mathofinsects.

[AnotherScott]

I know people like the old Invisible stands but come on. That thing is like building a scaffold at every gig. And again...the feet don't fold. You need a whole separate bag just for the parts. Why??

I have a number of Invisibles I've acquired over the years. The early ones (for a long time the only kind I had) disassembled into 5 pieces you put in a carrying bag, but the later ones collapsed into a single piece, no disassembly at all. Plus the height was adjusted with a standard bolt instead of a custom doohickey to get lost. A lot of people prefer the earlier ones, they were more rugged. (The tier spacing was different, too.) But once I had the later ones, I shifted to using those, for the near-instantaneous setup/breakdown, no bag, no pieces to misplace/forget. I did have some extra holes drilled to increase tier height flexibility. Ruggedness is not my top priority, since probably the heaviest board I put on them was about 28 lbs. Both versions were quite light, though.

 

As for all your "whys," yes, there are many to go around. I don't know why K&M makes it so hard to adjust the height on the 18880. The similar design (but single tier) Knox has an easy height adjustment that would have worked on the K&M. Or K&M could have used a system more like what was on those later Invisibles )not as good as what's on the Knox, but better than their current setup), or like what they use themselves for the variable height stackers on the very same stand. And why do the stackers have so little flexibility that numerous people end up modifying them? They couldn't drill some more holes?

 

Similarly, with what Stokely said about the Standastic, it could move and setup more easily with very minor design changes. Like, there are a couple of things you have to tighten with small wing nuts, which are easy to lose, and hard to get tight enough to maximize stability. Big knobs would be the way to go there. And its legs can just dangle and sway uncontrollably until you lock them in, which is awkward when carrying. There's velcro, but it's insufficient. They could use, if not some kind of clasp mechanism, then maybe at least a better velcro implementation, just to keep things solid until you're ready to plant it into place. Yeah, they give you a carry bag. But you still may have to carry it after you take it out of the bag, and put it back into the bag when you're done, which is going to be annoying if its legs are akimbo. Plus honestly, I don't even like the extra time and stage clutter that accompanies putting a stand in and out of a bag. It should be able to be transported on its own. Also, each tier has little extendable arms, which have a goofy design. Still, it has a lot to recommend it, and some of its shortcomings can probably be more easily addressed than can the shortcomings of some other stands which, if they can be addressed at all, would require power tools. If you don't care about placing boards more "behind" than "above" the ones below, I think it's probably the best option, better than the center column style in terms of support (since boards are supported at the sides) and, at least compared to some of them, having advantages of being lighter and not having to actually totally remove any pieces when moving.

 

If you need easy height adjustment on a 2-tier system, I think my best suggestion would be to get a pair of the Knox stands I mentioned and just set a higher one up behind a lower one. A nice advantage over X-stands is that the width (which you can adjust) remains constant no matter how you set the height.

[MathOfInsects]

Once you're bringing a second stand, you might as well have one stand that breaks into multiple pieces. Plus that takes up twice the stage depth and probably four times the overall real estate of a second tier attached to a single stand.

 

If the shortcomings with a stand can only be fixed by adding a second one of them, it's already failed me beyond redemption.

[DJkeys]

The 18880 with the 18881 stacker is the lightest stand yet, and foldable. I never have to adjust the height. Setting it up the first time was a PIA, though-

 

-dj

[AnotherScott]

Once you're bringing a second stand, you might as well have one stand that breaks into multiple pieces.

I suppose that could be true, if the stand that breaks into multiple pieces breaks into two. If it breaks into three or four, then it again becomes the worse option from that perspective. Also, there's the variable of not just how many pieces, but how much time/effort is needed to assemble them.

 

But if you want to stick with one piece, you might want to keep an eye out for the later style (all-in-one) Invisible. The reasons I thought you might perfer the pair-o'-Knox is that the height adjustment requires no tools, and can be done super fast (hand loosen knob, pull, lift tier into new position, release, hand tighten knob, then repeat for the other side). The later Invisible isn't bad, but you need a small wrench to loosen/remove the nut, then you pull out the bolt, place the tier at the preferred position, insert the bolt, and screw on the nut, then repeat for the other side. It's still pretty quick (you could probably do it in under a minute), but you do need a tool, and could conceivably drop/lose a nut or bolt if you're not careful. And in a sense, I suppose you could say that having to travel with a wrench means it really has two pieces after all, the stand and the wrench.

 

(Though now that I think of it, you could probably replace the nuts with wing nuts that wouldn't require bringing a wrench.)

 

Plus that takes up twice the stage depth and probably four times the overall real estate of a second tier attached to a single stand.

Not at all. The legs of one Knox can largely be placed "within" the legs of the other, so it requires very little additional stage space.

 

If you want to put the top board "high and over" the bottom board (as you would on a Stay, Standtastic, A-Frame, Spider, most if not all 2-tier X-stands, etc,), the second Knox adds only about 2" of depth to the stands' footprint, see the feet in this image:

 

 

If you prefer the "Invisible" approach of placing the upper board more "low and behind" the bottom board, then you'd have to pull the second stand further back, something like this, which still isn't bad:

 

 

Maximum width is about 34.5" (I was not nearly at that in the above pix), and width is continuously adjustable, so if you had set your bottom to the full 34.5" wide, your top tier could have a width of anything you'd want up to about 32". At any rate, the second stand adds no additional width to your footprint, only depth, and even then, certainly nowhere near twice the stage depth as you feared.

 

But it still had its limitations. The Knox maximum "lockable" height is 38 inches (though it is still quite stable at 39"), which may not be high enough in some situations (minimum height for the bottom tier is 27.5). The stand weighs about 9.5 lbs, so a pair of them is 19 lbs, which isn't bad but certainly isn't the lightest two tiers you could find.

 

OTOH, these stands are only about $50 each, that's a perk too.

 

Also, though, someone mentioned that you might be able to use some other company's second-tier attachment on one of these, which might solve your whole issue with them.

[MathOfInsects]

I am very OCD about your missing end cap on the front stand.

 

The "two stand" option is 100% not for me. There is no spin that will get it there. The only way I can adjust the top tier is by moving the whole stand out, adding all that foot-depth to my set-up? And it can never be tilted, unless maybe I want to tilt an entire stand? Unworkable for me. And if companies made usable second tiers for X-type stands, I wouldn't need the Knox (or its ilk) in the first place. That's my whole gripe: all day long, all they have to do at the factory is develop a practical second tier. And yet all they do is make too-deep and too-fixed options that are not easily hackable for long-term use.

 

I do like the stone you chose for your floor though.

[AnotherScott]

I am very OCD about your missing end cap on the front stand.

LOL, yeah, I lose them a lot. I have an X that lost all 8. But sometimes they turn up, too.

 

The only way I can adjust the top tier is by moving the whole stand out, adding all that foot-depth to my set-up?

Cup half empty or half full. Adjusting the top tier can also mean moving the whole stand in from your start point, removing that foot-depth from your setup. ;-) Seriously, total (two-unit) foot depth in my first pic is 22 inches. The K&M 18880 is 23.5", the Invisible is 27". I'm not sure, but I think the two-tier Standtastic has the same foot depth as the three-tier, which is a whopping 32" and is indeed a complaint that people have about them. But the point is, you've got a good deal of leeway in the placement of that second Knox that still results in smaller depth footprint than a number other 2-tier possibilities.

 

And it can never be tilted, unless maybe I want to tilt an entire stand? Unworkable for me.

Ah, a new wrinkle, tilt! Yeah, if you need tilt, the double-Knox won't do. Invisible isn't a great option there either, though at least the early models came with rubber pieces you could attach to the tiers for rear lift. But still, awkward and limited. So I hereby withdraw my suggestions. ;-)

 

I generally haven't used tilt. Lots of stands either have no tilt, or they have some fixed tilt. Ones that let you vary tilt sometimes do it badly, e.g. making it hard to get the left and right supports to have the exact same amount of tilt. Standastic does it well. Pros and cons...

 

I do like the stone you chose for your floor though.

Thanks. Came with the house. I assume it's original from when it was built in the 60s.

[MathOfInsects]

The cup is completely empty! It's upside down under a frat-house couch. I'm not bringing two stands--the whole point of a stand, is not to be two stands. It's in the Bible.

 

The search continues. Until I make mine. I actually have a concept in mind now.

[MathOfInsects]

Also, I used to have both Invisibles, back when they were present-tense, like 30 years ago. The non-scaffold one was a dangly disaster of Testris-style reverse engineering. Both versions are like Miss South Carolina: pretty but dumb.

[AnotherScott]

The non-scaffold one was a dangly disaster

Ah yes, it does have some of that dangle problem I mentioned in the context of the Standtastic, though not as badly. But... yeah.

 

One thing I think K&M got right with their 18880 based system is that all the tier surfaces are squared off rather than being round tubes. The greater contact area increases the surface tension between the stand and the board (which could help stability when side-swiping on a light board like a VR09), plus you can more easily solidly clamp things to it (like my nifty new iPad stand) and velcro things to it (to further stabilize a light board, or to add small pieces of wood to act as lifts). Which reminds me...

 

For those who have trouble getting their K&M second-tier stacker as close to their bottom board as they want it to be without modifying the stacker (or possibly still even after modifying the stacker), an easier solution could be to look at it from that other angle. Instead of trying to get the stacker to go lower, you can use some cut pieces of wood to get the bottom board to go higher. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out. Here's a photo:

 

 

The upper tier here is as low as it can go without substantial modification (which would also remove its ability to ever tilt). But in this pic, I've further reduced the vertical distance between boards with a small velcro-able piece of wood (which you could also rotate so that the thinner side facing the camera was instead on bottom, which would create a higher platform if need be). You could leave it attached for transport, so you're not adding more pieces. And if that makes your bottom board too high, you can do a one-time nuisance adjustment to lower the height of the 18880 to compensate.

 

It's the kind of thing you can't really do if your support pieces are rounded instead of squared off.

 

BTW, having started with a black stand, I would recommend the silver. Once the black starts getting banged around, paint will chip, and parts will turn silver anyway. If you start with silver, it will look fresher even after it gets banged around, without having to bother with something like touchup paint.

[MathOfInsects]

Or--and I know this is crazy talk--for $200 they could make the damn thing work right without anyone having to chop a 1-by and velcro it to their expensive smug-ass German keyboard stand in order for it perform the most baseline function a stand is supposed to do.

 

#heresy

[AnotherScott]

Or--and I know this is crazy talk--for $200 they could make the damn thing work right without anyone having to chop a 1-by and velcro it to their expensive smug-ass German keyboard stand in order for it perform the most baseline function a stand is supposed to do.

Well in all fairness, I can kind of give them this one. The issue is getting the stacker tier super close to the lower tier. And yes, the stacker should have more holes in it, to make it easier to solidly go even just as low as you see it in that pic. But beyond that, the issue is that the stacker can't go any lower than that and still be able to tilt, and folks like me want it super low, but folks like you want it to tilt. I'm not sure how you design one stacker that can do both. The answer here might not be to "make the damn thing work right," but rather, offer two different versions of the stackers... ones that don't tilt but go as low as you could ever want, and others that have the mechanism and clearance to be able to tilt but then, necessarily, can't go as low. The only way I got one set to go as low as I wanted was to have someone cut off the tilt part. (Then again, I'm no engineer...)

[El Lobo]

Still haven't gigged my Hamilton stand but I set it up with my 2 new On Stage mini stands for the speakers. Pic attached. There is another thread asking about the mini stands. In the pic, one stand has a QSC K8 on it and the other has a JBL Eon One Compact. They're at the lowest height which is just about perfect. You can see that the bottom legs can be closer together or wider apart depending on how far out you want to spread them.

[16251]

Once you're bringing a second stand, you might as well have one stand that breaks into multiple pieces.

I suppose that could be true, if the stand that breaks into multiple pieces breaks into two. If it breaks into three or four, then it again becomes the worse option from that perspective. Also, there's the variable of not just how many pieces, but how much time/effort is needed to assemble them.

 

But if you want to stick with one piece, you might want to keep an eye out for the later style (all-in-one) Invisible. The reasons I thought you might perfer the pair-o'-Knox is that the height adjustment requires no tools, and can be done super fast (hand loosen knob, pull, lift tier into new position, release, hand tighten knob, then repeat for the other side). The later Invisible isn't bad, but you need a small wrench to loosen/remove the nut, then you pull out the bolt, place the tier at the preferred position, insert the bolt, and screw on the nut, then repeat for the other side. It's still pretty quick (you could probably do it in under a minute), but you do need a tool, and could conceivably drop/lose a nut or bolt if you're not careful. And in a sense, I suppose you could say that having to travel with a wrench means it really has two pieces after all, the stand and the wrench.

 

(Though now that I think of it, you could probably replace the nuts with wing nuts that wouldn't require bringing a wrench.)

 

Plus that takes up twice the stage depth and probably four times the overall real estate of a second tier attached to a single stand.

Not at all. The legs of one Knox can largely be placed "within" the legs of the other, so it requires very little additional stage space.

 

If you want to put the top board "high and over" the bottom board (as you would on a Stay, Standtastic, A-Frame, Spider, most if not all 2-tier X-stands, etc,), the second Knox adds only about 2" of depth to the stands' footprint, see the feet in this image:

 

 

If you prefer the "Invisible" approach of placing the upper board more "low and behind" the bottom board, then you'd have to pull the second stand further back, something like this, which still isn't bad:

 

 

Maximum width is about 34.5" (I was not nearly at that in the above pix), and width is continuously adjustable, so if you had set your bottom to the full 34.5" wide, your top tier could have a width of anything you'd want up to about 32". At any rate, the second stand adds no additional width to your footprint, only depth, and even then, certainly nowhere near twice the stage depth as you feared.

 

But it still had its limitations. The Knox maximum "lockable" height is 38 inches (though it is still quite stable at 39"), which may not be high enough in some situations (minimum height for the bottom tier is 27.5). The stand weighs about 9.5 lbs, so a pair of them is 19 lbs, which isn't bad but certainly isn't the lightest two tiers you could find.

 

OTOH, these stands are only about $50 each, that's a perk too.

 

Also, though, someone mentioned that you might be able to use some other company's second-tier attachment on one of these, which might solve your whole issue with them.

 

Those images hurt my eyes (just my opinion.)

[AnotherScott]

Those images hurt my eyes (just my opinion.)

The 3D figures collapse awkwardly to 2D. If you don't "see" it right, I can easily imagine someone thinking these stands were design by M.C. Escher. The pics do illustrate what I was trying to say about the depths and heights, but yeah, the rest can look kind of whacky in 2D.

[DJkeys]

Thanks to all of the users here for the help in this "Another Stand Thread" and others as well.

 

I bought the 18880 and 18881 and did the following:

 

Adjusted the height (permanently, I always stand while playing) so that the actual keyboard is 35 1/2 inches high (I'm 5' 8")

 

Drilled extra holes in the 18881 so it could be as close as possible to the 18880, added a small 10 degree tilt for comfort

 

Cut three inches off the 18881 arms so that the top board does not cover the controls of the bottom board

 

Hammered in the base part of the On Stage mic adapter (it was worn so it went in easily and will never come out)

 

Added high quality weather stripping so that neither boards slip at all.

 

Even without the crossbar the stand is very stable and does not move while playing

 

Thanks again for all of the great information!

[AnotherScott]

added a small 10 degree tilt for comfort

I assume you mean you selected the appropriate tilt from the various positions available on the stacker. I mean, there was no hardware modification required for this, right?

 

Cut three inches off the 18881 arms so that the top board does not cover the controls of the bottom board

Yeah, I cut my 18882 shorter as well. I know, they have to accomodate longer boards, but for those of us using shallow boards, the excess length can just get in the way. At least aluminum cuts easily! I leave my 18881 full length, because I just flip it backwards anyway.

 

Added high quality weather stripping so that neither boards slip at all.

Again, the squared off rather than round support tiers make this kind of thing easier and more effective.

 

Despite its shortcomings or ways it could be better, to me, it's still usually the best 2-tier option. The light weight, the flexibility, the stability, the move-in-one-piece design, all make it pretty unbeatable... and to the extent that you wish to make changes, mods aren't as prohibitive to make as they can often be on other stands. But yeah, they fall down in one area... the ability to easily vary the height of the bottom tier, it's too much of a project. Oh, and yeah, it's pricey here in the U.S.

[DJkeys]

 

I assume you mean you selected the appropriate tilt from the various positions available on the stacker. I mean, there was no hardware modification required for this, right?

 

Correct, the second hole appears to be 10 degrees

 

Yeah, I cut my 18882 shorter as well. I know, they have to accomodate longer boards, but for those of us using shallow boards, the excess length can just get in the way. At least aluminum cuts easily! I leave my 18881 full length, because I just flip it backwards anyway.

 

Right, cutting and drilling holes in aluminum is much easier than steel.

 

Again, the squared off rather than round support tiers make this kind of thing easier and more effective.

 

Despite its shortcomings or ways it could be better, to me, it's still usually the best 2-tier option. The light weight, the flexibility, the stability, the move-in-one-piece design, all make it pretty unbeatable... and to the extent that you wish to make changes, mods aren't as prohibitive to make as they can often be on other stands. But yeah, they fall down in one area... the ability to easily vary the height of the bottom tier, it's too much of a project. Oh, and yeah, it's pricey here in the U.S.

 

Most definitely agree. My old Baby Spider pro with all the jury rigged attachments weighs more than twice as much.

 

-dj

[MathOfInsects]

With the second tier you are probably in for close to three bills.

 

For three bills I don't expect to be buying a shop project. I want it to talk to me in German about Hegel while it cushions my keyboards in a cloud of watermelon-scented ether.

[AnotherScott]

With the second tier you are probably in for close to three bills.

 

For three bills I don't expect to be buying a shop project. I want it to talk to me in German about Hegel while it cushions my keyboards in a cloud of watermelon-scented ether.

I don't think it would be a shop project for you... because it looks to me like, with no modifications, it meets your specs EXCEPT for easily adjustable lower tier height, and I don't think THAT one can be fixed even with a shop project!