OnStage Ergo-Lok Double-X Keyboard Stand KS8291XX

This is a good keyboard stand. It holds a big heavy keyboard. No problem with what it does. However you have to assemble it, and putting it together took quite a while as things were not clear in the directions and things took several undoing last steps to get it right. Then in the end, it is noticeably not as solid as the pricier OnStage stand that is one piece all welded together and arrives fully assembled. That one is worth the extra money, it is just a bit less wobbly, more rigid as one big piece, compared to this one that has several parts bolted together. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good stand for big keyboards. And worth the money. But it is not the best stand out there, and if you are putting a $4000 keyboard on top of it and rocking out, you want the best. This is not it, sadly. Close, but, not quite.

This product is very sturdy, and the ERGO-LOK system which is a simple trigger system to adjust the heights works very well. (The stand opens and folds like an ironing board) It is solid and well built, easy to assemble but I find it has two draw backs;

1) At its lowest setting, it stands at 27 inches high without the keyboard. When placing my keyboard on top of this, (I have Yamaha P95 which has about 4 inches depth), the keyboard comes up to 31 inches high. Sitting in a regular chair with the feet firmly planted on the ground, it’s not possible for me to play the piano comfortably. This stand would probably be perfect for playing keyboard standing, or maybe if you are a tall person.

2) This might be the same with most x type keyboard stands, but you place the keyboard on top of two vertical bars and that’s it. There is nothing to prevent it from sliding around (especially forward and backward). With Yamaha P95 model, the plastic casing on the bottom of the keyboard is about 6 inches wide, while the adjustable plastic grip of the keyboard stand is about 8.5 inches wide (even when adjusted to the shortest possible distance). With 2.5 inches difference, the keyboard does not sit on the plastic grip (as it was probably intended) and ends up resting directly on the metal bar. With slightest push it slides.

I have made a few minor adjustments to work around the above problems. For the height adjustments, I put the stand sideways and switched the leg around so that the stand is getting used horizontally, rather than vertically as it was originally intended. I had to switch one of the legs, ignoring the color coding, but the metal legs and the horizontal bars on the top are all interchangeable, so this worked out without any problem. The stand now sits at 21 inches high (without the keyboard) in the middle setting. There is a room to make it go higher or lower.

To stop the keyboard from sliding around, I cut out a small piece of cabinet liners and placed it on the bottom of the keyboard (the spongy kind similar to the one sold by Amazon; http://www.amazon.com/Grip-Shelf-Drawer-Liner-Black/dp/B000KFSOFI) This has stopped the keyboard from sliding around.

If I were to do it all over again, I would probably take more time to research and shop for a stand that would lock in the keyboard and still fold up easily, but I decided to keep the stand as I could not be bothered to unscrew all the parts, pack it and ship it back. With the minor adjustments I made above, the stand works.

I ordered a used / open box one of these X stands. I found it reasonably easy to assemble and quite sturdy, and the adjustment lever works fine – it can be operated just fine with the stand assembled and my keyboard on it. One note – before pulling the adjustment lever, ensure the tension/weight is off of the clutch disk by holding onto (and very slightly pulling in on) both of the top support arms; that makes the adjustment lever much easier to operate.

There were a couple of glitches in assembly: first, the clutch disk rod was misaligned, and it took a little fiddling to get it back in place and working; second, one of the bottom support arms had a little dent in the fitting for the X, so that had to be addressed before the X would go in.

The stand was manufactured unevenly. On a perfectly flat floor it is only sitting on three of the feet and the same for for what ever you have on top.