Manfrotto 269HDBU Super Giant Stand BK

This stand is exactly what I needed to be able to put my microphones at great heigth, in a stable manner. The leg collar is pretty low, so you can even set it up for a concert where visual distraction needs to be limited to a minimum.

Inside the bottom of each section there is a strong spring that is meant to protect the tripod from banging down when you loosen the locks. I had to remove them from the stand, as they would produce a ringing sound at certain strong organ tones. Removal was quite easy: each collar can be loosened with an Allen wrench and then you can take apart that section. If you keep the stand upside down the spring will fall out of it. Just be careful that your fingers will not get squashed between the section collars after you have removed the springs, as it will now shove in further. (Good thing of this is that it is also smaller to transport.)

Really excellent: robust, stable, tall enough to accomodate the most difficult recording situations (I use it for my microphones). Great! You can even add wheels if necessary, very easily, because it offers appropiate holes on its legs. The base is large enought to make it very stable, even if in some situations it is difficult to make it fit, because the legs extend a lot. Nevertheless, one can tighten the legs somewhat and the stability is not affected very much. One little complaint concerns the top "light attachment", which cannot rotate because the trasversal pin that helps raising it cannot be removed. But this is a minor issue, the product remains extremely good.