| Our new booms......
Hollywood Steve, you are not the only Gearslut with the Avenger stand and boom. As threatened in an earlier post, I bought the stand to check out the competition. Unfortunately, it just arrived, so I too have the oversized "Junior" boom arm, and not the smaller and more practical sized "mini" version that you reccommended recently.
My initial observations:
This sucker is tooo big for most studio use. (Larger than Starbird)
It is built much better than Atlas products.
The "spikes" sticking straight out from the casters look like an ankle injury waiting to happen.
Other than that, the casters are very nice. I may cut the "spikes" off.
The boom clutch is terrible! It's a round deal not unlike what Keith Monks used to use and fairly similar to what K&M (AKG) currently uses. Given the longer lengths and higher weights involved, a truly major design flaw. The boom clutch can barely hold the boom horizontal without a microphone.
The fittings have a real industrial look, massively strong and kind of clunky.
There is "play" in the boom probably caused by the vertical tube that it is attached to flopping around in the larger tube that it telescopes into.
Overall strength A-
Appearance C-
Vertical Reach A+
Boom Clutch D-
Build Quality B
Stability B+
Overall Value C+
My grade of B+ for stability is very high for a tripod and is a tribute to the overall heavy weight of the stand.
I would rate Atlas as F for failure as the only thing they have over Hollywood Steve's stand is that they look better. I regard the big stands from Quik Lok and Ultimate Support as toys, lightweight portable, sloppy, and inferior.
Hollywood Steve is to be congratulated for thinking outside "the box" and finding a better way to support his Blue Bottle mic.
I still hope to come up with a mic stand solution that beats the Avenger lighting stands in 5 of the 6 categories listed above. I am willing to concede on vertical reach.
Wurly
Jr. Gearslut First Class
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