Jaspers KR200-6-150RB

I ordered the KR200-6-150RB to help clean up some clutter in my studio. I have keyboards and other devices on much cheaper stands, or leaning up against the wall, or sitting on furniture, that simply needed a better home.

This stand ticks almost all the boxes. Each tier is height and depth-adjustable, and Jaspers is known to be the top name in tube-based stands. Their a-frames are best in class, and their "keyboard racks" certainly look the business.

Out of the box, the KR200-6-150RB included no instructions, and no hex key which is required to put the stand together. The arms that actually hold the keyboards (Jaspers calls them "holders") are good, but most of my holders had loose hooks on the end. I emailed Jaspers to ask about the hook ends sliding out of the holders. After several weeks I got no response. I figured out on my own that I could tighten the hooks using a different-sized hex key, also not included, so they don't fall out. Hey - everyone has hex keys laying around from their last Ikea purchase, and I managed to locate the required tools to assemble the stand, and to correct the loose holders. No harm, no foul, right?

Well, for my application I also needed to do some customization. I bought extra holders to accommodate extra gear, which do the job just fine, but actually changing where the reinforcements go is an absolute PITA. I had to fully dismantle and reassemble the stand 3 times before I could get it the way I want.

The problem is that the T-shaped fittings that hold the tubes together can't just be removed. They must be slid along the main vertical tubes, and if there is another fitting in the way for another purpose, you need to remove/reposition it to a new location. So if you want to repurpose one of the rear reinforcement bars from the bottom tier to a middle tier, you need to fully dismantle each tier in between and slide them up and down to the correct locations.

A quick check on the Jaspers web site shows that they offer one-piece fittings and two-piece fittings. The two-piece fittings can be fully disassembled and repositioned anywhere you like. But all the fittings on this stand are one-piece, so moving something from tier one to tier five will take you an entire afternoon. The two-piece fittings are just a dollar or two more expensive than the one-piece fittings. It's my opinion that Jaspers should have used their two-piece fittings at least for the reinforcement bars, to allow the user to reposition them as needed.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the hook ends of the holders are not sufficiently long to hold just anything. I attempted to place an Akai AX60 on this stand, at an extreme angle, and the hooks are not long enough to hold the keyboard. This is because the underside of the keyboard has a slope towards the keys. I had to custom make new hooks from aluminum flat bar stock. The results were perfect, but it took me significant time to make, and Jaspers does not seem to offer longer hooks. I did ask them about this in my email as well.

Everything else about the stand is awesome. I have it holding seven keyboards (with two on one tier), plus a drum machine, two sound modules and a small Mackie mixer. It looks fantastic, and I was also able to string some LED light strips on it. I am 100% confident that my heaviest keyboards will not fall.

Overall I am very satisfied with the stand, but I think Jaspers cheaped out somewhat on a premium-priced product, and they didn't answer my email request for product support. I otherwise love the stand and I will probably order another, but at this price I think Jaspers could do a lot better.