Having finally received the backordered boom arm, I'm having second thoughts on whether anyone really needs a boom this "heavy duty" for audio use. My original concern was based on the need to throw a BLUE Bottle mic up in the air without worrrying about it returning to earth unexpectedly.
But this boom arm, the "Avenger Mini Boom" would have been plenty:
http://www.manfrotto.com/products/me...ontatore=primo
The boom that I purchased, the "Avenger Junior Boom" is definitely overkill:
http://www.manfrotto.com/products/me...ontatore=primo
You can't really tell from the photos, but the Junior boom has tubing two inches in diameter and the whole thing is on a scale that just looks ridiculous when supporting a microphone, even the big Bottle mic. I still think that these grip stands and hardware are far superior to any microphone stands and I'll never go back to Atlas products again. But grip hardware is categoried into several families; two of the most common are "Baby" and "Junior". Baby stands and hardware are MORE than adequate for any possible audio use; the Junior stands and hardware are just needlessly massive for audio use. The stuff is damn impressive however, and I'm sure that I will still be using this stand 30 years from now. But my next stand will be from the "Baby" category.
For anyone in the LA area, the Mole Richardson Studio Depot store on LaBrea has dozens of these various stands set up and several aisles of hardware attachments. There is nothing you could imagine in the way of stand configurations that couldn't be assembled from this selection of parts and accessories. A real gear-junkie playground.
stee