PA speaker stands

[Charles Jenkinson]

Anyone bought any recently, with any insights to share, particularly UK people?

[Grant Bunter]

Charles,
My thoughts are:
Buy ones made from steel and not aluminium.
Just in case you ever decide to double up your cabs, get ones that take 60 or 70kg.

However, if you plan to make a platform, buy whatever, but get 4 of the same brand. Brand to brand seem different, subtley so, but they are...

[Charles Jenkinson]

Thanks Grant.

I thought a little about doubling up when at the stage of putting the top hats in, i.e. should i put a top hat in the top side of the cab for stacking another speaker on top. Having put tilting top hats in the bottom, which take up most of the middle section of the bottom port i thought against putting ports in the top side, not wanting to restrict the total port area more. I decided I would use stands and ratchet straps for doubling up.

Now when it comes to weight of a pair of jack12 lites with 3012HO's the plans say the bare box is about 20lb, so i'd reckon on absolutely no more than 20kg for a finished cab. Meaning I would be well safe with a stand of 50kg capacity, for a pair. What say? Aside from weight I'd begin to be bothered about inertia with heavily loaded or tall stacks on speaker stands. The 50kg break point is reasonable on stand choice, with less available above that rating.

I have to confess, as elegant as platforms could potentially look, I can't get my head round them when done with speaker stands. They look like the proverbial sledge hammer. I'd go alu scaffold tube or bespoke welded alu tube to simplify the support arrangement.

[Grant Bunter]

Hey Charles,
I think much the same as you when it comes to another top hat and decreasing chamber size.
I guess the caveat there is that it's in the plans and therefore the associated reduction in chamber size has been considered, and isn't a problem per se.

Locally, the price differential between 45-50kg rated stands, and 60-70kg is around $15, naff all really.
That extra capacity IMO purely increases safety factor (against potential failure of the stand rather than the weight put on it).
Having appeared before the coroner in the past (due to my "real world" job) has indelibly etched accountability for your actions in my brain!

Fair enough on your thoughts about the platform...

[Charles Jenkinson]

It's funny you should say that about Australian speaker stand pricing, because the first search I did for 60kg stands came up with an Australian brand at what seemed reasonable money. They were flat rate P and P, but i didnt go for it.

One of my main objectives has been to eliminate uk based Terralec as a potential speaker stand supplier - I've just bought a synq dig1k0 2x300w @ 8 ohms amp from them today, but last week noticed they did speaker stands. Of the two types they do, the item sold as a pair of stands are only 35kg rating, and the heafty ones have a nice air cushion feature but only extend to 1.80m.

From the brief reading I've done on speaker elevation, the business part is supposed to be 1 to 2 ft above head height, where 1.8m is only about 5ft 11", so it would seem that that stand is a bit marginal on height extension, so I've eliminated it from consideration. There ain't no 1 more, so to speak, when only mounting one speaker on the stand.

Am tempted to look closer at the K&M stands from Thomann. Thomann have a good selection. I like the wind up/down variety.

[Grant Bunter]

K&M have made great quality speaker, lighting and mic stands seemingly forever.

The wind up variety, or winchups as we call em, are a prickly topic here.
Technically you should have a riggers ticket to use them here.
I haven't heard of a test case, but check out your local laws to see what they say...

If the Aussie ones are the AMS branded ones, I got a pair for $90AU and they are very sturdy and have a nice wide base...

[Charles Jenkinson]

I can't find anything out (in the short term) about hand wind speaker stand legal requirements in the UK. I haven't dug too much on that topic yet, but could if it was looking like it was the way to go. I've mainly been doing more general unearthing of the variety of speaker stands available and the associated issues, particularly if ultimately there may be a second set of speakers being mounted aloft. I thought this might be a mine field, in the nicest sense possible, and it is. With reference to the hand wind, it seems there are 2 systems for lifting and securing the load; winch cable types and ratchet/pin types. Most of the speaker stands that are not really high-lift and high load 'show' type equipment appear to be the pin/ratchet types, (i.e. not winch and cable,) so I would hazard to guess they are not requiring a riggers licence.

My search has briefly led away from Thomann to a couple of brands available on English websites, through an air-cushioned set, to finally a brand I found through checking DJ forums.

The first 2 are hand winders:
- Studiomaster SPS2 (£140 delivered from Markertek.co.uk)
- NJS063F (not quite as high up for loading the cabs and the final highest height it will go):
http://www.audiomate.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=NJS063F
- Proel SPSK300BK (spec here: http://www.proel.com/proel/products/new ... ap5_KLyKSo)
(best price: http://www.djsuperstore.co.uk/Proel-Spe ... -SPSK300BK) I find the terminology of air cushioned or air damped a bit woolly. Well, is it gas assisted or not!? I couldn't find any videos, unlike for the TS100B below.

And then finally, the one all the DJ's rave about:
- Ultimate support TS90B, but I think it's brother is better, the TS100B
http://www.ultimatesupport.com/product/TS-100B (at a very keen price of £150 at a shop near me - need to make a decision Charles!). Looks like a gas strut. Aluminium, but very sturdy, with a 150lb rating, and 2007mm lift capacity (which puts the centre of the J12 at just over 7 ft off the floor). What a beauty - Just one of the many videos on youtube (NB: the intro music is loud): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSgShLjUyL8

[Grant Bunter]

Charles,
Just a thought.
If the bottom of one of your cabs is at 6', and the cab is 15" high, then the top of the cab is at 7"3". I don't think you need it a whole lot higher than that.
That's still well above the 6'5" young fellas (and the odd older one) running around these days lol

[Charles Jenkinson]

I got 7' 3" also at first but then remembered the top hat tube is 65mm deep on the tilting top hats, and knocked that off...?

I'm also agreeing with you though, I think that is high enough. If one is needing to project further for a bigger crowd, then a cab on top will be another 17" higher roughly.

If a J12L is 17.5" high (444mm approx), then I get the centre of the cab max height to be:

2007+222-65 = 2164mm (about 85", or just over 7 ft).

[Grant Bunter]

Arrrr yes of course.
It would still be a bit over half an inch above 7 feet
The majority of times that would be fine.

If the wind up variety's are exorbitantly expensive (sorry, didn't look at the links), a one hole raising of the inner tube of an "ordinary" stand is often something like a 2" increase in height.
I have found it easier to lift the stand first then put the cab on than lift the tube and the cab together...

[Charles Jenkinson]

I gave the Proel's a last look at due to their attractive price, but they didn't have the gas spring assist in them. So, I went by H W Audio on the way home from work and bagged a pair of Ultimate Support TS100B's for a 149 quid. I didn't tell them I hadnt seen them for less than 190-ish anywhere else. Still, £150 for a pair of speaker stands is going some. After getting them home and trying them out, they are definitely Buy Once, cry once, but smile everytime thereafter. Check the pics.

Here it is with the partially completed J12L, on the ceiling (2.4metres) - good for half space loading.

[Charles Jenkinson]

Here's the tilting top hat head pulp set up.

[Charles Jenkinson]

And lastly, the shortest and almost the tallest positions. The cab bottom was about 6 to 8 inch below my shoulder height at the shortest setting.

My smile was as wide as Noah's (with the guitar), playing with these bad boys.

...is bad boys still an in phrase, or am I off piste?

Noah was trying to put things (kiddies toy stacking cubes that fit inside one another!) on the little red chair in the picture, and stand on them to be as high as the speaker. He slid off at the first attempt so i told him the band stays on the ground. When we took the jacks off the stands he tested them, by shouting into the front and back of the cab, "testing, eight, two, four, one, testing, eight"

[Grant Bunter]

Way to go Charles!
They look like they'll be good...

[Tom Smit]

Thanks for sharing, Charles.